The Professional Dickhead Richard Madeley (Dick by name, Dick by nature) wrote a column for the Daily Express this weekend. In it, the rampant Tory bemoaned the way that Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party has politically enfranchised a great number of young voters and advising them that they would do well to take heed his personal memories of the Callaghan government of the late 1970s. Yup, the hoary old line of 'rubbish piled up in the streets' and 'not being able to bury the dead' was wheeled out by the real Alan Partridge.
"This week, chatting to a group of 30-somethings," Madeley writes "I described what the Winter of Discontent was actually like if you were there (I was 23). Endless power cuts, freezing evenings spent by guttering candlelight or evil-smelling paraffin lamps; no fire service (the lads were on strike); no funerals (so were the gravediggers); rubbish piling above head height (what we used to call the dustmen were all out too)"
This was all the result of an out of touch, weak Jim Callaghan, Dick attests, who was on 'a jolly' in the West Indies when it all kicked off and came back seemingly oblivous to the situation or how to decisively end it. Hmm. Calling the Guadeloupe Conference, where the world's biggest leaders discussed topical and pressing subjects of the day, 'a jolly' is a pretty odd thing to do if you wish these days to be taken seriously as a political journo, Dick.
But it seems Dick Madeley's advice to his wholly fictitious young audience was falling on deaf ears.
""But don't you see - this is what will happen if Corbyn wins," I said. "He's a Marxist! He says he wouldn't even press the button! He doesn't understand the basic principles of detterrence!" Reader, I'm not sure they even knew what Marxism is - and as for "the button"..."
The Professional Dickhead Richard Madeley, it seems, knows all about 'the button'. Because, prior to this, his article pontificates at length about what it was like to grow up and come of age during the Cold War. However, what I personally took from this is that the BBC4's recent, excellent Cold War season had been on TV at Chez Madeleys.
And reader (I mean, seriously?) it's clearly Madeley who doesn't know what Marxism is if he thinks that Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist.
Perhaps Dick should have done some reading and listening during the Winter of Discontent. He might know then that the industrial action of which he speaks came as a direct result of Callaghan's government reneging on the promise of reforms previously made to the TUC. Now, that doesn't sound like a very Marxist from Callaghan's Labour does it? So, if by his logic Corbyn is a Marxist, why would that happen again on his watch? He also doesn't seem to realise that much of the industrial action was actually against Tory led councils, for example the binmen strike was against Westminster Council, whilst the dead were left unburied in Liverpool, whose county council was controlled by Conservative.
Dear old Dickie also seems rather confused in his memories. Bless. Old age does that I guess. But the fire brigade (or 'the lads' as he condescendingly calls them) were actually on strike for nine weeks at the end of 1977. They actually returned to work in January '78, when the Winter of Discontent commenced.
Perhaps he should have used his valuable long memory and cast further back in time, to the first Winter of Discontent, the one that occurred under Tory Ted Heath's government that led to a three day week and victory for the miners. Actually, maybe I am being unfair because he seems to have done this a little bit, as his reminiscences seem like a fudge of both time periods. Where there even power cuts during Callaghan's Winter of Discontent? There certainly were during Heath's. Perhaps someone with a more reliable memory could give me a definitive answer on that one. No, I'm not looking at you Dick.
Then again, maybe Madeley could have considered a more recent memory, such as Blair's Labour government. He could have told his imaginary 30-something pals all about the tremendous, progressive achievements made in the late 1990s, such as the creation of the Sure Start scheme which gave our children, and our country's future, the very best start in life - something that Corbyn has pledged to bring back after the Tories spitefully closed it down. Or maybe he should just consider the present; a time of breaking-point NHS, of food banks and homelessness and disabled people dying because of inadequate benefits, and of working families unable to make ends meet because the cost of living has soared whilst wages have stagnated for a decade.
In conclusion, the Professional Dickhead Richard Madeley thinks the late 1970s were bad? Clearly the realities of the present day do not reach his ivory tower. Or maybe him and his wife are just too pissed to notice most evenings?
