They did try something like in 1976 - something called Buckley V. Valeo that did put a limit on campaign contributions for a couple of election cycles. My guess is that it was one of the things our conservatrive wing had in mind with demolishing from the start when they became the far-right undermining of our political system and I suspect Reagan may have laid some of the groundwork. Of course back then are leftwing was being particularly helpful by not voting and telling everybody that there was no real difference between the two parties. A position which - for the record - many people in my country still refuse to acknowledge 10 YEARS INTO THE ERA OF TRUMP.

That's the thing about the left that I think we all find infuriating over here. They will be very frank at how the GOP has spent the last half century undermining democracy and have argued the last eight years that they are setting fire to it everywhere. But that has not encouraged them to vote for Democrats who have been advertising to put the fire out. Witness the number of people who voted for Jill Stein this time around.

I sometimes wonder, as an American, whether so much of the left's attitude towards the MAGA movement is not so much disgust as envy. I honestly think their problem with that slogan - which was used by Clinton and Reagan before Trump took it on - is because they don't think America was great to begin with. As Penguin no doubt knows in the minds of a small but very loud minority in my country, America is now and has always been a police state with no freedoms at all and they will shout at the top of their lungs at anyone who argues otherwise. A lot of them, I should add, talked about moving to England after the 2024 election. You want them? You're welcome to them. I would give them three months before they started complaining about why Starmer dares to subject himself to the opposition every week when he should attack them from TV ads, ask why he hasn't thrown Boris Johnson and Farage in prison yet, and start demanding that all Harry Potter books be banned from public libraries and ban eighty percent of the programming on the BBC. Then they'd demand you basically recompensate every single nation that was once a colony and that you let go all the ones that have left and probably storm Buckingham Palace. For a final act they'd dump tea in the Thames.

The left in my country always seems to be

a nation of me and not for thee. I don't know enough about your politics beyond what I've seen on movies and television (Monty Python actually showed me how your elections work) but the fact that they have such a relatively small footprint in UK almost makes me want to move there - then I remember just how big a mess the Torys have left your place and I realize

you have enough problems without me.

But as your greatest prime minister' you may be a small country but you're a great one too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles...David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot come to that. ' And yes I know Love Actually is a movie. I've seen the Garry Marshall's versions. When it comes to culture, you guys still do almost everything better than us. ;)