Okay. Today's cartoon finished and posted. Now time to write some words...
Another of the many frustrating parts of the election coverage is the way the media seem to be giving the most attention to the generally slack jawed and indifferent. I suppose it's 'news' that some people have no interest in politics but I'm not sure it's really important news. It's certainly a fact not worth repeating in every single news item.
The always excellent Emily Maitlis spent a good portion of last night's Newsnight wasting her quality heels wandering around some London hotspot asking smirking idlers about the party manifestos. It reminded me of being back in school when the teacher would ask the snot-nosed gibbon at the back of the room if he knew the name of the title character of 'Macbeth'. They would give the same shrug, the same creeping smile, eyes looking to friends for affirmation that their stupidity was admirable. And last night the exercise was similarly pointless and taught us nothing except that David Cameron should stop turning his beady eye towards the north when he starts talking about the shiftless.
There is, of course, a difference between wilful ignorance and ignorance that comes naturally. I believe only one guy had read a manifesto, which doesn't surprise me or, at least, surprised that Maitlis found at least one. I haven't read a manifesto and I don't intend on reading a manifesto. Manifestos aren't meant to be read. They're meant to be brandished like a holy book, waved above the head as though you're holding Dumbledore's grimoire or, as Maitlis correctly explained, finally opened but only when you want to prove that your government has gone back on its pre-election promises.
At this election, the manifestos don't even amount to any of those things. The manifestos are written by parties who don't believe they'll get into government and therefore are promising us the earth because they know that the juicy parts can be knocked out as soon as they enter into coalition negotiations. I imagine the first words out of David Cameron's mouth the morning after the election should he win a majority would be the words 'Shit... What did we promise!?'
Which takes us back to the news.
Today The Guardian are in the nation's most apathetic constituency which, surprisingly not, is up here in the North in Manchester Central. I sometimes wonder whether these reporters are setting out to find the story they've already written. I'm constantly depressed that the media in London talk about 'ordinary' folk being turned off politics. I'm not sure how I'm not myself 'ordinary'. I know a lot of ordinary people who talk about the election. It's just that the media never turn a microphone in their direction.
There can be no real surprise why so much of the nation is turned off politics and it has nothing to do with a person being ordinary or not. It goes to the heart of why Scotland has turned so much in favour of the SNP, which I'm certain should try to get the word 'independence' into their title, if only so that we'd be able to call then SNIP. Supporters of SNIP (for that's what they effectively are and what they effectively want) are clearly a generation tired of rule from Westminster and feel particularly aggrieved when their vote does not dramatically alter the government. Last time, Scotland voted in favour of Labour but got a Tory government delivering austerity. Yet the same is true of much of northern England and Wales. One Nation Toryism really has disappeared and the last government produced a Two Nation Toryism. It's everyone south of Birmingham and then the rest of us.
What you get is a sense that large portions of the country simply don't matter in this election. Where I live, the seat was decided generations ago. I might as well not vote or vote for whoever I like because the result will be the same. I suppose it's liberating knowing that you can vote Green or go Monster Raving Lunatic without any consequences but it's also pretty depressing. It means that there's no real campaigning going on. Nobody visits us and we are left with that familiar feeling that the election is being run by people who really don't care about the people. Tonight, I notice, David Cameron won't be attending the leaders debate. It's what he wanted, of course, and he clearly didn't want to attend the two 'debates' (or pitiful excuses for debates) that have already been held. This is the first time I've thought an election was being run by politicians some of whom are even less enthusiastic than the bloody listless public. In a way, I find my opinions hardening around those attitudes rather than the policies. I want to vote for politicians who show the passion and engagement with the public. Not politicians who slyly creep around the country meeting their loyal activists and sticking security personal in the face of some brave soul who dared put a little spice into the general election sing a slightly risqué song on his ukulele.
Showing posts with label Newsnight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newsnight. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 April 2015
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Why Britain Needs Its Own Daily Show
Imagine. It’s 11pm and your supper remains uneaten because a Paxman-less Newsnight has just finished putting its driest spin on current affairs and you wonder if such a boring world will even bother to wake up in the morning. You flip over to BBC1 to catch the credits of a programme that’s just starting. A sonorous voice announces the date and the title of the show. Your host is sitting at a familiar desk as the camera swoops in. A live audience applauds. The host smiles, does a characteristic scribble on a paper, and enters into a fast paced rundown of the day’s news.
‘The G8 is taking place over here in Belfast this week. You might have noticed, what with all the curfews and the tendency of the police to bludgeon anybody with collar length hair or smelling of student. But the big question on everybody’s lips is: will the Big Dog get some? That’s right. Vladimir Putin is in town and the newly divorced President of Russia ain’t here to sign no damn trade agreements with the West. Not unless that trade agreement has a 36 inch bust and likes to wrestle naked in caviar. The Russian embassy have already been forced to deny rumours they’ve hired a pink limo with en-suite judo mat but Putin was seen boarding his plane wearing white polyester bell bottoms, a lime green shirt and enough cologne to subdue a Caucasus. Let’s go over to the the President's hotel where our correspondent has a view of the penthouse apartment. And you’re already wearing your gas mask, I see…’
Well, that’s my attempt to imagine how it might sound but is it any wonder that interest in politics is at an all-time low and governments act as though they are beyond criticism when we haven’t got a daily satirical show to stoke a fire under political debate? The One Show doesn’t count and I don’t mean satire as represented by the endless variations on Mock the Week who rotate guests like most people rotate their socks. We need satire that has more moral conviction than the simple wish for Russell Howard to sell more DVDs. It’s not as though we need look far for a model. Good ideas are routinely ripped off so why not steal everything from America where The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is currently running for its eighteenth gloriously successful year?
