Is 'I hate politicians' the right way to vote?

People really hate politicians, don’t they? Not just the Tories, always major hate figures in my neck of the woods, but politicians in general.

The Conservatives for heartlessness, Labour for past economic incompetence, the LibDems for broken promises and all for hypocrisy and bloated expenses.

Yet amidst all this Nigel Farage somehow manages to shrug off a veritable tsumani of gaffes and extremist outbursts from his candidates that would have done for any mainstream party leader long ago.

Because people don’t see him as a serious politician, but an affable bloke with whom they would enjoy a chinwag in the pub. And, if they are at all right wing in their inclinations, agree that he talks an awful lot of common sense.

Particularly about those issues that every other party deems too politically incorrect to discuss; notably immigration, on which many traditional Labour voters harbour convictions every bit as “right wing” as their Tory counterparts.

I have considerable sympathy with Mr Farage’s view of the EU and I’d certainly rather spend an hour or two in a boozer with him than with Messrs Cameron, Miliband or Clegg.

But how many other UKIP MEPs or candidates have you ever heard of? Probably just that bloke who jumped before he was pushed for jokingly calling party activists “sluts”, though I’ll wager you can’t remember his name.

The other one's called Godfrey Bloom, in case you are wondering

How many UKIP policies can you list, for that matter? I’ve just taken a look at their website, and am not massively wiser.

I was surprised when a fellow lifelong Tory told me the other day that he will be voting UKIP in the European elections specifically as a protest against the Conservatives’ espousal of gay marriage.

No doubt there will be a similar range of motivations behind those who will grant UKIP a historic victory on 22 May, if the current polls are to be believed. But underlying it all will surely be simple loathing of professional politicians, allied with the certain knowledge that Mr Farage will not be moving into Downing Street as Prime Minister.

Meanwhile the smooth and quintessential professional currently occupying that role faces his own potential day of reckoning in September, when Scotland goes to the polls in the referendum that he granted on the assumption that the result would be a resounding “no”.

Survival of the Union still looks the way to bet, but only just. Because such is the hatred of mainstream British politicians that their every intervention pointing out the folly of voting for independence just seems to push a few more waverers into the “yes” camp.

In this respect, Alex Salmond may be characterised as McFarage Lite (or, more accurately, Heavy).

There must be considerable doubt as to whether Mr Cameron could survive as Prime Minister if the United Kingdom broke up on his watch.

And then what? There is only one potential Tory leader who can match the Teflon qualities of Nigel Farage. Another man equally at home on a TV game show and apparently able to shrug off all manner of revelations about his personal life. People don’t even seem to hold the fact that Boris Johnson went to Eton against him, because he is a laugh.

Boris: cleaning up?

Even if you rate Labour’s chances of victory in the General Election scheduled for May 2015, their prospects of staying in government cannot look good if their 40-odd Scottish MPs are booted out of Westminster. Particularly if, by then, the Tories are led by charismatic career politician successfully masquerading as a buffoon.

I keep reading that this is the age of tactical voting. Tactical voting for UKIP on 22 May will tell the major parties that we hate them all, but won’t get us one inch closer to exiting the EU. Scots voting for independence in September may do for Mr Cameron in the short term, but will ultimately be far more of a disaster for Labour.

These are certainly very exciting times for anyone with an interest in British politics. The sad thing is that many of us only seem interested in giving all the main parties a kicking. Perhaps we should all pause to reflect on the likely consequences before we do so?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

I'm A Very Minor Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here

Surveys regularly reveal that the overriding ambition of the young is to be famous, even if it is only for the 15 minutes that Andy Warhol proposed as everyone’s due.

After a 59-year wait I have just had my own small ration of notoriety as a result of BBC2’s Iceland Foods documentary. Let me tell you now, kids: it is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

For a start, being vaguely recognisable from the television gives total strangers the impression that they are licensed to greet you by your first name. No problem for the youth of today, I suppose, but absolute anathema to those of my generation who have a strong preference for being addressed by our title and surname. Except when writing envelopes, where I am one of the last people left alive still using “Esquire”.

Far worse than that, though, is the fact that the aforementioned strangers then feel entitled to let you know exactly what they think of your performance on the box. This is, I will admit, moderately pleasant when they are flattering, but thoroughly depressing when they take the opposite view. And, human nature being what it is, people are far more likely to treat you to their opinions when they have something nasty to say.

Luckily for me The Journal rarely posts my columns on its website, or I would no doubt long since have been driven into a despairing silence by vicious and always conveniently anonymous trolls.

Funnily enough, my first ambition in life was to be a TV presenter. My role models were Eamonn Andrews off Crackerjack! and Mike Neville on Look North. Luckily I soon grew out of it because I realised that I am naturally shy and have a personality with somewhat specialist appeal.

The most enjoyable aspect of the programmes for me has been receiving lots of emailed pitches from serious PR and media training companies, eager to point out where my client and I have been going wrong.

