“Things Can Only Get Better,” could be heard in the background from the loudspeakers of left-wing demonstrators as conservative British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the early election date in the pouring rain. Sunak’s jacket was already wet, very wet. A Sky commentator later said that during his speech this impression was more valid here: “Things can only get weather.“
The fact that between “dry” and “wet” there can only be “damp” is something that is often and quite rightly pointed out in this country. Even in English, the comparative form “wet, wetter, wettest” is not without controversy. However, for observers of the speech that Sunak gave in front of his official residence in the worst rain, the comparative made sense. Sunak did not look quite as wet as the British film comedian Peter Sellers when he fell into a swimming pool, but he did look significantly weather as, for example, Sir Alec Guinness in the dusty role of Prince Faisal in “Lawrence of Arabia”.
And the British Prime Minister’s jacket got wetter and wetter. At least Sunak didn’t leave anyone else standing next to him in the rain in front of No. 10 Downing Street – as Armin Laschet was maliciously accused of doing in 2021. This kind of thing actually happens, especially with autocrats, for example in 2018 after the World Cup final in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, where Putin was the only one to be given the presumptuous umbrella, but not his dear friend Infantino. And it’s interesting: Sunak’s hairstyle remained shapely even without rain protection, apparently because of its special waterproofing. But his appearance still had something rather wet about it.
And how does the suit wearer maintain his dignity if… the thingslike just again, weather and weather How can he be a man? It’s simple: he has to do it like Gene Kelly in the film “Singin’ in the Rain”. He has to fight with nature, jump into puddles and defy the wet element forever. Because ultimately, only he who can take off his jacket is a man.