The Daily Show first appeared as on Comedy Central back in 1996 but it only attained the crown as the best satirical show in the business once Jon Stewart joined in 1999. It’s under Stewart that the show became more politically focussed and achieved its popular appeal as much by setting the news agenda as merely responding to it. Regular contributors have become stars in their own right: Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell being perhaps the most famous, but current regulars such as John Oliver and Samantha Bee deserve and will undoubtedly get wider appreciation.
Here in the UK, we do have our own long running satirical show in the form of Have I Got News For You but that often feels like the BBC’s pusillanimous nod to satirical undercurrents that have always been so rich in this country. Compared to The Daily Show, the Beeb’s best offering lacks ambition and bite and feels too conventional and safe.
The popularity of web satire such as ‘The Onion’ and ‘The Daily Mash’ suggests that there is a big appetite for satire out there. The fact that so many of us go to extreme lengths to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report which follows it, despite neither being available in the UK, is surely a sign that there are plenty of people who want hard-edged daily satire that doesn’t have its roots in the establishment. We might bemoan the fact that Jon Stewart’s humour never found a true home on satellite channels here in the UK but the show’s attention to American domestic issues does make it difficult to follow, even for those of us who make the effort to read the backstory. Yet that shouldn’t invalidate the fact that we’re desperate for that scabrous tone that is sorely lacking in this country since the demise of Spitting Image.
We need a daily satirical show for an adult audience. If the powers that be think the original Daily Show is too American then give us one of our own: edgy, opinionated, and not hosted by either Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton. I personally think The Daily Show with Stewart Lee has a ring to it. So why can’t it happen?
A slightly edited (the G8 is in Belfast, not London which, like the idiot I am, I originally stated) and less contentious piece that the one I submitted to The Guardian’s Comment is Free and which this time wasn't ignored but rejected outright. I’m taking that as positive encouragement. You might say that I’m honing in on my target like some guided munition. This time we nearly hit the target but took out a church next door to the target.
‘The G8 is taking place over here in Belfast this week. You might have noticed, what with all the curfews and the tendency of the police to bludgeon anybody with collar length hair or smelling of student. But the big question on everybody’s lips is: will the Big Dog get some? That’s right. Vladimir Putin is in town and the newly divorced President of Russia ain’t here to sign no damn trade agreements with the West. Not unless that trade agreement has a 36 inch bust and likes to wrestle naked in caviar. The Russian embassy have already been forced to deny rumours they’ve hired a pink limo with en-suite judo mat but Putin was seen boarding his plane wearing white polyester bell bottoms, a lime green shirt and enough cologne to subdue a Caucasus. Let’s go over to the the President's hotel where our correspondent has a view of the penthouse apartment. And you’re already wearing your gas mask, I see…’
Well, that’s my attempt to imagine how it might sound but is it any wonder that interest in politics is at an all-time low and governments act as though they are beyond criticism when we haven’t got a daily satirical show to stoke a fire under political debate? The One Show doesn’t count and I don’t mean satire as represented by the endless variations on Mock the Week who rotate guests like most people rotate their socks. We need satire that has more moral conviction than the simple wish for Russell Howard to sell more DVDs. It’s not as though we need look far for a model. Good ideas are routinely ripped off so why not steal everything from America where The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is currently running for its eighteenth gloriously successful year?
The Daily Show first appeared as on Comedy Central back in 1996 but it only attained the crown as the best satirical show in the business once Jon Stewart joined in 1999. It’s under Stewart that the show became more politically focussed and achieved its popular appeal as much by setting the news agenda as merely responding to it. Regular contributors have become stars in their own right: Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell being perhaps the most famous, but current regulars such as John Oliver and Samantha Bee deserve and will undoubtedly get wider appreciation.
Here in the UK, we do have our own long running satirical show in the form of Have I Got News For You but that often feels like the BBC’s pusillanimous nod to satirical undercurrents that have always been so rich in this country. Compared to The Daily Show, the Beeb’s best offering lacks ambition and bite and feels too conventional and safe.
The popularity of web satire such as ‘The Onion’ and ‘The Daily Mash’ suggests that there is a big appetite for satire out there. The fact that so many of us go to extreme lengths to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report which follows it, despite neither being available in the UK, is surely a sign that there are plenty of people who want hard-edged daily satire that doesn’t have its roots in the establishment. We might bemoan the fact that Jon Stewart’s humour never found a true home on satellite channels here in the UK but the show’s attention to American domestic issues does make it difficult to follow, even for those of us who make the effort to read the backstory. Yet that shouldn’t invalidate the fact that we’re desperate for that scabrous tone that is sorely lacking in this country since the demise of Spitting Image.
We need a daily satirical show for an adult audience. If the powers that be think the original Daily Show is too American then give us one of our own: edgy, opinionated, and not hosted by either Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton. I personally think The Daily Show with Stewart Lee has a ring to it. So why can’t it happen?
A slightly edited (the G8 is in Belfast, not London which, like the idiot I am, I originally stated) and less contentious piece that the one I submitted to The Guardian’s Comment is Free and which this time wasn't ignored but rejected outright. I’m taking that as positive encouragement. You might say that I’m honing in on my target like some guided munition. This time we nearly hit the target but took out a church next door to the target.
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