Robin Brown

There’s been something awful about this election, beyond the stuff that’s usually awful about elections.

Alongside how utterly hopeless the media at large have been in actually reporting the issues – as opposed to some things David Cameron has said, some suits Nick Clegg has worn and some mistakes Gordon Brown has made – there’s been the most naked display of vested interests for nearly 20 years.

The likes of The Mail and The Express adopt frothingly bigoted political lines because it’s what helps them sell papers, and it reflects the unpleasant ideologies of their respective owners.

The Torygraph backs the Conservatives because it’s read mainly by retired Brigadiers who remember the Boer War. The Star… well, who gives a flying one what the Star thinks eh?

As for The Sun and The Times, well, they back whoever proprietor Rupert Murdoch tells them to back, based on various deals with whichever party he reckons will win the election and deliver the goods.

This time around it’s barely even a secret that Murdoch, or rather his son James, wants to open a new front against the BBC, and has promised David Cameron his backing in exchange for crippling the Beeb.

The Sun always makes a big deal of wanting to look like its support is the deciding factor in an election campaign, but in reality Murdoch backs whoever he calculates is most likely to win.

In years gone by, back to 1997 and throughout the 80s, this was fairly easy to predict. The only recent blip was 1992, where the Sun pulled out all of the stops to virtually suggest that Neil Kinnock was insane.

‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It,’ gloated the Scum, so we know who to thanks for the following five years of the dross from John Major’s crumbling government.

’92 is an election regularly debated by students of psephology – a smart word for voting behaviour – because all the polls suggested that Labour would win. Could it have been the rabidly hostile Tory press than won it for Major? Tough to say, but I’ve never been in doubt as to the potential power of the media in politics.

One need only look at the last 18 months of absolute slating Gordon Brown – like Major, a decent man – has endured from the Sun, Mail and Telegraph; the results of which are that most people in the country now despise him without actually knowing why.

Anyway, 2010 should provide another clue as to the power of the media in elections because, having backed Cameron, the Murdoch press now faces the possibility of their man not actually winning. What will that do for the Sun’s habit of picking a winner? Or Murdoch’s latest ambitions?

The palpable desperation emanating from the front pages of the Sun recently has been almost pitiful, culminating in today’s risible front cover where Simon F’in Cowell appears to give his support to Cameron.

Delve inside the paper (if you can bear to) and you’ll find article after article telling us how much Sun readers love Cameron, and how a hung parliament will mean that Britain will fall into a volcano. Except, that’s not what Sun readers voting in polls on the online version have been saying.

Malcolm Coles has shown as much with some number-crunching on Sun polls, which show that its readers believe that Clegg won the third debate; Sun readers aren’t fussed about a hung parliament; and that a poll apparently showing Mums to be swinging behind Cameron shows nothing of the sort.

The Sun has gone into Cameron overdrive, barely stopping short of suggesting that WebCameron’s cock is bigger than Brown’s and Clegg’s put together, and offering a kind of non-stop tabloid blowjob to the Photoshopped Tory leader.

The rise of Clegg has also sent shivers down the spine at News International, so a full-scale assault was subsequently launched on the Lib Dems.

Unlike the US, where Fox News is basically a propaganda arm for the lunatic US right wing, the UK broadcast media is bound by strict rules of impartiality. Bad news for Murdoch Junior, who wants to extend Sky into a kind of Death Star of the media.

But this election campaign has brought the first whispers that Sky’s news coverage has not appeared to be quite as straight down the line as it should. And David Cameron has appeared to suggest that broadcasting regulations may need an overhaul. What can it all mean?

People have told me that Murdoch Senior is actually fairly left-of-centre, as far as his personal politics are concerned. What’s more he’s fairly friendly with Brown, and hit it off big style with Tony.

But Murdoch doesn’t let politics get in the way of business, and having been persuaded by son James to back Cameron, has had to throw the combined News International weight behind Cameron and the Tories.

What will happen? For the first time since 1992 I have no idea, as far as the election goes. As for the press, it’s been fascinating to see the Sun frantically attempting to shore up its man, knowing that its reputation is at stake. Indeed, the FT suggests that the Sun’s backing for Cameron has had the opposite effect.

