Rory Bremner is in 'Strictly Come Dancing' because no one will lead
Rory Bremner is in 'Strictly Come Dancing' because no one will lead - Telegraph
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The iceberg is in plainer sight by the day, and as the SS Titanic formerly known as the global economy sails serenely towards it, it is to Brucie’s ballroom that we turn for succour. And there, tonight, a-swirling and a-twirling with his dance partner, Erin Boag, will be one of the finest satirists this country has produced.
Anyone seeking a handy metaphor for the peculiar death of British politics, or more precisely the peculiar coma from which it must emerge, should study Bryony Gordon’s interview with Rory Bremner in yesterday’s "Daily Telegraph". “Heartbreaking” was how Bryony chose to describe Bremner’s participation in "Strictly Come Dancing", and heartbreaking it is. At this apparent turning point in the tide of human affairs, with free market capitalism on its knees and the potential consequences of the gathering storm literally beyond imagining, Bremner is reduced to hoofing for a little airtime.
That is meant to denigrate neither him nor the show. I love "Strictly" as much as the next Saturday night couch potato, and I commend him on an act of immense personal courage in signing up. If he absent-mindedly lapses into his immaculate John Major even for a moment, Edwina Currie might well rip his clothes off – and on their worst enemy would nobody wish that.
However, as Bremner made clear in the interview, it is also an act of necessity because Channel 4, on which he regularly appeared for nearly 20 years, no longer wants him. He offered this persuasive reason for his enforced retirement as a satirical impressionist: “If I did a brilliant George Osborne now, it would be like showing a dog a card trick. It’s the same with David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, Nick Clegg … People don’t really recognise their voices.”
Even if that sounds a touch Norma Desmond – it isn’t me who got small, Mr De Mille, it’s the politicians – he makes a good point, and raises a better question. In economic times compellingly likened to the cusp of world war (it had a certain resonance when Bremner reported a "Strictly" colleague consoling him with “It’ll all be over by Christmas”), how come so few people even recognise our leaders? Why does the most vibrant expression of British democracy today come by way of voting for Bremner and his mates on "Strictly", or the "X Factor" wannabes over on ITV1? Is it pure escapism – a feeble, sanitised version of "Last Days of Pompeii" decadence for those not given to attending orgies – or evidence of the terminal failure of politics itself?
Vast theses could be written about the Olympian paradox whereby public interest in politics lies in inverse proportion to the magnitude of the political moment. After all, in the rather less melodramatic era when Bremner was making his name, fascination with politicians gave "Spitting Image" colossal ratings late on Sunday nights.
A quarter of a century later, the satirists are as good as ever, and Bremner – who, like the flourishing "Private Eye", recently turned 50 – remains a major talent. Yet the only way he can get on the telly is to do his impression of Mike Yarwood, back in the days when 20 million tuned in for a snatch of Harold Wilson’s pipe and Ted Heath’s shoulders, closing a show with “And this is me!”
Palpably, our politicians have shrunk. They, like our town centres, have become utterly homogenised. All these forty-somethings have the same academic and career history (a first in PPE; special adviser; and so on), the same friends, clothes, tastes and outlooks, regardless of party allegiance. Who cares which clone gave which identically vacuous, virtually interchangeable conference speech?
But the apathy that has exiled Bremner to "Strictly" is due as much as anything to the growing realisation that politicians count for so little. We have observed their bemused impotence in the face of computer algorithms shuffling tens of billions through cyberspace to enrich casino bankers, in much the way we watched the London police reduced to bored observers while our young folk helped themselves to trainers (notwithstanding the Met’s muscular response the following day). Even those who cannot tell Theresa May from Kenneth Clarke – and after a tumbler or two, it can be confusing – have an osmotic understanding that what our masters say about the financial crisis has not the vaguest connection with their ability to prevent or contain it.
The public may not know who Sir Mervyn King is, let alone that his second round of quantitative easing effectively reverses the Chancellor’s long-stated policy. But they sense that George Osborne is as bamboozled by the scope of this disaster as everybody else across the globe.
The day may soon dawn when monstrous challenges make our politicians relevant and fascinating again, and perhaps then Channel 4 will call Rory Bremner about a long overdue return. But for now he must dance, because the public is incomparably more intrigued by celebrity hoofing than the satirising of a conference season which threw the failure of politics into the sharpest relief.
Facing Sir Mervyn’s idea of the worst financial crisis ever, all our senior governing party could find to excite it was a household pet. What would be the point in asking after their plans for the day the cashpoints run dry when, as Basil Fawlty once put it of Manuel, you might as well ask the cat?
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True story. If some random person intrduced themselves to you as the Minister for Agriculture (do we still have on of those?) would you know whether he was telling the truth? I wouldn't. It took me months to work out that Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and David Miliband weren't the same person.
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