One of the features which gives our age a distinct End Of Days feeling is that, for the first time, the old don’t envy the young, but rather pity them. The same goes for the U.K. and the U.S.; for the past few years we’ve been full of puzzlement over how the most dynamic and hopeful country the world has ever seen (with the exception of Israel) could end up with two deranged senior citizens taking bites out of each other as the highest expression of democracy.

The rise of Vice President Harris adds to, rather than dispels, this feeling — listening to one of her notorious “word-salad” speeches, one wonders when Washington became Wonderland, full of strange beasts spouting shamelessly silly nonsense. Not that the Veep is without wit — I’m told her softball team is named the “Oxford Kamalas.”

On paper, a feminist like me should be fan-girling over Ms. Harris. She is not just the first female vice president but the highest-ranking female official in American history, as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. She looks so good in her slinky suits and trademark pearls that she sometimes appears to be an actress playing the part of a politician.

While supporting Ms. Harris’ stance on abortion rights, I can only hope that they will not be needed by those unfortunate women now incarcerated alongside “trans-women,” the indignity and inappropriateness of which was highlighted by the recent disclosure that condoms are being handed out in California women’s prison since foxes have been allowed legal occupancy of hen-houses in the Golden State.

Like a lot of humorless seeming people, Ms. Harris laughs a lot, but this doesn’t cover up the fact that she seems aggrieved by much; she allegedly didn’t care for her Vogue cover, for which she wore trainers and jeans, asking aides, “Would Vogue depict another world leader this way?” 

Maybe Ms. Harris’s main grievance is that she doesn’t have any real grievances; the daughter of academics, her law career was remarkable in its smooth trajectory. Her social class and good looks supremely disqualified her from the get go for even honorary membership of the Wretched of the Earth from the get-go.

President Biden, in his endorsement, called her “tough” and “capable” but compared to Mr. Biden, a tin of Silly Putty appears to be the very model of can-do back-bone; it was regrettable that the vitality of his wife and his deputy often made him look like a confused resident of a home for the elderly being handed from one brisk nurse to another.

Yet the juggling act which Harris routinely performs on everything from immigration to policing would be forced to come to a halt were she to become the one with whom the buck stops; this lack of consistency sometimes makes her seem as befuddled as Mr. Biden, though in a more meme-able manner.

Whither the “Special Relationship” — the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom first named by Winston Churchill in 1946 — with the election of a President Harris? Her visit here in November of last year wasn’t exactly a hands-across-the-water affair but more a rude gesture  from both sides after she made attendees at a conference on the future of AI wait an hour and a half for her speech.

When the 15-minute address finally arrived, reviews ranged from “banal” to characterizing it as a rebuke of the prime minister at the time, Rishi Sunak. It’s always flattering, though, to be taken up by young people and pop stars.

So Ms. Harris will probably dismiss any disapproval of her as fuddy-duddy envy. Yet we really don’t think that she’s outrageously modern or ground-breaking; we’ve already had three female leaders, and of the predicted candidates for the forthcoming Tory leadership, three are women of color.

We just feel a bit sorry for her; it’s like someone, as a mean joke, told a Pushmi-Pullyu they could be a politician and then left them to get on with it. The new restraint of President Trump was commented on when he faced the ailing Mr. Biden. The same tactics might easily work on Ms. Harris, with her outstanding ability to dance and shoot herself in the foot at the same time. Whoever wins, I can’t see the United Kingdom envying the United States again any time soon.