I know it doesn’t matter – and you know it doesn’t matter – but if he didn’t quote The Tempest with quite such a simpering smile I wouldn't find myself wondering whether he can bowl as well as Obama.
But Joe Biden did. And while he does, and being of the old Wilde school of not attributing his sources, Palin’s modesty to misattribute her quotes is all the more notable. Those given to Anglo-American comparison should note that it was with something more subtle than the way our own Chameleon Cameron crowbarred a Thatcher salute into an otherwise rather progressive season of political party conferences, Sarah Palin's shining city on a hill was calculated to give the illusion that she’d quoted Ronald Reagan twice, and almost made you think that she’s read more Reagan than Winthrop. This illusion meant that she could court the Reaganites of the grand old party faithful without outraging the moderates, a reconciliation whose Tory counterpart Chameleon Cameron has still to fathom.
Unlike Cameron’s speech, in which they were both crammed uncomfortably into his one person, the 2008 United States vice-presidential debate saw accommodation and partisanship healthily apportioned between the two candidates, but at times with equally comic results: the beautiful and (genuinely) moving family-guy Biden emotion was sadly undermined by his repeated claim to “love” Sen. John McCain.
Showing posts with label political party conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political party conferences. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
The Third Man
Lately, Chameleon Cameron has shown all the symptoms (in my medical opinion) of a man trapped in a Graham Greene novel or two.
It began with a friendly smile and as few policies as he could get away with – as long as nothing happens anything is possible. Like Our Man in Havana, he talked a good game, painted castles in the sky, but when you actually looked closely for the policies you saw that it was all really an elaborate vacuum. As with Noel Coward in the film adaptation, one found his style mildly amusing yet couldn’t but wonder whether he was at all capable of the seriousness the role demands.
In the old Tory days the heartless Thatcherites could swallow hard, close their eyes, tick the box, and think of England because they at least knew what they were getting. There was something secure in its vulgarity. You could appeal to them as you could to an English policeman, because you knew their thoughts. But Chameleon Cameron is a stranger bird. With a man in search of a character the road to Conservative policy is a journey without maps.
And yet – and yet – just recently, in the rubble of our financial institutions (where it is not too early for some to speculate on the death-throes of capitalist decadence), has he found one? With his newfound seriousness could he have gone from hug-a-hoodie wetness to his very own metaphoric megaphonic climb-the-debris-and-hug-a-fireman moment?
Remember when Tony Blair really started to get into the war. To properly loose himself in the role. When his matey straight-guy stuff got supplemented with sub-Churchill grandiloquence. Well, all of a sudden the heir to Blair seems to have been taking the same hubris pills and has begun to strike statesmanly poses. Chameleon Cameron approaches a season of political party conferences like one might a state funeral. Poseur he may be, but reaching out pseudo-bipartisan hands to a plodding and doddering Gordon Brown is such astute political flimflam that when he slaps on a serious haircut and concernedly pursed lips one hardly notices that he admonishes D. Miliband for claiming there’s no such thing as society in the same speech as thanking heaven for Thatcher.
But, at this point, however dishonest the mockery – or perhaps the praise – one fears that the brute fact of D. Miliband might be enough. While Brown may have gravitas to spare there’s no doubt that Chameleon Cameron can out-solemnise the pretenders. When you add to that the specific fact that he looks more and more dignified every time D. Miliband shows his gurning phizog in public you can’t help fancying his chances.
It began with a friendly smile and as few policies as he could get away with – as long as nothing happens anything is possible. Like Our Man in Havana, he talked a good game, painted castles in the sky, but when you actually looked closely for the policies you saw that it was all really an elaborate vacuum. As with Noel Coward in the film adaptation, one found his style mildly amusing yet couldn’t but wonder whether he was at all capable of the seriousness the role demands.
In the old Tory days the heartless Thatcherites could swallow hard, close their eyes, tick the box, and think of England because they at least knew what they were getting. There was something secure in its vulgarity. You could appeal to them as you could to an English policeman, because you knew their thoughts. But Chameleon Cameron is a stranger bird. With a man in search of a character the road to Conservative policy is a journey without maps.
And yet – and yet – just recently, in the rubble of our financial institutions (where it is not too early for some to speculate on the death-throes of capitalist decadence), has he found one? With his newfound seriousness could he have gone from hug-a-hoodie wetness to his very own metaphoric megaphonic climb-the-debris-and-hug-a-fireman moment?
