Perhaps this column does have some sort of impact, after all. Last month, I wrote that Britain’s 30-year rule covering civil service documents is an anachronism in the age of 24-hour news channels. Last week, it was announced that, after undergoing a period of review, the 30-year rule is to become a 20-year one. And not before time.
As lurid allegations concerning Gordon Brown have filled newspapers over the past few weeks, there seems to be an indecent haste applied to the past by the media. Members of the Thatcher Foundation seem to be the only people observing any three-decade purdah these days: recently throwing light on the Iron Lady’s pre-1979 general election diet.
The much-missed Spitting Image had an influence on politics in the 1980s, with its satirical take on a decade of record unemployment, the miners’ strike and the beginnings of yuppie culture. The fate of the SDP-Liberal alliance was allegedly sealed by the use of latex puppets of their two leaders – with a tiny David Steel in the pocket of David Owen, although the former was actually the taller of the two. While Spitting Image was clearly a joking matter, with the more recent vogue for docu-drama, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. This was apparent in BBC 4’s On Expenses, which had television columnists straying into political commentary. This “Expensesgate” comedy pillorying former Speaker Michael Martin shows that deference for politicians is no more. We live in times of “accelerated” culture when ongoing events are dramatised for laughs.
When the actor playing investigative journalist Ben Leapman, who broke the scandal, first appeared onscreen, I felt compelled to text Ben, a friend at university, that I’d just seen “him” on telly – although the genuine article is much better-looking than the actor. Leapman himself has written in the Daily Telegraph about being played by someone else – adding that he has never owned a duffel coat.
Margaret Thatcher has had her early political career turned into drama in The Long Road to Finchley. There was also a TV play about the events leading to her resignation.
Notwithstanding Tony Blair at the Chilcot inquiry again demonstrating his superlative acting skills, the former Prime Minister has been fictionalised more than most. The Deal was about his pact with Gordon Brown. There has also been the feature film The Queen and Channel 4’s The Trial of Tony Blair.
What next – a comedy special reprising the “bullygate” row? Brown’s pledge to “fight every inch of the way” takes on whole new meaning. Again, the recent fracas highlights the difficulties in distinguishing fact from fiction. Brown’s TV tears were surreal enough, but we don’t really have much evidence when it comes to the allegations of his shortcomings. Walking hurriedly past someone on the stairs hardly constitutes threatening behaviour.
The story that some Number 10 staffers had telephoned an anti-bullying helpline soon began to take on the hallmarks of a plot to spread anti-Labour poison as more details emerged. When Ann Widdecombe resigned as trustee, it hastened the demise of the charity its phone line was briefly suspended last wekk.
Channel 4’s Tower Block of Commons, in which some MPs volunteered to live in social housing for a week, has also had a hand in bringing politics to people’s front rooms. I was glued to the series, which featured the spectacle of a rapping Tory frontbencher, Tim Loughton. Labour’s Austin Mitchell discovered that his wife had suffered from depression as a young mother, when she empathised with a heroin-addicted estate-dweller. We also saw Tory Nadine Dorries put on a Somali costume to gather support for a community barbecue, leading to a strange exchange on a stairwell. Member of the public: “Are you a Muslim?” Dorries: “No, I’m an MP.”
The MPs almost turned into cartoon characters. There was clearly some trickery going on, too. It was hard to believe that the lads who jeered at Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten for his rent boy indiscretions would have known about that episode in his past without some prompting.
Whether we are talking about dramas concerning the likes of Winnie Mandela, Mo Mowlam, David Blunkett and Dr David Kelly or reality TV featuring politicians, it is apparent that we live in an age of hyper-reality where fiction and reality are blurring. This confirms the view of postmodernist sociologists who talk of that accelerated culture where the past catches up with us at a dizzying pace.
When French philosopher Jean Baudrillard declared that the first Gulf war had never happened, referring to the numbing effect of the highly mediated coverage of that conflict, it seemed like a pretentious statement about distant events. Now the observation seems apposite.
The 30-year rule was always difficult to justify in a climate of freedom of information. Let’s hope the revised version is a success.
Rupa Huq blogs at www.rupahuq.co.uk
About The Author
Rupa Huq is a senior lecturer in Sociology at Kingston University London, and a Tribune columnist. She blogs at www.rupahuq.co.uk
Tell you what it’s doing my grandson is coming up to voting age, I was telling him about the Labour party and then Tories, he said look grand dad thats for people like you not people like me, nobody cares anymore. I said you wait until the tax man hits you for tax or your wages are cut, and he said they are all the same , all after the money, all doing what they do for themselves, and I cannot argue with him anymore..
I think I had to much to drink, what my grandsons said they are all out for themselves, they are trying to make as much money for themselves.
And i think he is right.