A defeat for Cameron may mean that the rise of multimedia and the web has neutered the power of the papers in this regard, and with it the power of print media barons.

A win could open up a new front in partisan media, via Sky News and the humbling of the BBC, because Murdoch’s help won’t come without strings. Then, maybe, it won’t be the Sun wot wins it in the future, but the Sky.

I’ve watched all of the coverage in this general election through my fingers, as the whole thing is beyond cringe-worthy.

I mean this in several ways: David Cameron’s smug face; the media annihilation of Brown; the ghastly media commentators; the desperation of the Murdoch press in making sure their man gets in; and the self-congratulatory tone of the whole thing when the media thinks it’s done something clever like catching Brown out in an off-guarded moment today where he referred to a woman as ‘bigoted’.

It’s changed the whole tone and focus of the election into even more of a menagerie than it has been previously, with the pantomime of the TV debates and the absurd merry-go-round of opinion polls and predictions and tiresome echo chamber chatter that generates heat and no light whatsoever.

In an election campaign where there’s a crippling deficit caused by a near-depression hanging over the whole business, the dominating impressions will all be Brown’s gaffe, Clegg’s ascension and celebrity endorsements.

Today has been taken up with a million tedious Twitter updates tagged with #bigotgate; multi-spectral analysis of the audio clip from Brown’s car; political correspondents’ boring takes; shit advice from PRs and crisis management wonks trying desperately to sound like they have something important to say; and pompous, nay patronising, pieces on the great unwashed of the North.

The truth is, what Gillian Duffy had to say about immigrants was ill-informed and could be judged as bigoted. Another truth is, Brown made an off-the-cuff remark in the privacy of his car. Who’d've thunk? Politicians, like real people, say one thing in public and another in private.

A silly thing to say then, but one which will be a defining moment of the election campaign – if we believe what the media are telling us. This is not news; it’s what the TV, papers and websites are telling us is news. I expect we’ll hear all sort of things about how this was the moment the election exploded into life now, but that’s really total bollocks.

It’s the moment the story of election has exploded into life, because the three main political parties have been playing a relatively straight bat and talking about boring things like National Insurance. The media has had little to get its teeth into, and the Murdoch media has been ignoring the Lib Dems completely.

A hung parliament has been a hard sell from the point of view of a news editor, a political correspondent or a pundit. But it doesn’t really get any better than Brown attacking an old woman, with a side serving of immigration angst.

What opinion polls should be asking people in the UK at the moment is not ‘who will you vote for?’ or ‘Will Gordon Brown be the death of us all?’ or ‘Do you like Nick Clegg’s wife?’ – it should be ‘Have you really got the first fucking idea about politics?’

Because from where I’m standing this is the stupidest election I can remember. And when you look at the blank faces; the mumbling about immigration or the need for ‘change’; the despicable ‘Broken Britain’ refrain; or the witless scorn of poor, hapless Gordon Brown for his awkwardness and gaffes, don’t blame the people. Don’t even blame the politicians. Blame the media.

We’ll always have Murdoch and his papers that swing behind whoever has thrown the old tyrant a juicier bone; we’ll always have vested interests and ideologues and iconoclasts urging us to swing one way or the other.

The real culprit is the media as a whole, an entity that has lost sight of any idea of how to report politics without some kind of populist framing device; how to inform and educate without trying to entertain; how to report politics, fundamentally.

Watching this campaign has been like watching some sort of Chris Morris work of art. 15 years after The Day Today we finally have rolling news telling us absolutely fuck all, the silly graphics and the news networks setting their own empty agendas.

It’s politics repackaged as a ghastly reality TV show, never mind for the MTV generation, this is for the BBC3 and E4 and Sky One generation. It’s the election where the news just gave up and went to watch Glee, safe in the knowledge that people aren’t really that interested in deficits anyway.

Bill Clinton had a popular slogan in the 1992 Presidential election, designed to keep the issues forefront in the minds of voters; “Its the economy, stupid!”

2010? It’s the stupid, stupid.

After the rollercoaster thrill ride of three men disagreeing with each other and an off-camera man occasionally shouting, I’ve compiled this exhaustive list of newspaper and website coverage taking place both during the debate and over the next 24 hours.

