The Conservatives’ world has disappeared. Don’t tell Rishi Sunak
Goodbye, 2019!
![An illustration of Rishi Sunak leaning out of Downing Street with a Tory flag. A giant red rose appears in the background.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240511_BRD000.jpg)
In “Good bye, Lenin!”, a cult German film, a devoutly communist mother suffers a heart attack in the autumn of 1989 and ends up in a coma. By the time she wakes up the Berlin Wall has fallen, Germany is on the path to reunification and communism has crumbled. A poignant farce ensues, in which her son Alexander shields his ailing mother from capitalist reality, recording fake-news bulletins showing Berliners rushing east, not west. In her bedroom the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (ddr) carries on; outside it, free Germans buy Billy bookcases from Ikea, drive Volkswagens and drink Coca-Cola.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Goodbye, 2019!”
Britain May 11th 2024
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