Life imitates art was famously claimed in Oscar Wilde’s 1989 essay Decay of the lie. In 2024, the same can be said of politics and pop culture, such are the increasingly blurred lines between real life and today’s on-screen political drama.

From Brexit hints in ‘Allo’ Allo to David Cameron’s pig gate heralded Black mirrorhere are the weirdest times TV shows predicted real-life politics, ranked by how prescient the fictional stories turned out to be…

10. ‘Hello ‘Hello – Brexit referendum

Year 2023, a University of Birmingham historians argued that British TV programmes, particularly this BBC commission, provide a partial insight into the identity and political culture that led the country to vote to leave European Union 2016. He claimed the 1980s show – which follows the trials and tribulations of René Artois as he runs a cafe in nazi-occupied France – “finally spoke to the core differences between UK and her European neighbours’.

“What lurks in the shadows is a nation deeply at ease with its European neighbors and itself,” he said The Guardian.

9. The politician – California leaves the United States

When Gwyneth Paltrow is The politician Character Georgina Hobart runs for governor of California in season two of the Netflix comedy-drama, vowing to lead the state’s secession from the United States and winning with 98 percent of the vote.

Even if one-third of Californians supported the state’s withdrawal from the rest of the country in 2017, the independence movement, nicknamed “Califrexit,” has gained further traction in recent years with 58 percent of Californians believing they would be “better off” if the state seceded, according to Independent California polling by YouGov.

8. The thick of it – Ed Miliband’s omnishambles

The BBC comedy The thick of itstarring Peter Capaldi, James Smith, Rebecca Front and Joanna Scanlan as employees of the fictional government’s Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, has so often predicted real-life events that it has prompted the show’s creator Armando Iannucci to question whether politicians are seeking inspiration from the series.

“It feels more like the politicians are copying us,” Iannucci said The Guardian 2012 after Ed Miliband popularized the show’s catchphrase “omnishambles”, meaning a mismanaged situation, in a speech criticizing the government’s budget during Prime Minister’s Questions.

“Jesus Christ, see you, you’re af***ing alumnishambles, that’s what you are. You’re like that coffee machine, you know: from bean to cup, you’re fucking,” Capaldi’s character Malcolm Tucker originally said on the show. The word was then added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2013.

7. 24 – Obama’s presidency

When Barack Obama won the US presidential election in 2008, analysts partly attributed his success to the “Palmer effect”. The phenomenon was coined after the action drama series 24starring Kiefer Sutherland, chose to cast Dennis Haysbert as the show’s fictional president David Palmer.

The The BBC reported at the time that Palmer had “helped create a climate of public acceptance of the notion of a black president”. Meanwhile, Haysbert — who said he had even been mistaken for Obama at a restaurant — added that he believes he had a hand in proving “the possibility that there could be an African-American president.”

6. Parks and Recreation – Hillary Clinton’s flu season campaign

During her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton contracted pneumonia but reportedly kept her diagnosis a secret from the majority of her team due to fears that her illness would be exploited by her opponents.

In the political satire mockumentary Parks and Recreation, City Councilwoman Leslie Nope — to whom Clinton has often been compared — continues to work on a budget proposal for the parks department despite being hospitalized with the flu.

The episode, which features “quarantine” of sick people and a “state shutdown” of the town of Pawnee, was also called “a little too close to home” by series star Amy Poehler when the coronavirus pandemic hit year 2020.

5. Arrested development – Trump’s wall

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised his supporters that he would build a “big, beautiful wall” along the US-Mexico border to stem the supposed flow of illegal immigrants entering the country – despite the number of undocumented immigrants entering The US is wide lowest level in a decade.

Three years earlier, plans to build a wall between Mexico and the United States had already been made by an evil real estate magnate in season four of the satirical sitcom Arrested Development. “The wall was my idea, that was it,” Jessica Walter, who plays Arrested Development matriarch Lucille Bluth, told reporters.

4. The Simpsons – Donald Trump’s presidential election in 2024

When Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign in November 2022despite losing the election to Joe Biden in 2020, The Simpsons Producer Al Jean was quick to point out that the cartoon sitcom had guessed the turn of events.

On ChirpJean shared a still from a 2015 short film released on YouTube, titled “Trumptastic Journey.” The mini-episode saw Homer sent on “an extraordinary journey” after “a close encounter” with the former president’s hairpiece. At one stage, Homer is seen flying over a presidential campaign sign with the words: “Trump 2024.”

3. Veep – Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential run

The Thick of it creator Armando Iannucci has also appeared to make American political predictions when writing his satirical series Veepstarring Seinfeldpp Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, Vice President of the United States.

Following the news of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in July and his subsequent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, a clip from Veep went viral on social media where Selina is seen telling her shocked team that she is running for president.

“I’m not going. POTUS is going. He’s not going to run for a second term,” she says in the video. “I’m going to run. I’m running for president!”

2. Servant of the people – Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidency

Before Volodymyr Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine in 2019, he created, produced and starred in a political satire series called Servant of the peoplewhich follows a history teacher named Petrovych Goloborodko after he is unexpectedly elected president of Ukraine.

After it was announced that Zelensky had won the actual presidential election with 73 percent of the vote, four years after the show’s premiere, he walked out on stage at his campaign headquarters with the show’s theme song playing.

1. Black mirror — David Cameron’s pig-gate reputation

Back in 2011, the first episode ever Black mirror was released. “The National Anthem” ended with Britain’s fictional Prime Minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) having sex with a pig on live television so the kidnappers would release a princess.

Four years later, a book by former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft claimed David Cameron stuff a “private part of his anatomy” into the mouth of a dead pig as part of a community initiation during his time at Oxford University. The politician is said to have dismissed the accusations as “complete nonsense”.

Reflecting on the eerie future of the series’ pilot episode, Black mirror creator Charlie Brooker later told me The Guardian: “I probably wouldn’t have bothered writing an episode of a fictional comedy-drama if I’d known that. I would have been running around screaming into traffic. It’s a complete coincidence, albeit a rather bizarre one. “