But in a world where every chief executive, like every minister and MP, sticks rigidly to well-polished, politically correct and endlessly repetitious soundbites, isn’t it refreshing to hear from some people who say what they actually think and do so with a touch of humour?

The only major political figure who has dared to adopt such a cavalier approach is Boris Johnson and it does not seem to have done him conspicuous harm so far, though I expect we will keep reading that he is “not serious enough” to be Prime Minister until the day he enters No 10.

Asked in the early 1970s about the impact of the French revolution of 1789, the Chinese premier Chou En-Lai reputedly said that it was far too early to tell. Similarly, I imagine that the jury will be out until long after I have retired on whether allowing in TV cameras for reality documentaries confers any real benefit on the participants.

One might think, as with televised talent shows, that the well was exhausted by now. However, there is no sign of any reduction in the pressure from TV companies eager to bring us a slice of life from an airline, train operator, retailer, school or hospital near you

I had thought it would all be over by the time I filed this column but in fact the final episode has been held over until tonight to make room for BBC2’s new series of The Choir (which is why, if you tuned in yesterday, there was less swearing and fewer PR gaffes than you had been expecting, but a significantly better standard of singing*).

As a stickler for tradition, which means that the Hann family completely ignores the ghastly Americanised trappings of Halloween but goes big on celebrations of thwarted Catholic plots 408 years ago, I intend to spend this evening outdoors letting off fireworks and writing my name in the air with a sparkler. My last name, naturally, since that is the one I prefer.

That will be quite enough of having my name up in lights for one year, and tomorrow I shall be very happy to return to the total obscurity that is my natural habitat.

* I wrote that before I actually watched The Choir, where the standard of singing in fact made Iceland's own head office choir sound like the chorus of the Royal Opera House.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The decline and fall of the BBC: from Richard Dimbleby to Alan Partridge

I remember when the BBC could move me to tears with its coverage of great national events. Yet so far this Jubilee it has provoked only derisive laughter and occasional spluttering rage.

I was born a year and a day after the Coronation, so the first state occasion that really gripped me was the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. The impeccably researched and perfectly delivered commentary by Richard Dimbleby sticks in my mind to this day.

For me, the most poignant moment was when all the cranes in the Pool of London dipped in salute as the barge carrying the great man’s coffin passed by.

That very barge reappeared in the spotlight on Sunday, as one of the thousand or so vessels taking part in the Thames pageant. I could imagine no happier way to spend my birthday afternoon than watching coverage of this once in several lifetimes event, but reckoned without the utter uselessness to which our national broadcaster has been reduced.

Never in the field of outside broadcasting can so many inanities and inaccuracies have been spouted by so many to so little purpose.

One should have known how it would develop when they referred to the Queen, early on, as “HRH” rather than “Her Majesty”. The principal commentator, who sounded like Alan Partridge on an off day, burbled on with a constant stream of cringe-making clichés, interspersed with such insights as that a view embraced “so many iconic landmarks that litter London”. I am not making that up.

An “expert” informed us that the Duchess of Cambridge’s headgear came from Lock’s, who also made “the hat that Nelson wore at the battle of Waterloo”. As he might have done, had he been a soldier rather than a sailor, and not died at Trafalgar ten years earlier.

The depth of research into matters maritime was further underlined by the introduction of HMS Belfast as a “90,000 ton” cruiser, an overestimate of approximately 800%.

Perhaps it was consciousness of this almost unbelievable ignorance that prevented anyone from the BBC attempting to tell us a single useful thing about any of the vessels in the pageant, or the people aboard them, except when a camera lighted upon some minor celebrity and they could point out that it was Pippa Middleton or Boris Johnson. As we could see for ourselves anyway.

They informed us that each section of ships in the pageant was preceded by a group of musicians, but could they let us listen to any of them? No. Far better to keep up an endless stream of mind-numbing prattle, losing no opportunity to cut away from the Thames for irrelevant interviews with the parents of “Jubilee babies” or random observers by the riverside.

Note to producers: anyone who has stood in the pouring rain for several hours to watch the Queen pass by is going to tell you that she is absolutely marvellous, so there is no need to ask them the question.

As the afternoon wore on, I noted that many people on Twitter shared my anger and frustration at the BBC’s unremitting drivel. Most felt that Sky was making a vastly better job of it, which seemed ironic given that it is owned by one of the world’s most committed republicans and staunch enemies of hereditary privilege, except when it comes to the management of his own media empire.

When I was small, people still talked about the BBC’s coverage of the Spithead naval review of 1937, when the commentator was so spectacularly drunk that he could only repeatedly slur “The fleet’s lit up!”

But compared with most of the stuff I heard on Sunday, the man was a towering genius. I don’t own a Sky dish, and I do want to see the rest of the Jubilee events, but in the interests of my blood pressure I shall be doing so with my finger poised over a “mute” button at all times.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.