• Debate clearly won by Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg

• Tiresome analysis of clothes worn by three candidates

• Article on Richard Nixon / JFK Presidential debate

• Infographic making inexplicable use of shapes in three primary colours

• Daily Mail picture of Gordon Brown looking sweaty

• Analysis of various ‘blunders’ by three party leaders

• Composite images of three leaders with mouths open

• Tiresome ‘Have Your Say’ section with numbingly tedious and/or ill-informed user-generated content

• Hopelessly unfunny sketch by Simon Hoggart/Rod Liddle/Amanda Platell

• Shit Sun mock-up of Gordon Brown looking like Compo from Last of the Summer Wine

• Dull profile of Alistair Stewart

• Live blog from short-straw reporter in pub in Hartlepool

• Millions of links to Twitter feeds churning out pointless quotes

• C4 blog by Jon Snow’s tie on what Brown, Cameron and Clegg were drinking backstage

• Swing-o-meter-style mock-up based on how many times each man says ‘change’.

• Live panel quizzed throughout debate consisting of white-van driving racist, muesli-eating hippie and boring middle-aged woman

• Plaintive whinge from Alex Salmond, live from reactor building in Dounreay

Now with added Clegg!

It’s a week later, and I deliberately spent the night cycling, editing photos and watching cricket. Anything really to avoid the dreaded leader’s debate and the ensuing media volcanic ash torrent of drivel. If you did too, here’s what you missed.

• Lots of articles and reports about end of two-party hegemony

• Right-wing press fall in line to paint Clegg as nutter/shirker/gay/gyppo/foreigner-loving liberal who is, quite possibly, a maniac

• Some of the broadcast media inexplicably start reporting rumours they’ve heard about Nick Clegg from hostile briefings

• Someone from Keane backs Nick Clegg

• Lib Dem supporters wonder how much further ahead they’d be with Charles Kennedy

• DPS Observer interview with Vince Cable called ‘The man who would be King’, trailed with front page lead headlined ‘Cable to bring City to heel’

• Marina Hyde writes shit sketch about how she fancies Vince Cable. Called The Cable Guy.

• Sue Malone writes poisonous article about Miriam González Durántez’s wardrobe

• Scratchy radio interview with Paddy Ashdown, saying how great Clegg is, and what a bastard Tony Blair is

• The Sun mocks up a shit photo of Nick Clegg heading down a hill in a tin bath.

I tend to watch Question Time after a few pints down the pub, as I suspect most do.

I’ve started to wonder, recently, whether the programme is actually pitched at a demographic of half-pissed pub goers who may happen to come across BBC1′s flagship discussion programme while channel hopping.

The reason why is there’s been a steady flow of genuinely awful pantomime dames and villains on recently on QT, who make it genuinely hard to watch.

There’s always been a wild card element to the QT panel – an Ian Hislop here or a Mark Steel there – but recently we’ve had Nick Griffin, Carol Vorderman, Kelvin Mackenzie and David Starkey, all so odious that I’ve not been able to sit through it for more than ten minutes.

I generally head over to Twitter to see if it’s just me going stark raving bonkers, but the Twittersphere seems to be in agreement (although that’s a demographic that, in all likelihood, is pretty similar to my own).

While Starkey is a renowned historian, he’s also a renowned nutcase but I can see the logic in getting him on. But Mackenzie? He’s just a fat horrible twat. And Vorderman? A celebrity debt-pushing adder upper? And that’s before I get to Griffin. Who’s next? Eugene Terre’Blanche?

I’m putting this down to the desire for an outspoken right-wing professional splutterrer to articulate the voice of the fabled common man, but really it just makes the whole thing unwatchable.

Seeing politicians trying to score points off one another is one thing. Seeing the latest right-wing rent-a-gob frothing, ranting and generally being oafish just exposes the pointlessness of the whole thing, especially with the increasingly fogeyish Dimbleby failing to preside over the whole sorry mess.

Below are my favourite Starkey reactions from Twitter, where the pompous old hobbit briefly became a trending topic earlier tonight. Keep a look out for Jim Davidson this time next week.