Remember when Tony Blair really started to get into the war. To properly loose himself in the role. When his matey straight-guy stuff got supplemented with sub-Churchill grandiloquence. Well, all of a sudden the heir to Blair seems to have been taking the same hubris pills and has begun to strike statesmanly poses. Chameleon Cameron approaches a season of political party conferences like one might a state funeral. Poseur he may be, but reaching out pseudo-bipartisan hands to a plodding and doddering Gordon Brown is such astute political flimflam that when he slaps on a serious haircut and concernedly pursed lips one hardly notices that he admonishes D. Miliband for claiming there’s no such thing as society in the same speech as thanking heaven for Thatcher.
But, at this point, however dishonest the mockery – or perhaps the praise – one fears that the brute fact of D. Miliband might be enough. While Brown may have gravitas to spare there’s no doubt that Chameleon Cameron can out-solemnise the pretenders. When you add to that the specific fact that he looks more and more dignified every time D. Miliband shows his gurning phizog in public you can’t help fancying his chances.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Facing Them Down: head-on or roundabout?
Two weeks, two political party conferences, two leaders' speeches. The Liberals’ watery tax and loose end waffling and wandering left it to Labour to raise the bar by standing still and speaking the common sense of our age.
A week ago, Nick Clegg, already lacking gravitas, had abandoned the dignity of the lectern to waltz the podium. If you think it didn’t look absurd that’s down, quite literally, to media spin – the pan and tilt of the camera, hovering over him, always close enough so we can’t quite see the edge of the stage and that he’s got nowhere to go. Watching on TV we could entertain the idea that he might be moving toward something instead of plodding aimlessly, an illusion his speech mirrored rather less effectively.
To get an idea of how much of this is for the camera’s benefit (short of actually going to one of these things), picture it stripped down: no big screen backdrop, no mood lighting; a small stage in a dark room in a village school. In fact, imagine your own last school assembly. The headmaster is wishing a fond farewell after your GCSEs and best of luck to you in the big old world out there.
Now imagine him doing that while turning in circles looking like he’s dropped his keys. Do you think, “Wow! The talk and the walk! He’s got my vote”, or, “Always seemed like a nice chap, but why’s he prancing about like that?”
Watching Gordon Brown is quite different and it occurs to me that headmaster isn’t quite the right metaphor for the new breed of downstage ramblers. For Brown, maybe. But for all these young lads who can’t stand still, head boy is more like it. And with D. Miliband even that’s a stretch. He’s not a wanderer; he’s a fidget. That wide-eyed wonder, that naive arrogance, the clumsily presumptuous political manoeuvring of the most childlike forty-odd-year-old in politics make him a third former. A geeky one. Perhaps he’s the ‘Harry Potter’ Brown was referring to and that odd jokey bit was sending a message to his heir apparent. The “no time for a novice” bit surely was: that the sorcerer’s Blairite apprentice should keep his flapping Mickey Mouse ears to the ground and his bootlicking mouth shut.
A week ago, Nick Clegg, already lacking gravitas, had abandoned the dignity of the lectern to waltz the podium. If you think it didn’t look absurd that’s down, quite literally, to media spin – the pan and tilt of the camera, hovering over him, always close enough so we can’t quite see the edge of the stage and that he’s got nowhere to go. Watching on TV we could entertain the idea that he might be moving toward something instead of plodding aimlessly, an illusion his speech mirrored rather less effectively.
To get an idea of how much of this is for the camera’s benefit (short of actually going to one of these things), picture it stripped down: no big screen backdrop, no mood lighting; a small stage in a dark room in a village school. In fact, imagine your own last school assembly. The headmaster is wishing a fond farewell after your GCSEs and best of luck to you in the big old world out there.
Now imagine him doing that while turning in circles looking like he’s dropped his keys. Do you think, “Wow! The talk and the walk! He’s got my vote”, or, “Always seemed like a nice chap, but why’s he prancing about like that?”
Watching Gordon Brown is quite different and it occurs to me that headmaster isn’t quite the right metaphor for the new breed of downstage ramblers. For Brown, maybe. But for all these young lads who can’t stand still, head boy is more like it. And with D. Miliband even that’s a stretch. He’s not a wanderer; he’s a fidget. That wide-eyed wonder, that naive arrogance, the clumsily presumptuous political manoeuvring of the most childlike forty-odd-year-old in politics make him a third former. A geeky one. Perhaps he’s the ‘Harry Potter’ Brown was referring to and that odd jokey bit was sending a message to his heir apparent. The “no time for a novice” bit surely was: that the sorcerer’s Blairite apprentice should keep his flapping Mickey Mouse ears to the ground and his bootlicking mouth shut.
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