Alan Coleman

I knew that Question time was going to wind me up last night but I had to watch it anyway. For some reason I thought that the party leaders facing questions from the public might be interesting – and how wrong I was!

The three leaders did what they do with a fair amount of expertise – lying, not answering questions and remaining resolutely smug. That surely is to be expected, so much so that their replies seemed to sprout forth on autopilot with a terrifying ease.

It’s the audience that I found myself shouting at, sitting on the edge of the sofa with my hands outstretched in disbelief. Almost exclusively middle class with a suitably proportionate number of ethnic minorities, and of course the token gesture prol who’ll be allowed to ask his little question.

The cause was lost from the moment that angry women told piety in a shrill Buckinghamshire accent, that her son couldn’t get a doctors appointment – No! Surely not! Son sat next to her looking like a suitably unhappy 12 year old, how embarrassing that he was actually a fully grown man in his twenties, have people no shame?

Then there was the woman who described George Bush as piety’s “Best mate”, again a really quite embarrassing moment for the audience exacerbated further by their inane wooping. Best mate? Hardly an worthy insult for such an illiterate fool. This is the language of people who say ‘Jolly’, ‘Folk’ or ‘Supper”.

Me me me! The furious student with £8,000 of debt, completely unable to comprehend the notion of other people not having to foot the bill for his education, terrified at the lack of exclusivity and privilege.

I can’t figure out whom I dislike most, Piety Blair or the sinister Michael Howard. One thing’s for sure though, it’s that closet Tory smart arsed student type, with their engrained and selfish middle England attitudes that infuriate me most.

Question time my arse.

If there’s one thing that has always amazed me in politics – it’s the good Tory wife. There was that period in the 80s and 90s when the news was filled with stories of Tory MPs cheating on their wives with an array of sexy young things. More often than not the week would end with a family photo shoot outside a house in Southwest London – “I’m standing by him”.

The public were fed this ridiculous perception of family unity as the ultimate conservative ideal. In reality it amounts to the cheated wife wanting to retain that lifestyle to which she has become accustomed – Good schools. Ironing shirts. The odd charity function.

It is for this reason that I like Cherie Blair.

Despite what we might think about her husband’s politics, she has a successful career of her own and is not afraid to speak her own mind, and I like that in people. She doesn’t follow the campaign trail around like a love sick teenager because she something more important to do, a daytime job, and avoiding the boredom. Also, the idea of her being manipulated by the party spinmeisters is almost laughable.

As expected the tabloid press, genuinely annoyed by her independence, have focused on her not being a looker in the traditional manner. The thing is, Norma Major wasn’t exactly Christy Turlington now was she? A woman that stood smiling in the background for eight years and never uttered a single word, and when her husband was caught screwing another woman behind her back she complied in the classic manner of the good Tory wife – “I?m standing by him”.

Don’t believe any of that Sandra Howard hype either. She’s got yuk all else to do all day but follow her husband around obediently and grin inanely at the cameras outside supermarkets in Kettering. The tabloids say she’s attractive which makes me laugh out loud! She looks like a cross between a Thunderbird puppet and one of those women on the tube that sneers into the Daily Mail, reeks of perfume and gets off the District line at stations like Gloucester Road.

The other day when I got home it was pouring with rain as I looked out of the window.

A big man in a suit jacket, jeans and greasy hair was walking like fury in the middle of the road, soaking wet and swigging a can of Carling. The rain didn’t seem to bother him, it was as if he was on a mission to find the man who robbed his Grandma of her life savings, probably a Post Office account.

He flung the can of lager aside as he walked up the garden path of the squat opposite, in his other hand was a polished brass bell. I saw him at 7.30 the next morning in the same clothes, walking in the opposite direction in the middle of the road, this time drinking a can of Holsten Pils, sugar turns to alcohol.

This morning outside our office there was a man walking in the road, shouting to himself about the impending election – Thatcher. Blair. The 80s. I wanted to stop and listen to him as his mad ranting seemed entirely reasonable, if he was actually talking to someone else he’d probably pass as one of those thirty something socialist worker types – Genuine. Friendly. Rich parents.