My favourite David Starkey reactions
 on Twitter

@jonboy79 [David Starkey has] spent so long studying the lives of pompous priggish royals that he has become one, by some sort of historical osmosis


@heppy: If David Starkey didn’t exist he’d have been invented by The League Of Gentlemen

@NinaGleams: RT @zofiewonkenobi David Starkey looks like an evil doormouse


@marcusbrig David Starkey is so utterly vile that I feel weepy, tired and unwell everytime he speaks


@Bethemediauk David Starkey is a pompous, overbearing, stuck up old tosspot. Which overshadow the rare ocassions when he actually has a point


@DCPlod It’s not just America that has crazy conservatives: David Starkey on BBC Question Time said 25% of British children are feral
 


@samdbarratt David Starkey is properly bonkers, too much. Next week a panel of Farrage, K McKenzie and Street-Porter? 
 


@Ruaridhnicoll Could David Starkey look any more like a Hogarthian nightmare? I can smell the corruption from here




@Scalded_Bollock I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say David Starkey is absolutely batshit.
 


@Drattigan Hello. My name is David Starkey, the Toad of Toad Hall
 


@dooobeee David Starkey, YOU ARE NOT AN ECONOMIST! listen to the 60 leading economists and IMF! 



@Julie4GS: David Starkey needs to be catapulted back into the seventeenth century where he belongs. Shut up you antiquated old


@Joemuggs Is David Starkey a ludicrous, clumsy prank designed to discredit Conservatism?

n.b. these represent a snapshot of about five minutes of tweeting. There was a whole hour to choose from.

There’s unreasoning hate and there’s reasoning hate. I have an unreasoning hatred of lots of people, who are probably very nice people. If I ever met them I’d probably be nice to them

But there are a dozen reasons to genuinely hate Kevin Mackenzie, even if it’s just his horrible pudgy face.

I was reminded of this fact last night when watching Mackenzie’s love-in with Paxo and a couple of other media twonks.

Dawn Airey, as it goes, nearly hit on a good point, but the whole thing was overwhelmed by Mackenzie’s depressing luv-a-duck brand of obnoxious ‘straight talk’, which Paxman dutifully chuckled at.

If the whole thing moved the debate on the BBC’s modern role in a multi-platform media age I missed it, and after sitting through Mark Thompson’s execrable performance I was forced to endure this shouting gobshite trotting out his predictable News International line that we’re apparently supposed to think is funny.

Anyway, since I was on Twitter at the time I turned to the Omnipithium (i prefer Omnipithium to Twitterverse) to see what the consensus was.

Admittedly social media types are not largely representative of the general public, but in this case I’d largely like to believe that it was. I don’t think I’ve missed any out in the hour-or-so’s worth of comments, lest anyone accuse me of being selective.

What it shows is that there are genuine reasons to hate Kelvin, but you don’t really need one.

There aren’t a lot of right-wing comedians, and of those right-wing comedians I can think of very few that are funny.

It’s long been a source of debate as to why this is the case, but the last few weeks have, I believe, provided the answer.

The battle ground has been the MyDavidCameron posters spoofing Conservative Party posters that have variously displayed an uber-Photoshopped Cameron, a gravestone implying a £20K Labour death tax, and a number of demographic groups explaining why they’ll be voting blue this time around.

The spoofs were pretty funny, with some genuinely inspired political satire. Crucially, it was all rather gentle too – a spot of light-hearted rough and tumble at a time when political campaigning seems genuinely vicious.

It was a spot of typically British lampoonery, with Dave Cameron copping it for his smooth brow, well-to-do background or his silly soundbites, as well as some comment on Tory policy.

Labour had the sense to generally stay out of it, and social media and politicos with a touch of Photoshop skills did the rest (as an aside it’s also interesting to ponder the political make-up of social media and geeky types, but that’s another article).

Inevitably, the right starting coming out with its own versions. Only this time there were two crucial differences: the spoofs weren’t funny; and they were often plain nasty.

Among the hilarious efforts at the MyLabourPoster blog were pot shots at immigrants and those on welfare.

But almost every single one displayed a kind of grammatical, political or – more to the point – satirical illiteracy.

They’re clearly created by people with little understanding of politics, and no comprehension of comedy. And if they have been through an editorial filter, it’s a remarkably inept one.

