POLITICS: What was the point of that?
The Tory PPB on the Queen's speech
For those of us who occasionally (very occasionally, admittedly) take to the airwaves to defend Iain Duncan Smith against the deprecations of his many, many enemies it can be a depressing business by times. And it really isn’t helped by things like this evening’s response by the party to the Queen’s speech. No doubt one ought to concentrate on what we’re saying in Parliament, but television of course does matter quite a lot, and so our free shot, the party political broadcast, requires some close, positively harsh scrutiny. Especially when one bears in mind ‘how cut off British politics has become from the British people. They see Parliament as a Punch and Judy show’. As Michael Portillo might put it, guess who offered that opinion straight out of the BBC Book of Received Wisdom? That’s right, the presenter? star? subject? of tonight’s broadcast, our own dear leader himself.
It started with a sub-Woody Allen white-on-black legend asking us, ‘If you had a chance to speak to a politician what would you say?’ A series of unremarkable opinions were offered by various people, not more than two thirds of whom can have been professional actors. With the rest being from the Field Ops Gilbert and Sullivan society, the party doesn’t want to waste money. The best bit in this straight to camera segment was an exchange between a Good Looking Bird and a Slightly Less GLB which went as follows:
GLB: I’d like to know what the Conservatives think they could do . . .
SLGLB: Yeah.
GLB: I’d find that quite good.
SSLGB: Can you tell us? [directed at unseen camera person (possibly Rick Nye, it had the feel of an auteur)]
GLB: I’d find that quite interesting.
After this scene setting moment we cut to a sight of unspeakable depravity — a door swings open, and we suddenly realise that the Leader is imprisoned with a focus group. This little opportunity kicked off with one character denouncing the ‘terrible’ funding available for drug rehabilitation, and Mr Duncan Smith nodding sympathetically, ‘I know’. Now perhaps somewhere else in this fine webzine someone will in due course turn their mind to what it means that the Royal family has just received a platinum hiding from the press whilst the Tory party has stayed silent on the subject, but I’ll say just one thing: British journalists are not nice people. There really are some subjects on which they should be given no encouragement. Still, their blood is up, and as we haven’t spoken up for others, when their privacy was raped, we’re on increasingly infirm ground as far as our own is concerned.
What was most maddening was the denouement of this short film, which was yet another bleating woman chattering away:
What I’d really like to see is some government just turn round and prioritise [sic], and just say, ‘I’m really sorry but these are the three main issues for this government, and this is what we’re going to pursue for the next four years’.
And, er, that was it, save for the final legend — above the CCO website and a telephone number (David Willetts’ mobile I think) — which, cod enigmatically, read simply, ‘Have your say’. I don’t know about you, and fascinating as I find actresses pretending to be members of those hugely useful things, focus groups, what I’d have really liked to hear, was what we, the fricking Conservative party, actually thought. To be precise, when that blithering bint drivelled on about her three priorities over a four year term (jolly well informed, people on focus groups these days) I’d have liked some relevant Tory bod to pop up and say, ‘ahem, here’s a few of the gems we’re liable to roll out when next in office’. But no, not a single policy was mentioned during the course of the entire broadcast; and the solitary Conservative politician present didn’t feel obliged to do much more than mumble apologetically.
What on earth do we think we’re giving them to support? Why are we even slightly surprised that we’re unsupported to the degree we are? Since we’re clearly in listening mode — and I understand that Julian Lewis will be taking part in ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ in order to raise our profile among certain key demographics — what we need to understand is that the public are only ever going to say anything to us if they find us interesting. As things stand, we’re a long way from being worth speaking to: nobody wants to chat to Johnny no-mates blubbing to himself in the corner. If we finally start saying things, and at this stage it hardly matters what, that’s when finally we’re going to get the public into a dialogue with us again.
, November 14, 2002 07:48 PM