Your Ridiculous Election: PJ O'Rourke on the UK Campaign Trail, review: If you want to make sense of our crazy election, ask an American

O'Rourke talked to pundits, politicians and voters in a documentary that was part "Elections for Dummies", part Alan Whicker-style travelogue

O'Rourke understood the subtleties of our political system more than he let on (Getty Images)

When trying to get your head around election matters, sometimes it's best to consult an outsider. This week on TV, Panorama had the American statistician Nate Silver puttering around the British Isles in a shiny caravan, replete with Union Jack scatter cushions, in order to make sense our political playing field. Meanwhile, radio deployed the US right-wing writer PJ O'Rourke to zigzag around the country on public transport asking questions and boggling at the bonkersness of it all.

O'Rourke knows that this is Britain's most important election of recent times – and that it's also the most confusing. In the past, British politics has been so simple that, he said, "even an American could understand... [Voters] stick it to the toffs or stick it to the proles". The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, were "for people who can't make up their minds and are proud of it".

But now, he noted, that system appeared to be breaking down, with Ukip potentially taking votes from the Tories, the Greens taking them from Labour and the SNP throwing a spanner in the works for Labour and the Lib Dems.

O'Rourke valiantly put in the miles talking to pundits, politicians and voters in a documentary that was part "Elections for Dummies", part Alan Whicker-style travelogue. Where last week's episode found him in Thanet and Downing Street, this week saw him parachuted into a Lib Dem press conference hosted by Nick Clegg at the Liberal Club in Whitehall.

"Once there were giants in this land," O'Rourke remarked, gazing up at the lofty interior and tactfully leaving us to ponder over the shrunken figures that lead the party now. He met Paddy Ashdown who couldn't believe, given what he saw as the centre-left leanings of Britain, that he wasn't Prime Minister. "This has confused me all my life," he said, sounding like a sad ghost.

Next stop was Glasgow, where O'Rourke talked to Irvine Welsh. The writer spoke of the anger at the broken promises made by the three main parties after the referendum, which has in turn led to the swell in SNP support.

"So let's see if I've got this straight," said O'Rourke. "Scottish Nationalists who don't want to be part of Great Britain may play a large part in how Great Britain is governed, even though the point of Scottish Nationalism is not to be governed by Great Britain."

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In trying to wrap his brain around the role of a Shadow Foreign Secretary he deduced: "You're in charge of foreign policy except you don't have to do anything about it because that's the ruling party's problem."

Naturally, O'Rourke understood the subtleties of our political system more than he let on (he had a nice way with words too, noting that in Glasgow the Tories "don't stand a thistle's chance with a hungry sheep"). Even so, he had a knack of pointing out the ticks and eccentricities of a political campaign to which we Brits have grown dispiritingly accustomed, and offered useful comparisons to how things were done across the pond.

Aside from some mild cheerleading for Boris Johnson, O'Rourke thankfully left his own politics at the door – and you didn't have to agree with him to be tickled by his wryness. His outsider status allowed him to see the wood for the trees – and give us some useful home truths in the process.

Twitter: @FionaSturges