Spite and bile are the key drivers behind the MyLabourPoster images, and they provide a valuable insight into how necessary the filter used by the My DavidCameron team was. They kept it sharp, funny and civil.

And raising the bar was a charming effort from an artist called Louis Sidoli, which mocked up Brown as Hitler.

Explaining his reasoning, Sidoli offered the following:

These images tell you all you need to know: ‘This is Gordon Brown – the facts are staring you in the face – vote for someone else’

So, there’s no double meaning, innuendo or twist in the tail here, what you see is what you get – Brown is like Hitler.

Proving he is no student of satire, history or politics, he goes on to explain:

Of course it is provocative, but if you think about it, there are strong similarities: Both started out as chancellors, both bullied their way to the top and seized power without being democratically elected, both tried to rig the electoral process, both prone to flying into uncontrollable rages and both caused huge economic damage to our country etc…

In another piece, called Psychologically Flawed, Brown gets the ‘satan treatment’:

[the] demonic lurid green face clashing with bright orange background, which hints that this person is truly diabolical! The red hand and cufflink symbolises the budget deficit / the red hand of socialism or ‘being in the red’.

Iain Dale defends the posters, with a rather pathetic ‘the Left did worse in the 80s’ line that echoes the way the Right in the US justify anything that’s beyond the pale, though he doesn’t even acknowledge that the posters are vague and unfunny, regardless of how offensive they are.

I genuinely don’t think those on the Right that have lauded the anti-Labour posters get this.

Their response has said far more about those backing the Conservative party than the MyDavidCameron images ever did.

I can’t image Cameron, doing his best to bury the image of the Tories as the nasty party, can think them helpful.

After the Conservatives’ own misfires with the tombstone-death-tax poster, the spoofs have raised some rather ugly truths about many who are anti-Labour.

The anti-Europe, anti-benefits, anti-immigration undertones to many are an ugly reminder of persistent elements of Conservative policy and the mindsets of certain supporters.

Moreover, it reveals how basic the thinking of those agents of the Right out in the web is on social media, engagement and, yes, humour.

Clifford Singer, behind the MyDavidCameron site and arguably an agent of Left, has devised a well-conceived and executed viral marketing strategy that is plainly successful in its reach and its impact.

It’s hard to see who the tory posters will appeal to, beyond people who already share the same views. That’s a massive social media, marketing and satire fail right there. I’d hazard a guess that they could even end up backfiring on the Right, so nasty are some of the examples.

Singer goes on to include a summary of the lessons learned from the experience and an explanation of the thinking behind the site.

Lesson Five is ‘Political satire is hard’. Indeed satire is hard, particularly if you don’t really understand what it is.

Fox comprehensively proved this a couple of years ago with its appalling and short-lived 1/2 Hour News Hour – billed as the Right’s answer to the likes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report.

Timing, an eye for the absurd, an understanding of the form and a knowledge of the audience are all required for the successful lampoon.

Which is why Singer is retiring MyDavidCameron before it gets tiresome or simply unfunny.

Because there’s nothing worse than an unfunny joke missing the mark. Just ask the Right.

• Full disclosure: Two of my own posters are on MyDavidCameron

This is my poster for the MyToryTombstone site that’s ripping the new Tory attack ad, a fairly distasteful and disingenuous effort that makes out that Labour will slap a £20K death tax on everyone who karks it.

That’s not really true, of course, and smacks rather of desperation to me – a return to the Demon Eyes school of political campaigning.

Anyway, here’s mine. It’s pretty rough and ready and the reference may be a bit obscure. WIth any luck they won’t swap my joke with a less funny one this time, assuming they do use it.

Truly has the world gone mad. What started off as quite an amusing aside relating to the unsightly stubble on Adrian Chiles’ face has turned into something of a media mini-storm, with the news that the Beeb has ordered Chiles to shave off his beard.

Bizarrely, famous beardies such as Noel Edmonds, David Blunkett and Justin Lee Collins have come out the woodwork to support the Brummie workaholic, who fronts The One Show, Match of the Day 2 and The Apprentice: You’re Fired.

What’s not clear is whether all of this is a bit of canny marketing or more evidence of a jittery BBC worrying about upsetting, well, anyone in a post-Sachsgate world.