Is the election driving everyone mad with boredom?

You know that when parents start using a slang word that it’s not them just trying to be cool, but also the arrival of that expression into the vocabulary of plain English.

In this context I’m talking about the word Chav, which I believe means Council House And Violence, an expression that generalises those members of the working class who dress and act in a certain manner.

Now I’m not trying to get all Guardian and PC on you here as we all like the odd snigger about things now and again, but recently Chav seems to be banded about by any of those witty graduate types who have taken a dislike to any aspect of working class life. I will leave the dispelling of sneering middle class cultural superiority for another article, here I will simply be questioning the acceptability of such cultural prejudice.

I have heard, recently as it happens, people who buy package holidays labelled automatically as Chavs and cited as an embarrassment to our country, which I find a little strange considering that they form the backbone of the nations workforce so in fact ARE our country.

Anyway that’s for another time, but it’s almost as if The chattering classes have become embarrassed of our own people like a cool teenager is of his parents. Those same neo liberals amongst us would have the rest of Europe believe that we’re all intelligent, cultured grads, which of course we’re not and probably don’t want to be.

Maybe this idea comes from Piety Blair’s incredible proposal of middle class being something to aspire to if one works hard enough. Which is of course the general belief within the well to do houses of, You know where.

At this point we have to ask ourselves why such a derogatory expression is an acceptable label for a section of our society. If the Chav phenomenon happened to be black or Muslim for example, would it be open to such ridicule from those that pride themselves on their tolerance and political correctness?
I think not.

We need to ask ourselves whether we should be celebrating a polarized society where it is assumed that those lucky enough to afford an education are openly more successful. What kind of a culture do we live in where it is openly fashionable to sneer at the underclass and everything that it stands for, neatly pigeon holing for mockery on the basis of class and education? Which by the way is absolutely the worst kind of snobbery.

Further, should we be greeting the emergence of a new Blair underclass with a derision and humiliation that will ultimately end up in an unbreakable vicious circle like poverty itself?

And also, look how far we’ve come in the last few decades in putting bigotry and hatred of gays and ethnic minorities behind us (almost!). Do we really want to go back to those dark days?

But you know maybe I’ve missed the point here, because without those that consider themselves to be culturally superior to Chavs I wouldn’t be writing this. Maybe the problem lies with them?. But that’s for another day, and next time it’ll be a whole lot of fun and laughter at their expense.

A lot has been made of the way in which New Labour controls the media so as to present itself in a favourable manner.

There are two reasons why I think this is entirely justified.

Firstly, in an age of electronic communication where images can be flashed around the globe in seconds, appearance is vitally important. This far from just a new Labour phenomenon, as negative as it may be I believe it’s a general movement towards the aesthetic on a global level. Any organisation stupid enough to ignore this, the Tories for example, will look hopelessly outdated and essentially end in failure.

Secondly, and by far the most important point, is the historical relationship between the media and the labour party. During the 70s and 80s the Labour party suffered a continuous and humiliating campaign of bullying courtesy of the British media.

As Labour leader, Michael Foot rallied around causes like nuclear disarmament and social justice, essentially a decent and morally courageous man. But like any politician who speaks the truth and stands up for the weak and disadvantaged, he suffered the inevitable ridicule at the hands of the right wing press. The Daily Mail infamously picturing him on its front page with the headline, “Do you really want this silly old fool running the country?”.

Along with Neil Kinnock he was also at the sharp end of many outrageous smear campaigns involving Spying and contacts within the Kremlin. It may sound laughable now, but we have to take into account both the political climate of the time, as well as the gullibility of those that read The Times and The Daily Mail.

In the manner of a child that was bullied at school the Labour Party remerged as a powerful force that is now treating it’s former oppressors with the contempt they deserve.

The media has been bitten on the arse and has nobody but itself to blame.

It made its bed, now all it has to do is lie in it.