The European Elections are held across the country today. It's not a General Election no, but its still very very important. Please take the time to cast your vote. People fought for your right to vote. Some died for your right to vote. And some, even in this day and age, still do not have that right in many corners of the world. So please, use that right and use it wisely.
And just to keep it retro
In other news, last night I was performing on stage in a political satire about the coalition govt (by way of Peter Pan!) set up by Collective Encounters and Other Ways of Telling, a performing arts group for the improvement of health and social wellbeing. It was great fun and a wonderful opportunity to volunteer my services too - though after three nights of seemingly endless rehearsals plus the actual show itself, I'm fair knackered now!
As I mentioned yesterday, this week marked the end of the run of BBC4 biopic dramas, thanks to cruel austerity measures. Their final installment was a rather enjoyable look at Burton and Taylor, starring Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter.
With that in mind I've returned to one of the more unusual additions in the biopic series. Unusual because, even now I'm still not sure what to make of it and neither do I suspect did the production itself. I'm talking of the young Margaret Thatcher biopic from 2008, The Long Walk To Finchley.
Ostensibly Niall McCormick's film from a script by Tony Saint is based on the early political career of Thatcher, starting when she was plain Margaret Roberts, Conservative candidate for Dartford in 1949. Plain could not be a word used to describe Andrea Riseborough who depicts Margaret here. In short, this vivacious, beautiful young actress and future national treasure is nothing like Margaret Thatcher. As one reviewer in the press noted at the time, her casting is 'ludicrously flattering' Thatcher.
Indeed, her beauty and natural charisma is something of a stumbling block at first as Thatcher had neither the latter - not for this left winger anyway - nor the former, unless of course you were Alan Clark MP. But the gift Riseborough possesses means that gradually, thanks to canny mimicry and astute judges in both performance and what the script requires, she becomes Thatcher, or the impression we have of her at least. The scene near the end where she gives Geoffrey Palmer's Sir John Crowder both barrels before her speech that wins her the '59 election is totally Thatcher, and up there with any depiction of her.
It's the script that's the key. Clearly there's tomfoolery at work. This isn't supposed to be a straight reverential biopic of the early political and private life of Thatcher (though it does hit its marks) instead it's a production with its largely tongue in cheek. The subtitle to the film 'How Margaret Might Have Done It' perhaps gives the viewer something of a clue to its aims; it's almost as if this is a fantastical depiction of her walk to glory, fictionalising how she gained her speaking style and placing drama between her and Ted Heath, as well presenting her as a flirtatious vibrant young woman to cheer on and empathise with. But there are still genuine facts in this film; Thatcher did stand at Dartford and later Finchley and she did come up against chauvinism, which leaves the film and the viewer aware how inherently ludicrous tackling the facts in such a heightened 'just for laughs' manner it actually is.
There's many a wry and sly one liner to be had at Thatcher, and her families, expense; an incensed young Margaret declares her intention of providing free milk for children if she were in power (at odds with the decision she did take which saw her become known forever more as Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher) whilst her daughter Carol is asked as a child would she ever go to the jungle, and Mark fares no better getting lost in the sand dunes on a family holiday - references to Carol's participation in I'm A Celebrity and Mark's mishap in the Dakur Rally respectively. It's as if Saint has sourced an event and then worked his way backwards to make a joke out of it, and indeed much of the humour is on a level with broad satire and with innuendo at the level of a middling creaky 70s sitcom. Which begs the question, what exactly does the film think it is - biopic (even with its tongue in cheek) or out and out comedy? I'm not convinced it totally knows and in straddling both stools ultimately falls. Should it have been better if they went the whole hog and did a Comic Strip Presents in the manner that that excellent series of comedy films did Strike! the Arthur Scargill spoof?
It is perhaps only Riseborough, and her strong support from Rory Kinnear (currently appearing in the hilarious Count Arthur Strong - funniest thing on TV right now - and strongly mooted, though equally strongly denied by him, to be the next Doctor Who) as Denis and Samuel West (a Doctor Who fan in real life who would love to be the next Doctor!) as a deeply buttoned up Ted Heath that makes this flippant piece really worth seeking out.
