This is 24 Sussex Drive, the house occupied yet again by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The dark lord of minority Canadian conservatism has somehow won the national election again, and this time, to the dismay of 60% of Canadians, he has won a majority. (This is what can happen in a multi-party nation with a “first past the post” electoral system actually designed in the 13th C for a two-party system.)
Stephen Harper’s Children of the Corn creepiness extends to his decor. He has redecorated 24 Sussex Drive by removing the portrait gallery of his predecessors and replacing it with an array of forty or so portraits entirely of himself. Do not try this at home!
If aesthetics are the thin end of the wedge of politics, then we’re being dragged into a new phase of Narcissistic Conservatism. Green Party Member of Parliament Elizabeth May had this to say after visiting 24 Sussex Drive: ”When you walk in the door, all you see are pictures of Stephen Harper. I’d say between every window, in every available space of the wall, at eye level, every available space has a photo of Stephen Harper.”
If anyone has a photograph of the infamous Harper Gallery, please send it over. In the absence of photo evidence, take a look at his 2007 Christmas card, below, which should suffice as proof. In it, he is pictured smiling at numerous photos of himself arrayed across one of the houses’s waterfront windows.
Below, one of the portraits in Harper’s gallery. At bottom, Harper’s characteristic salute.
