Not all politicians are monster raving loonies, but you could be forgiven for thinking there are more of them than just the ones who add colour and comedy to election night.
The lunacy began early this year as the political classes became obsessed with a South African Canadian who doesn’t even live here but happens to be worth a bob or two.
Elon Musk has become the weirdest of weird political influencers, doing more to upset Britain’s apple cart than even the gaffe-prone Kemi Badenoch can manage.
I’m not sure if he is being provocative merely to have a laugh, or whether what he’s up to is a cynical attempt to drive traffic to X by winding up his 210 million followers.
No one surely can take seriously his tweet that “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government”.
We are neither a client state of America nor America’s 51st state. This is just bunkum and balderdash, as Maggie Thatcher’s press secretary used to say.
But if Musk is in any way speaking on behalf of the White House administration he will join in a few days we have cause to be worried.
For consolation, let’s remember that history is littered with political oddballs, and they usually come to a sticky end.
I feel for any master of ceremonies who had the unenviable task of announcing the arrival of Idi Amin at an official function.
The Ugandan dictator’s full title was quite a mouthful: “His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE. DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular and uncrowned King of Scotland.”
Amin was not just a raving loony but also a monster – a terrifying combination when power is added to the mix. He died in exile of kidney failure after eating too many oranges.
Many Roman emperors were certifiably insane, but that did not make them any less fearsome.
Caligula would stop mid-dinner to take any senator’s wife he fancied to bed and return for pudding to give a public verdict on her performance in front of her husband. He was stabbed to death by his guards.
Emperor Commodus preferred gladiatorial combat to governing, enjoying slicing off the ears and noses of compliant opponents.
At least he did before coming face to face with Russell Crowe some centuries later. He was drowned in his bath by his wrestling coach.
Keir Starmer would be well advised not to take up wrestling until his approval ratings improve.
An electorate who voted him in as PM because they were fed up with the Tories is now disappointed. And that is why Reform UK is filling the vacuum left by the two major parties.
The fledgling party is understandably cock-a-hoop with the latest poll which puts it equal with Labour and five points ahead of the Tories. But the first-past-the-post electoral system is unkind to small parties, and Labour would still emerge with the most MPs.
Reform’s policies have been fleshed out since the ones written on the back of one of Nigel Farage’s fag packets for the General Election and now look more credible.
But there is still a long way to go. The one in one out to equalise the number of immigrants with emigrants appears, sensibly, to have been dropped. No government could ever have made that one work.
But picking up cross-channel asylum seekers and taking them back to France is still in. Try that without agreement and the French might start dropping them off back here again.
It could turn into some bizarre game of international ping-pong with human cargo as the ball.
Some stuff Reform is advocating has either been done or is being done. Labour has banned the Treasury from nicking any more money from mineworker pensions so that should come out.
Planning laws are being reformed, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting is working on hospital ops at evenings and weekends and to use spare capacity in the private sector which are also current Reform policies.
There is one odd policy still in Reform’s contract with the people. A voucher to go private if you can’t get an appointment with a GP in three days. Someone should have done the maths on this before putting it forward.
There are 350 million NHS family doctor appointments a year but only 3,000 private GPs. If just five in a 100 patients asked for a voucher it would take the best part of a year for private GPs to see them all.
And that’s if they gave them the NHS standard 10 minutes each and didn’t take any lunch breaks.
A tax free allowance of £20,000 looks attractive but is it affordable? Only a full impact assessment would find out.
Thrashing out detailed measures to run a country takes an army of policy wonks and time, and Reform will need both to be able to prove to voters it is fit to govern. That is more like a ten year project than five.
I imagine we will soon get bored with Elon Musk’s rantings as familiarity blunts their shock value.
Nigel Farage must keep up the punishing pace he has set himself – for a decade if need be – if we are not to get bored with Reform.