A few weeks ago, I interviewed the writer and director Armando Iannucci. This wasn’t a massive scoop: he was over plugging the theatre adaptation of Dr Strangelove currently running in the Bord Gáis Theatre. But in the course of the conversation, we talked about his series The Thick of It, a satirical show that was ostensibly about politics, but was essentially about spin.
Just like its ancestor, Yes, Minister, The Thick of It portrayed a government minister and his team of advisers who weren’t primarily concerned with what they were going to do; rather how they would talk about it. They would consider contradictory policies on the basis of how well or not they would play with the media. This was in the days when they cared what the media thought.
It was satire, but satire only works if there’s a tinge of truth to it. It was certainly there in the 1980s for Yes, Minister. By the time the 2000s and The Thick of It rolled around, it was more like factual reporting. Politics was all spin.
In fairness, this isn’t new. Eighty years ago, George Orwell was raging about it in his essay Politics and the English Language, arguing that language was being debased by politicians to defend the indefensible, to make lies sound truthful and to “give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”.
Like death and taxes, spoofers will always be with us. The difference is that in the late 20th and 21st century, spoofing became monetised. Advertising and public relations had a baby, which grew up into a creature that gave itself various spoofy titles – usually a “consultant” or “adviser” – and that creature would instruct politicians how to never give a straight answer while adopting the tone of someone giving a straight answer.
Armando and I (we’re great pals now) agreed that there is a direct line between the emergence of the Spoof Industry and Brexit: because over time, as more and more politicians surrounded themselves with Special Advisers, as they all started to sound the same, it became increasingly easy to dismiss them all as charlatans.
Which led to the emergence of the non-politician politician. Anyone who didn’t speak in the same oleaginous tones suddenly stood out. And it didn’t matter as much what they were saying but how they were saying it: by appearing different from the bland political herd, they seemed to be genuine. It didn’t matter if what they said drew ire or was deeply offensive or even barking mad. Saying the wrong thing became a kind of virtue.
It would be facile to argue this was the only factor that led to the self-destructive urge in the UK; and the one playing out now in the US. But the debasement of public language has led to a debasement of public thought: that all you have to do is defeat the enemy – the EU or woke – and everything will be all right again.
[ Social media taps into a dark human need to be mean to other peopleOpens in new window ]
Of course, this change has been taking place all over the world in liberal democracies, but not so much in Ireland. So far. But that’s not because our politicians are linguistically virtuous. If asked a question on TV or radio, they repeat the question back to the interviewer; just to waste a little time. Or – and this seems particularly hot right now – they love using the word “clear”. I’ve been very clear on this. I want to be very clear on this. This is top-quality political spoofery. It has a tonal whiff of sincerity, with the added benefit of being totally meaningless.
The reason why Ireland hasn’t produced a Trump or a Farage is that one hasn’t come along yet. The far right we have is run by narcissists and the charismatically challenged. But if someone emerges who can string a sentence together, that political calculus will change; and quite quickly. Let’s be very clear on this.
