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THE tumult and the shouting have
started, the general election campaign captains and kings have arrived and
those in poll positions will again be scrutinising that electoral enigma,
the voting intentions of the lumpen uncommitted, the ballot-box agnostics
or the "don’t knows". I am of that indecisive persuasion. We may look
half-awake, we may not seem to know whether we are coming or going, what
the time of day is or what planet we are on but, under our inscrutable
facades is the belief that the battle, so far, is the political equivalent
of Valium.
The "don’t know" tide has been joined by a
groundswell of "don’t cares". According to a YouGov survey, fewer than 42
per cent of first-time voters think they will vote, while 46 per cent have
already voted for contestants in reality TV shows. I don’t blame them.
Growing numbers of the uncommitted suspect all parties of leading them up
the garden path into the creek then selling them down the river or pulling
the wool over their eyes. They often ask searching questions like: "Do we
want a strong, honest, straight-talking, hard-hitting, solid-principled
prime minister leading a transparent government, or do we want Tony
Blair?"
Many candidates, they note, seem to have had
charisma bypasses or are in need of intellectual liposuction, while others
have distressing speech impediments - they stop to breathe. They are,
however, thankful that only one party can win.
One
reason for apathy is that elections are no longer as entertaining as they
were. The sabre slash of sarcasm, the rapier-like repartee or even a
sound, British verbal bludgeoning are often missing from candidates’
clashes. Rather than go to some poorly-attended, political meeting to hear
some candidate outline his party’s manifesto plan to make Britain the
wind-power paradise of the planet, disillusioned voters would probably
prefer to stay at home and watch a programme on the sex life of the
wombat.
WHAT we need is more hilarity at the hustings. We
have had gesture politics and the politics of envy: the time has come to
exploit the politics of insult to galvanise interest among the undecided,
many slumped in semi-somnolence by the dull decencies of debate. I don’t
want crudely offensive insults but sudden, verbal slingshots and
well-aimed, dagger thrusts would enliven a political scene, sadly lacking
inspirational insult imagery.
Recently, Jeremy Paxman called
the Health Secretary, John Reid, an "attack dog", and Peter Hain, the
Leader of the Commons, des-cribed the Tory leader, Michael Howard, as an
"attack mongrel". Although low-grade gibes, they put the cat among the
political pigeons, the snarls doubtless much appreciated by that US
presidential poodle, Tony Blair, and assuredly appreciated by Lord Tebbit,
the former Tory MP, described by the then Labour leader, Michael Foot, as
a "semi-house-trained polecat".
One senses a better class of
insult in the parliamentary past. Many MPs could be entered in some human
equivalent of Crufts, including the affectionate, shaggy, barking, Tory
member, Boris Johnson, while Lady Thatcher, as prime minister, could have
won the best of breed female dog award with the Labour pack whining in the
dog-house.
SHE attracted some high-grade insults. "A
bargain-basement Boadicea", was how Denis Healey, one-time Labour
chancellor, described her, while the TV personality, Clive James, claimed
that she "sounded like the Book of Revelation read out over a railway
address system by a headmistress of a certain age wearing calico
knickers". Great knockabout stuff; Attila the Hen revelled in it.
Clement
Attlee, Britain’s first post-war Labour prime minister, was cuttingly
assessed by Winston Churchill as "a modest man with much to be modest
about" and, on the death of an earlier prime minister, Stanley Baldwin,
Churchill, with flashy metaphor, commented: "The candle in the great
turnip has gone out."
The war-leader endured insult barrages. "He would
make a drum out of his mother’s skin to sound his own praises." So said
Lloyd George, the First World War prime minister and Welsh oratorical
wizard who, critics claimed, "could not see a belt without hitting below
it". Anthony Eden, another premier, was, said Malcolm Muggeridge, writer
and broadcaster, "not only a bore but bored for Britain". Charles, Lord
Beresford - again in Churchill’s words - "when he rose to speak in the
House had not the least idea of what he was going to say, did not know
what he was saying while speaking and when he sat down, could not remember
what he had said".
A natural "don’t know"? That sounds insulting to
the wavering, wayward masses, but I wish he were alive today to lighten a
dreary polemical landscape. To those who try to convince me that
seriousness is all in electioneering, I say - poll the other leg. |
