I'm both ashamed and pleased with today's cartoon. I don't really care if people like it or find it disgusting. Last night, I think I finally accepted that blogging is a game for celebrities. Unless you're one of the very lucky people to strike gold, hard work amounts to nothing. I might as well give up. Today I feel more dejected than ever. If four blog posts from a TV news editor (albeit the best one there is) can get 3,500 page views after two days of blogging, then what chance do I have? Even if I work another 10 years, blogging every single day, I'll never hit those figures. So, sod it. Perhaps this is my swan song and it's a fitting one if that's what it is.
For what it's worth: the genesis of the idea was an interview given by the 'Honourable' Jacob Rees Mogg to Conservativehome. In his words:
“We talk about being progressive. We’re not progressive. We’re conservative. We don’t believe in changing things that don’t need to be changed. And so I think language is very, very important, and that we have thought the language of the Left is cuddly, and that therefore people will like it. Actually what’s happened is it’s made it very difficult to explain why we’ve done the good things we’ve done. Which are actually much more cuddly than what the Left does, because they actually improve people’s lives.
The first part is true. Conservatives are reactionary and, in that sense, I guess I'm a conservative at heart. I don't like change. I don't like radical governments. However, that's precisely why I dislike the current government. They're radical and delight in being radical. They take such a masochistic delight in austerity that it sounds almost pornographic. It is, of course, that same old 'New Toryism' which has never been called 'New Toryism' and is usually called Thatcherism. Had her governments been called the 'New Tories', the newness might have died by now. As it is, it was called Thatcherism and Thatcherism was as ideological and radical as anything that's has come from the political left in the past half a century. Mogg's words could have easily been spat out by the High Priest of Thatcherism, Lord Tebbit. It's constantly about 'improving people's lives' and yet the society it has created (and would like to further create) is one in which we pay through the nose for everything or we do without. Competition in everything means a rush for cheapness with the greatest profit at the end. I think it's been to the ruination of our country. We've exchanged a nation of great libraries for a nation of Premiership footballers.
It got me thinking about the Tories and the personalities involved. A criticism that can be levelled at Tony Blair and (for that matter) David Cameron is that they are both bandwagon politicians. They respond to headlines and seek to be liked. In that sense, I don't see Cameron as a traditional Tory or even a Thatcherite. I don't believe he's really much of conviction politician. It's why he's not in this cartoon. Few in the Tory Party share his need to be liked. He is the personable figurehead of a party that seems to take a perverse delight in being perceived as the 'bastards in blue'. Some ham it up for the cameras or for their electorate who seem to take pride in electing hardliners who'll personally spend their mornings hammering matchsticks up prisoner's toenails. Other appear to believe in their self-created monster. It's a strange kind of machismo; a warped version of Margaret Thatcher's already twisted personality. She tried to out-man the men and now, I think, politicians that have been inspired by her, share a strange compulsion to a hyper-masculinity. Drawing this cartoon, I was inspired by a particularly grotesque image of Thatcher by Gerald Scarfe. He gave her a raging erection. I think most modern Tories are desperate to have the same. It's up to you to decide how they measure up.
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