Exactly what sort of problem sporting a beard poses is not especially clear to me, a beard-wearer for the best part of a decade. Telling a man his face au naturel is unsuitable for the workplace seems dangerously close to me to telling a woman to go home and put some make-up on, unless she wants a disciplinary.

But the fact that Chiles is rumoured to be in poll position to take over Jonathan Ross’ chat show, pretty much the strongest piece of showbiz real estate at the Big British Castle is interesting. It’s a good bit of exposure for Chiles at what could be a fairly crucial point in his career.

Chiles’ reaction to beardgate? “Women and many gay men have told me it looks good, so it’s staying.” Wonder what Christine thinks of it.

Stay or go? Vote in my poll!

Adrian Chiles seems be the word on everyone’s lips at the moment, with rumours abounding about his personal life and the MOTD2 and One Show frontman’s extraordinary facial hair pinging around the web.

Personally I like Chiles – even though he’s horribly overexposed and The One Show is beyond critical description – and have done ever since he made business news compelling viewing on Working Lunch about 15 years ago.

But his gingery, unkempt beard seems to have been the final straw for many people, who are busy voicing their displeasure on social networks across the land.

‘Tramp’ is the word that most frequently occurs in relation to the hirsute Chiles, and it’s probably the kindest. As a fellow beard-sporter I sympathise with him.

But as a human being I cannot help but recoil in horror at the reddish monstrosity nesting on his face. To my eyes he looks like an arctic explorer, lost and feral, forced to feed on the blubber from a whale carcass. What do you think?

Here’s some suggestions from around the web (the first three, and among the best, are from mates of mine) as to what the beardy Chiles looks like:

• Come on Chiles, have a shave. You look a mess, man. Far from the intended ‘rugged’, it’s more ‘hungover bear’.

• Flicked to MOTD2 during break in the snooker – aaaargh. Adrian Chiles has a beard. He looks like a homeless Henry VIII.

• Adrian Chiles’ beard makes him look like the violent alcoholic captain of a Victorian steamship.

• Adrian Chiles’ beard is ridiculous….is homeless? kipping on a mates couch? he looks like the leader of his own cult

• The unshaved look may be fashionable, but it still looks crap in orange on a chubby bloke

• Oh Adrian Chiles, with your big comforting face. It’s as if you have a massive battered old armchair instead of a head.

• Watching #MOTD2 wondering why Adrian Chiles has a beard? He looks like an obese bear grylls!!

• Adrian Chiles looks like he’s gone feral!

• I actually like Adrian Chiles, but he looks even more like a scrotum with that beard

• Also, #MotD2 appear to have dragged Adrian Chiles out of hibernation. WTF, dude? Don’t you wash before going on tv? Sheesh…

• I think Adrian Chiles has really got into #wallander – he’s looking more like Kurt every week

• Not at all sure about Adrian Chiles facial fuzz on #motd2 He looks like Oliver Reed in Castaway but without Amanda Donohoe in the nip.

• Adrian chiles beard on match of the day 2, what the fuck? Looks like a care bear sex offender.

• Adrian chiles’ beard makes him look like an ewok.

• Adrian chiles, sort your facial hair out, quite frankly, you look like a tit!

• Adrian Chiles’s head looks like a potato carved by an idiot.

UPDATE: Dave Quinn ups the ante:

• Adrian Chiles still has a beard. His head looks like a partly deflated volley ball that’s fallen into a Hoover bag.

UPDATE 2: Another!

• Is it just me, or is Adrian Chiles starting to look like a fat version of General Madine?

This is my entry for the David Cameron – Airbrushed for Change website, which has been busy adapting Conservative Party print and billboard ads that showed a somewhat digitally-enhanced Cameron. The spoofs picture Call-Me-Dave Cameron next to a series of doctored slogans unlikely to feature in official Tory Party ad campaigns.

A slew of spoofs have hit the web to mock Cameron and Tory party policy, though it all seems to be in good fooling. Gordon Brown certainly seemed to think so when he unexpectedly slaughtered Dave over the poster on PMQs.

Those with a spot of historical election knowledge will spot the reference in mine to Saatchi & Saatchi’s infamous Demon Eyes ad from 1997. It seemed appropriate to adapt that original Conservative attack ad in having a pop back at Dave.