Slogans
Connoisseurs of political slogans will have more than their fill during the long, wearying months leading up to the next general election. When it is all over they may well need a period of abstinence, to recover from gorging themselves on the concentrated nonsense poured forth from the fertile minds of the slogan-composers.
Labour and the Liberals, as the parties out of power, will be hoping the voters will fall for an appeal to a brighter future. The Liberal Democrats have already settled on Changing Britain For Good and in the last election Labour went down to defeat when the voters did not accept their invitation to Meet The Challenge—Make the Change. On the other hand the Tories will be trying to scare us with the prospect of a Labour government wrecking the prosperity they have so carefully organised on our behalf, as they did in 1959 with Life’s Better Under the Conservatives, Don’t Let Labour Ruin It and at the last election when they warned us Britain Is Great Again— Don’t Let Labour Wreck It. This last kind of slogan may not appeal to the unemployed, the homeless or social security claimants fretting over their meagre benefits but never mind.
Patriotism will certainly feature in the slogans for nothing goes down better with the voters than stimulating their pride in this grand old, polluted, crime- ridden, poverty-stricken country of ours. In 1950 the Labour Party, which was once thought to be internationalist, assured the voters that Labour Believes in Britain; in 1959 they startled the propertyless working class with Britain Belongs To You (it didn’t then and it doesn’t now) and in 1974 Britain Will Win With Labour which by 1987 had been slashed to Britain Will Win. Of course the Tories are not to be left out when it comes to patriotism; in 1974 they promised Firm Action For A Fair Britain and later that year Putting Britain First.
It is unlikely that any of the 1992 slogans will be more memorable than Labour’s battle cry of 1945—Let Us Face the Future, which was not so much an encouragement to look ahead as to divert attention from the embarrassments of their past. In 1970 the Tories under Ted Heath promised Action Not Words, by which they did not mean the kind of government policies which brought about the futile struggle with the miners and the inertia of the three-day week.
But this is all good clean fun and it keeps the advertising and media people happily busy. The people who should worry are those in the sloganeers’ sights, whose intelligence is so grievously insulted by their being the target of so much rubbish but who react in the only way the politicians understand—with their votes.
The voters will doubtless make their choice, either way, for callous Kinnock or malevolent Major. After the election everyone—or almost everyone—will be convinced that by choosing one or the other they have done something significant.
In fact whoever is in charge of capitalism, and whatever their personality, it makes no difference to how the system operates nor to its effect on its people. To change the world in any fundamental and permanent way we need to dispense with leaders and instead to rely on ourselves and our ability to run the world in our own interests.
Between the Lines
Watching Margaret Thatcher being cheered ecstatically—a six minute orgasmic ovation by the assembled Tories, to be precise—was an unnerving experience. I had watched leaders being wildly cheered for saying absolutely nothing on previous occasions, but in those eases their lips were clearly moving and audible world-like phrases were being emitted. Watching the Thatcher silence on BBCl’s Conservative Party conference coverage (Tuesday, 8 October, 2pm) offered a short flash of what it might have been like to have seen Stalin sit at an opera and have all the party hacks watch him suck his toffees while the performers sang to themselves. Mind you, with John Major as the Tory Pavarotti, watching Thatcher suck a mouth ulcer would be exciting alternative viewing.
At the event advertised as a Labour Party conference—in fact, a stage show for viewers with votes but no thoughts—the assembled players sang "We Are The Champions of the World" (BBC2, 4 October, 4pm). These lyrics were more Hitler than Stalin; the song by Queen, who play to chanting mobs in football stadiums, was one of the more embarrassing pieces of political indignity that Labour has stooped to in its bid to convince the electorate that it is harmless and toothless. In this respect, Roy Hattersley sang particularly well, winning second prize in the contest for the most foolish singing performance of the week. First prize must go to Kinnock for his leading part in this year’s Gang Show when he led a hall-full of pathetic-looking Labourites in a pathetic-sounding rendition of "We Shall overcome—Some Day". Kinnock neglected to sing the obscure fifteenth verse of this hymn which adds that unless "we" overcome next time round, i. e. the next election, there will be endless daggers heading for the back of the smiling leader. But that was what everyone was thinking as they underwent this humiliating televisual ritual.
By contrast, there was something quite cute about Eugène Terre Blanche, the Leader of the South African AWB. Nick Broomfield’s superb documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver’s Wife (C4, Monday 7 October, 10,30pm) did not waste its time on the easy job of highlighting the foulness of the racist ruffians of this little outfit. Instead, the programme concentrated on the silliness of the AWB Leader (known to his followers as The Leader) and the sad way in which workers like The Leader’s driver JP and his soppy wife Anita were taken in by Terre Blanche’s amateur dramatic bid to become the new Boer Fuhrer. Terre Blanche showed himself to be a boorish Boer: arrogant, thuggish and with the kind of delusions of grandeur which makes some people imagine that they alone will determine the outcome of history. Hitler was never interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and exposed as a dopey little twit (there was no Newsnight in those days, but only Charlie Chaplin who carried out the same mission in The Great Dictator), but Terre Blanche was interviewed by Broomfield; it was like a smiling cat "interviewing" a mouse with a low IQ.
Terre Blanche claims to represent "the master race"; Kinnock claims to be a "democratic socialist" (what exactly is an undemocratic socialist? A non-socialist); and Major claims to stand for a "classless society". They are each as big liars as the next one. The Socialist Party is hostile to the lot of them.
Ivan
Blogger's Note:
In the original Standard this column was actually unsigned but Caught In The Act was Ivan's (Ralph Critchfield's) column, so I presume it was just a mistake at the printers that month. It happens.
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