Breaking The Pattern
British politics for the past decade:
— Douglas Carswell🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@DouglasCarswell) June 20, 2026
1. New Prime Minister arrives.
2. Same policies on immigration, economy, eco bs, crime as before.
3. Same civil service dysfunction & public discontents.
4. Forced out.
5. New Prime Minister arrives.
6. Repeat
Systematic change, not…
Wherever you sit on the horseshoe, I'm pretty sure the sentiment above - from a former-now-fled Westminster Member of Parliament no less - is universally shared.
The UK PM pattern certainly does need breaking. As the sign-off states, 'systematic change, not soap opera, is needed'.
Sadly chances are that the misguided next-in-line won't break this sorry pattern.
I just searched for alternate phrases. One site offered fifty. Some merely replaced the verb. Break as end as disrupt. Others' nouns went pattern to cycle to flow.
A few do catch the eye. Such as imagery from circuit and loop, harmony and grain.
Of importance to us is if our prospects are repeating a pattern? A doom cycle set to rinse them once more? A destructive norm in play, followed to inevitable dismay.
I recall being in an internal Sales conference for a client of mine over two decades back. The ebullient chief exec, let's call him John, sought to energise the hundred or so in the room with a change they'd welcome.
'We're going to break the pattern', he said. 'It doesn't work. And never does', he added. 'Growth shall not come from cutting costs and raising prices. We going to do things differently now.'
Luckily for them (and me), that meant bye-bye product selling, hello the solution sell.
Their two-step attack recognised as failure. Action taken to break free from it.
I now imagine a simple slide. It could be a straightforward listing. Riffing on your/their corporate styling. Or more fancy a la the ol' word cloud vibe. As a bit of a test, I even asked AI to pick its favourites and make me a slide. One chose this dozen;
break the mold, break the chain, break the circle, breaking the vicious circle, disrupt the rhythm, interrupt the flow, disturb the beat, throw off the groove, upset the harmony, unsettle the tempo, derange the meter, deviate from the norm.
I would not have selected the same. But the point remains strong.
If you sense (or been alerted to by them) a tired, wasteful, destructive pattern is in danger of being repeated, pop it up.
Who also recognises the peril?
What will carrying on regardless cost?
And who's picking one of those phrases and making it happen, with you, now?