Tag: Armando Iannucci

Falling out of love with The Thick of It

I worked for lots of women in my time in Whitehall.

The thing that all of them – Harriet Harman, Margaret Hodge, Barbara Follett, Ruth Kelly – had in common with the men I worked for, was their absolute, unshakeable faith that they had what it took to run the country. They may or may not have been right. Politicians have as many personal imperfections as everyone else on the planet. What’s funny about politics is this mismatch of  total self-belief with the reality of what they achieve. As Armando Iannucci said last week “although it’s a big job it’s actually little people“.

But politics is hard. Getting anywhere near to the top demands huge self-confidence. There are no shrinking violets in the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet.  Which is why the sight of Nicola Murray agonising about walking in a straight line while holding a poppy wreath on last night’s Thick of It made my teeth curl.

I appreciate that a former civil servant complaining about a political satire is like a hotelier arguing that Fawlty Towers didn’t capture the reality of working in the hospitality industry. Being true to life isn’t really the point. I also get that the best comedy comes from putting people into situations they are totally unfitted for – Basil Fawlty again. (And that sequence did give rise to a classic Thick of It-ism “She’s officially a Cenotwat” for which I  forgive them a bit)

But none of the women I ever worked for would have had a problem with walking and poppy-wielding at the same time.  Nor would they need to be told by their male comms advisor (even if he was the incomparable Malcolm Tucker) that they needed to toughen up their act. Nicola Murray shone like a schoolgirl who’d just been noticed by the coolest guy at the disco. Harriet Harman would have eaten him for breakfast then spat out the bits.

I accept there’s a limit to how many rampant megalomaniacs you can have in one TV programme – especially as this series of  TTOI is trying to reflect a coalition government as well as the opposition, so that’s three sets of dunderheads who need to be differentiated somehow.   I just wish it wasn’t the woman who’s the simpering nitwit while the blokes get on with their plotting.

And, finally: I do appreciate how bloody annoying it must be for every woman in a TV programme or film to be expected to represent one half of humanity everytime she opens her mouth on screen. But the rarity of showing women in positions of power makes them symbolise something bigger than themselves, like it or not – even in (especially in?) a comedy.

I really hope the worm turns in the rest of this series.  Not least because Rebecca Front has been one of my favourite comedy performers since we were at university together.  I thought, aged 18, that she was the funniest person I’d ever met.  I’ve followed her career with a proprietorial pride ever since, even though we lost touch years ago.  I still think she’s a genius.  I just think she deserves better.

#Meh2AV – dumb and dumber go campaigning

There are just a couple of weeks to go before the end of the campaign but I still can’t quite make up my mind.  What has been the worst piece of political campaign material in the AV debate so far?

I thought No had the edge in irrelevant stupidity with the “This baby needs an incubator not an alternative voting system” ads.  Then I saw the  Yes TV ad which has MPs running scared while people yell at them through megaphones.

Both sides are taking part in the customary celebrity arms race – Yes has royalty in the shape of Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter.  No seems to have bagged Peter Stringfellow (hmm).   The best comment I’ve seen so far on this game of Celebrity Top Trumps was  Armando Iannucci’s:

Loads of celebs in AV debate. If YES wins you get Eddie Izzard, NO gets Rik Mayall. As a 3rd rate celeb, I’ll hold the balance of power
 
No  seems to have the edge in playing the man not the ball (vote No because Nick Clegg wants you to vote Yes.  Vote No because otherwise the BNP will get elected – even though there’s IPPR research to suggest they won’t ).
Yes is pinning its hopes on the fact that we are so disgusted with “our broken political system”  that we want to punish MPs by changing the way they’re elected.
What we’re missing is a sign that anyone connected with either campaign is thinking about anything other than slinging mud at the other guys.  Is anyone analysing what the audience might actually want or need to know before they decide to change – or not change – the voting system?  Because  if they are it’s not showing out here in the real world.
There are few precedents for how to campaign in a referendum when political parties are split.  The obvious one is the  1975 referendum on membership of the EC. I don’t remember it myself,  so I looked it up to see what campaigning was like back in communication’s dark age:
Television broadcasts were used by both campaigns, like party political broadcasts during general elections. They were broadcast simultaneously on all three terrestrial channels: BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV. They attracted audiences of up to 20 million viewers. The “Yes” campaign advertisements were thought to be much more effective, showing their speakers listening to and answering people’s concerns, while the “No” campaign’s broadcasts featured speakers reading from an autocue
 
Listening to and answering people’s concerns, eh?  What will they think of next…   They had really informative (though extremely long) leaflets about the issues too.
AV is a classic example of a campaign that no-one wanted or believes in.  The No-s think it’s a sop to the Lib Dems to keep them onside in the Coalition.  The Yes-es really want to be talking about PR.  And it really shows.  It’s not just that I feel personally insulted by their rock-bottom estimation of my intelligence.  I also feel professionally ashamed of the woefully low level of  comms skills on display.
No wonder it’s been estimated that voter-turnout where there are no local elections could be as low as 20%.  Electoral reform is always going to be a tough comms sell. But what a wasted opportunity to have a grown-up debate.