Election 2015: Day 5
The knives (and forks) are out
Annnnnd we’re back after a nice little four day weekend. For Christians, Easter is stuffed with meaning and symbolism. For the rest of us it’s a time to lie around eating chocolate while thanking whatever pagan god or You Tube channel you worship for Jesus’ foresight in dying for our sins THEN holding out his resurrection until Monday.
Meanwhile the politicians were still lurking around like a bad smell. They were deeply conflicted, this time by the desire to campaign and get one over on their rivals while still wanting to appear pious and godly. They know very well that religious people vote in much greater numbers than the general population, especially Christians. Possibly this is because they are more comfortable putting their faith in an unaccountable deity that ignores all their prayers. A core vote who are happy to be disappointed again and again? That’s too tasty a morsel to pass up.
Easter stopped Dave and co hitting the campaign train proper, but they still found ways to weasel into our consciousness. Mostly they were reduced to pulling on pullovers and looming into shot at acceptable bank holiday locations, like the garden centre, to share a few quick words.
The Prime Minister even headed to a family BBQ and decided to have a hot dog while he chatted with the electorate. All perfectly normal and so what if he steps away from the grill for a few minutes to talk pension reform with the national media circus hiding out at the bottom of the garden? It was a sunny day and an open shirt kind of affair, which is Cameron’s bread and butter, what could possibly go wrong. But wait, hold on, wait…wait…WHAT IS HE DOING?!
You might want to sit down and have a strong drink before you read this, but DC was eating a hot dog….with a knife and fork.
After Ed Miliband’s #baconsandwichgate I’m surprised that politicians let photographers near them while they eat anything, be it a hot dog, their own words or a live human sacrifice. But they do, and Dave was wearing a nice shirt, so he grabbed a knife and fork and tucked in. What’s the problem with that? We’re all adults, and sometimes adults use cutlery to eat finger food, it doesn’t make you any more or less capable of running the country. Does it? We've all seen him eating a hot dog with his fingers when Obama was in town. He was really good at it. Really bloody good, a natural actually.
Something like this obviously shouldn't matter, but this campaign is boring and a billion pound media machine is waiting for something to happen. Demanding that something, anything, happens. And it wasn't just the usual suspects like the schizophrenic Daily Mail getting its knickers in a twist over this, serious newspapers as far abroad as Australia and Russia reported on it. Even the Washington Post picked up on this story and ran with a nicely sarcastic headline:
Britain’s prime minister ate a hot dog with a knife and fork, and it’s a problem.
You’re damn right its a goddamn problem. The thrust of the many, many comments on this key issue was that ultimately Cameron is not a normal dude. Of course we already knew that, so I’m not really able to join in all this feigned outrage over a man eating food with utensils.
Personally I’m surprised big Dave used his own volition to deal with this sausage and bun combo. I had always assumed our leader had a butler to chew things and a team of specialist hummingbirds to fly the food directly into his mouth, so for me he actually comes across pretty well here. If someone is going to tear up the welfare state and chow down on it piece by piece I’d like them to at least use their manners. Not everyone agrees, though.
To settle this decisive issue once and for all, I propose a final debate. On the eve of the election, let’s get all the party hopefuls to line up on stage in front of a Generation Game style conveyor belt. Then we present them with a range of increasingly messy foods to eat; I’m thinking we start with the old favourites, a hot dog and bacon sandwich then advance to really tough stuff like a kebab with chili sauce and a plate of tomato spaghetti. No one is allowed to speak and whoever looks the least weird while chowing down gets the votes. The whole thing can be sponsored by Hungry House, or something.
The other big news story of Tuesday was the long awaited arrival of Teflon Tony Blair back on the scene.
For the Labour party Tony Blair is like a dropped £50 note covered in dog shit. Clearly of demonstrable valuable, but you still don’t really want to pick it up or put it in your pocket in case people start to whisper about you.
He turned up in his old manor of Sedgefield. Obviously he flew in on a massive helicopter and was only there to make a speech. Why would he spend more time than was absolutely necessary in that godforsaken town now that he does’nt have to worry about appearing like he actually gives a shit.
And who can blame him, I hear the deck of a yacht owned by a violent plutocratic dictator is nice at this time of year.
Sadly, and as is often the case for poor Tony, everyone was so horrified by the sight of his dead eyed, rictus perma-tanned face they universally failed to notice that he was actually speaking a lot of sense. ‘We’re in Europe’, he was saying, ‘its a matter of geography, just look at the fucking map you donuts!’
Like him or more likely loathe him, Blair still has a certain amount of star power, even if that star is dying and rapidly turning into a very rich and mad black hole. Most of the political blogs listened to and led with what he said in his speech.
As soon as it was over, everyone started shouting again and astonishingly it turned out that Blair had confirmed the views of everyone from Farage to Clegg. Back to square one. As he rode out of town on his chariot made of money Tony must have wondered why he bothered.
On the way home he also popped into some factory to show the rest of these young upstarts how to do the high-vis and hard hat combo while still looking like a highly electable bronzed Adonis. “These little mugs ain’t got nothing on me”, he thought as he stared at nothing in particular.
Speaking of Farage, he was supposed to be at an anti-HS2 protest at the ironically named Sunny Hill farm,but cancelled at the last minute due to ‘travel delays’. Now call me cynical, but I think that he took one look at this depressing sight and called the whole thing off. After all if it had been a real travel delay he would almost certainly have blamed immigrants like he usually does.
So, holidays included, we are over a week into this campaign and still no one really gives a shit. The bullshit levels have definitely risen, but sadly the vast majority of people just don't care. As Andrew Cooper so succinctly puts it,
The defining fact about the election campaign so far is that most people aren’t paying any attention — and many of those who are can’t wait for it to be over. Disengagement is the meme; righteous cynicism the lazy justification for not bothering to listen.
Damn right. Tune in tomorrow for much more righteous cynicism.
<<<Last one
Next one >>>
