At 2:30pm on Monday 9 February, all hell breaks loose. The previous day, Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney resigned following outcry over Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the role of US ambassador, despite his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Then, on Monday morning, Director of Communications Tim Allan resigned in mysterious circumstances, referring only to letting “a new No 10 team … be built.” The Prime Minister looked insecure, and the cabinet offered radio silence. Then, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar appears at a press conference, calling for Keir Starmer’s resignation while framing him as an electoral liability north of the border. What follows are pronouncements of loyalty from the cabinet, along with speculation that the UK government could collapse by the end of the day. I text the family group chat: “Starmer out, Starmer out, Starmer out.” This is the most fun I’ve had watching politics since the Daily Star started broadcasting a livestream of a lettuce in 2022.
Amid the thrills I feel watching, however, I’m subjected to a certain guilt. A needling voice in the back of my head lays into me: all this schadenfreude, with the government in crisis – a crisis distracting from navigating the country’s path through desperate times, and with the potential to shake the system and exacerbate its problems? At the very least, it’s distasteful.
But then I think: bollocks. The drama of politics not only can be treated as entertainment; it is a political imperative to view it as such. It’s not as though Westminster treats us with respect and nothing less. Have you watched the Prime Minister’s Questions? Half an hour marked out mid-week to scrutinise the government, to ensure the implementation of the most effective policy, and all we get is each party leader trying to ridicule the others, with their party colleagues emitting a noise that should be heard exclusively on football terraces.
I’m not claiming politicians are all careerists and nothing more, but only the most quixotic would deny that these people exist in politics at all. We have a great tradition of dismissing those in power as pompous, patronising, pathetic: The Thick of It, Yes, Minister, Private Eye. The Daily Star’s Liz-Truss-lettuce stunt calcified the image of that Prime Minister’s ineptitude, which catalysed her defenestration. It’s a sign of healthy politics that we hold our leaders in contempt.
But as I resolve upon my condescension of politicians, another thought: of satirist Peter Cook’s praise of “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler.”
Cook’s quote is often taken to mean that satire has no power. But ridicule of those in power is successful, if that ridicule is imbibed by enough people to turn against a leader. Satire’s failure comes when it is treated as an escape from politics, rather than an active part of it. Private Eye editor Ian Hislop describes responding to questions asking if he’s succeeding in taking down the government: “no, that’s your job,” he says.
I return from my slight detour into the efficacy of political art, thinking again of my schadenfreude towards the government’s potential collapse. Politics as entertainment is a fine pastime, but it’s escapism, and it stifles engagement because it is the beginning and end of the conversation; the thrill of the drama hardly ever leads to interaction with politics – or, worse still, hampers it when contempt enters the mix: I hate them all won’t fill the ballot boxes. The primetime airing of political drama won’t change anything because it stops being politics and starts being drama.
What more discourages the belief in popular power?
I check my phone. A text from my sister on the family group chat, about Anas Sarwar. ‘I don’t like him at all,’ it says.
“Prime Minister Liz Truss Resigns” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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Should we Treat Politics like Reality TV?
At 2:30pm on Monday 9 February, all hell breaks loose. The previous day, Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney resigned following outcry over Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the role of US ambassador, despite his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Then, on Monday morning, Director of Communications Tim Allan resigned in mysterious circumstances, referring only to letting “a new No 10 team … be built.” The Prime Minister looked insecure, and the cabinet offered radio silence. Then, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar appears at a press conference, calling for Keir Starmer’s resignation while framing him as an electoral liability north of the border. What follows are pronouncements of loyalty from the cabinet, along with speculation that the UK government could collapse by the end of the day. I text the family group chat: “Starmer out, Starmer out, Starmer out.” This is the most fun I’ve had watching politics since the Daily Star started broadcasting a livestream of a lettuce in 2022.
Amid the thrills I feel watching, however, I’m subjected to a certain guilt. A needling voice in the back of my head lays into me: all this schadenfreude, with the government in crisis – a crisis distracting from navigating the country’s path through desperate times, and with the potential to shake the system and exacerbate its problems? At the very least, it’s distasteful.
But then I think: bollocks. The drama of politics not only can be treated as entertainment; it is a political imperative to view it as such. It’s not as though Westminster treats us with respect and nothing less. Have you watched the Prime Minister’s Questions? Half an hour marked out mid-week to scrutinise the government, to ensure the implementation of the most effective policy, and all we get is each party leader trying to ridicule the others, with their party colleagues emitting a noise that should be heard exclusively on football terraces.
I’m not claiming politicians are all careerists and nothing more, but only the most quixotic would deny that these people exist in politics at all. We have a great tradition of dismissing those in power as pompous, patronising, pathetic: The Thick of It, Yes, Minister, Private Eye. The Daily Star’s Liz-Truss-lettuce stunt calcified the image of that Prime Minister’s ineptitude, which catalysed her defenestration. It’s a sign of healthy politics that we hold our leaders in contempt.
But as I resolve upon my condescension of politicians, another thought: of satirist Peter Cook’s praise of “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler.”
Cook’s quote is often taken to mean that satire has no power. But ridicule of those in power is successful, if that ridicule is imbibed by enough people to turn against a leader. Satire’s failure comes when it is treated as an escape from politics, rather than an active part of it. Private Eye editor Ian Hislop describes responding to questions asking if he’s succeeding in taking down the government: “no, that’s your job,” he says.
I return from my slight detour into the efficacy of political art, thinking again of my schadenfreude towards the government’s potential collapse. Politics as entertainment is a fine pastime, but it’s escapism, and it stifles engagement because it is the beginning and end of the conversation; the thrill of the drama hardly ever leads to interaction with politics – or, worse still, hampers it when contempt enters the mix: I hate them all won’t fill the ballot boxes. The primetime airing of political drama won’t change anything because it stops being politics and starts being drama.
What more discourages the belief in popular power?
I check my phone. A text from my sister on the family group chat, about Anas Sarwar. ‘I don’t like him at all,’ it says.
“Prime Minister Liz Truss Resigns” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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