The A.U.N.T. Scale:
By David Palethorpe
Finally, a Scientific Method for Explaining What on Earth Is Going On
For years, political debate has suffered from a lack of precision.
We have polls, pundits, and podcasts, yet remain oddly unable to describe a very familiar phenomenon: the steady rise of people who make everything worse, loudly, and often with great confidence.
To address this gap, I propose the A.U.N.T. Scale — a robust, peer-unreviewed framework for assessing political figures, leaders, and influential operators according to their capacity to irritate, destabilise, or actively corrode the systems they inhabit.
N.B. The scale applies to Local as well as National political and influential people
(A.U.N.T., to be clear, rhymes with auntie. No relation. Please don’t write in.)
Levels 1–2: The Harmless Irritant
At Level 1, we find the Low-Level Aunt. This figure is mildly annoying, frequently opinionated, and entirely ineffectual. They populate studio panels, social media feeds, and party WhatsApp groups. Their main contribution to public life is noise.
At Level 2, the Aunt has ambition but no traction. They release statements. They float ideas. They object to everything. Nothing happens. Democracy survives unscathed.
These Aunts are tolerable. In small doses.
Levels 3–4: The Performative Menace
By Level 3, the Aunt has discovered branding. Catchphrases emerge. Confidence increases. Substance in direct contrast does not.
At Level 4, they may acquire office, often to everyone’s mild surprise. They confuse visibility with achievement and mistake repetition for argument. Damage is limited, but the warning lights are well and truly on.
Levels 5–6: The Actively Unhelpful
This is where the A.U.N.T. Scale earns its keep.
At Level 5, statements and decisions now have consequences. Evidence becomes optional. Experts are “out of touch.” Ideology is described as courage. When outcomes disappoint, blame is redirected with impressive agility.
At Level 6, the Aunt is surrounded by those who either agree with everything or say nothing. Policy is introduced with enthusiasm and withdrawn with excuses. Markets twitch. Institutions sigh.
Brief tenures that nonetheless manage to cause lasting disruption are often found here. Duration, it turns out, is not a prerequisite for impact.
Levels 7–8: The Systemic Aunt
At Level 7, the Aunt is no longer an individual problem. They are a symptom.
They are effective. They understand power. They are defended by loyalists who insist that “at least they get things done,” without specifying what those things are or why they needed doing.
By Level 8, norms erode. Accountability becomes theoretical. Behaviour once described as disqualifying is reframed as “controversial but necessary.” Scandal fatigue sets in. The bar is not lowered — it is quietly removed.
Level 9: The Institutional Stress Test
At Level 9, the Aunt does not merely bend the system; they reveal its weaknesses.
Rules are tested. Conventions are ignored. Critics are dismissed as enemies. Supporters admire “strength.” Everyone else starts checking the exits.
At this stage, removing the individual would not be enough. The system has already learned the wrong lessons.
Level 10: Beyond Measurement
And then there are those for whom Level 10 is insufficient.
These figures exceed the normal parameters of the A.U.N.T. Scale. Their impact is transnational. Their rhetoric reshapes discourse. Their level of A.U.N.T.Y behaviour forces democracies to ask uncomfortable questions about their own resilience.
For these cases, we must turn to the Richter Scale, traditionally reserved for seismic activity.
On the Richter Scale, measurement becomes approximate. The concern is no longer irritation or incompetence, but magnitude.
Shockwaves are felt far beyond national borders. Institutions creak audibly. The ground does not always return to its original shape.
A Handy Reference Chart
The A.U.N.T. Scale (Quick Guide)
- 1–2: Mild nuisance. Ignore safely.
- 3–4: Loud, performative, manageable.
- 5–6: Genuinely harmful in office. Check the manuals.
- 7–8: Normalising damage. Accountability weakening.
- 9: System under strain. Norms in retreat.
- 10: Democratic red alert.
- Richter Scale: Structural tremor. Hold onto something solid.
Why This Matters (Yes, Even Though It’s a Joke)
The A.U.N.T. Scale is satire. But satire exists because straightforward language has lost its power.
When everything is “just politics,” nothing is urgent.
When outrage is constant, accountability becomes optional.
When we pretend that every new crisis is unprecedented, we avoid admitting that many of them are patterned, predictable, and enabled.
Not every Aunt is equally dangerous. Some are merely irritating.
Others leave lasting damage.
And a few shake the foundations so thoroughly that the cracks only become visible years later.
If we can’t tell the difference, we shouldn’t be surprised by the results.
The scale, I’m afraid, will only continue to be updated.
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