Thursday, February 09, 2006
Simon: Think Before You Open Your Mouth
Simon Hughes for Leader? He’s got the most Parliamentary experience, he’s fluent and passionate, and he seems to have unbounded energy. He’s probably the best constituency MP in Britain. At his best, he’s the only candidate whose speeches have previously inspired me with his vision, and his credibility on the environment (perhaps the most important issue for us to make our own) is unrivalled. He’s committed to bringing in people who haven’t previously supported us. He’s the candidate I’ve seen most of over the years, and, personally, I like him. So what’s my problem with him? ‘Judgement’, in a word.
I’ve found this one much more difficult to write than the last, because I know and like Simon, rather than judging him coldly. So I’ve let myself be distracted by the splendid Technicolor plotting of The Prisoner of Zenda in the background, and it’s taken longer than I was expecting. Here goes…
My big problem with Simon has always been the “Oh, Simon!” factor. I used this term when explaining why I couldn’t give him my first preference back in 1999, and I’ve noticed other bloggers using similar words as headlines this time. I use it to express the way in which so many people who’ve known him for any period of time will become so aghast at his sheer flakiness that they feel the urge to grasp him by the shoulders and shake him, exploding “Oh, Simon!” A friend of mine told me one of the really big frustrations about this leadership election was desperately wanting to enthusiastically support a Hughes leadership bid - but not actually being able to do so. That hits the nail on the head. He’s simply not as credible as Ming. And that’s not because I’ve read it in The Guardian; it’s because I’ve seen them both in operation.
I know that my instincts are often in tune with Simon’s. I’m just not confident that I’ll know where his instincts will be taking him from day to day. On policy, coalitions, his disturbingly top-down attitude to party organisation and much else, the problem with Simon is that I’ve just heard him being so inconsistent, so often, that I fear what hostages to fortune we’ll be left with. On Any Questions with Ming and Chris, I thought he won hands down in terms of performance, but he also gave the most scarily unpredictable answers. I’ve seen Simon on the Federal Policy Committee over the years, and worry.
On ID cards, to take one example, he’s roused the troops by promising he’d rather go to prison than carry one – but has frequently said he’s got no problem with a ‘voluntary’ card. He was one of those who insisted we water down our opposition with the word ‘compulsory’ for the 2001 Manifesto (check it against the line in 1997 to see how mealy-mouthed it is). It’s an attempt to sound moderate that’s merely naïve, and that’s not unusual for him. Even the Government claims ID cards will be ‘voluntary’ for 10 years, but it’s merely to smooth the way of the compulsory cards to follow, and still means you’ll need a multi-billion-pound National Identity Register, and there are many people for whom they won’t be voluntary at all. If you want a passport, or a driving licence, they’ll be compulsory. If you’re on benefits. If you’re a young black guy, driving the wrong sort of car. If you live in a poor area and want to write a cheque or rent a video. It’s already socially excluded people in places like Bermondsey that will be hit hardest by the so-called ‘voluntary’ ID card. It’s no compromise at all, and it’s the epitome of Simon simply not thinking things through.
In party organisation, he has grand ambitions and no idea of how to fulfil them. Take the London mayoral campaigns. Then unknown Susan Kramer won 12% of the vote as London Mayor. With higher opinion poll ratings, more name recognition, more media attention, more money and the gilt off Ken after his first term, Simon won just 15% four years later. Facing a more anti-establishment candidate, Simon couldn’t even run as Livingstone Lite, but as a policy-free zone. He shares with me the unfortunate distinction of having been a failure as President of the Lib Dem Youth and Students, in his case by picking sides at a time when the organisation was split and badly needed a unifier. As President of the party, most of the way through his term of office there’s been no growth in our membership, despite his aim of overtaking Labour; and I can’t be the only Liberal Democrat worried by his decision to just appoint a bunch of Deputy Presidents, without elections or even a constitution. If Leader or Prime Minister, what makes that different to charges of ‘Simon’s Cronies’? As it happens, I like most of them; but in a democracy, that’s not the point.
His speeches are both famous and infamous. When he’s on form, he puts across what we stand for superbly. He can be charismatic, passionate and uplifting. But he’s also the only candidate who’s given a speech I’ve sat through that was so long and rambling that several members of his audience fell asleep. I’ve never forgotten the Liberal Revue sketch of the party as ‘Allo ‘Allo: in through the window comes ‘Ughes, of the Resistance. “Listen very carefully – I shall say this only 47 times.” When you never know from speech to speech whether what he’ll say will be uplifting, bonkers or so monumentally tedious that by the end of the forty-seventh point you still have no more idea of what he’s saying than when he opened his mouth, he’s a bit of a gamble (people might say the same about me, but fortunately for all concerned I’m not standing). I will defend his famous lateness, though, another unfortunate tendency I share: when I was a Parliamentary candidate, I remember being dragged roughly out of a meeting by my driver to make sure I got to the next one. Leader’s aides are more than capable of doing the same for Simon, so I don’t believe it’d be a problem.
On the bright side, I do think he’s the only candidate untainted by the downfall of Charles, though he still didn’t exactly cover himself in glory. I don’t believe he did any plotting; the spectacle of him equivocating uselessly on Channel 4 News the night of Charles’ announcement about his alcoholism was so painfully self-defeating it can only have been honest. Not that that’s the most outstanding example recently of Simon being painfully naïve and self-defeating. Of course The Sun was vile, back almost to its ‘80s level of homophobia, and almost the whole rest of the press have been unforgivably horrendous. I know it can’t have been easy, but it’s gobsmacking that he’d had all this time and not thought of a proper answer. I feel huge sympathy for Simon, who’s genuinely nice and rock-solid on gay rights. But I can’t help feeling exasperated too.
Simon’s decision to obscure the issue with a technically truthful but misleading remark that he wasn’t gay was astounding in a politics after “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”; that he told The Sun rather than just going public to everyone else when The Sun tried to fling mud at him was breathtakingly naïve. Did he really expect careful handling from arguably the most viciously homophobic and viciously anti-Lib Dem paper in the country? And days later, he was still refusing to use the label ‘bisexual’ to explain why he hadn’t lied, with every news outlet reporting the ‘fact’ that he was a liar, because (in his own words) he didn’t want to be labelled. Sorry, Simon; once you’re public about something that can be labelled, either you choose a label or someone else will choose it for you. He wasn’t mendacious – just clueless and woefully lacking in judgement. Simon has said since that this was a leadership test. Sorry, Simon – the test wasn’t whether you could stand up to the storm once you’d been stupid enough to set it off. It was whether you had the elementary nous to see the storm coming, or whether you’d just say the first thing that came into your head. And you flunked it. I often worry that Simon’s wish to bring religion and ‘faith groups’ more into politics is a slippery slope for a party of individual freedom; it takes rare talent to mishandle something so badly that both the religious and the lesbian, gay and bisexual constituencies think you’ve let them down. A Leader has to realise that not everyone will want to believe the best of you, and know how to explain things so that they do.
So after all that, what would make me likely to support Simon? How do you recapture ‘good judgment’ in one bound? Well, try this. Talk about the big picture and make people feel good about what things could be like with the Liberal Democrats. Make people believe, and don’t do the details for now: stop making up policy and organisation on the hoof. Say we’re a democratic party and you’re there to proclaim its message. Don’t believe you’re always right and people will always understand. Listen to advice, and take it. And don’t overcompensate for the press saying ‘the Lib Dems are losing’; stop talking about landslides and talk about building from our local roots – sound plausible, not laughably optimistic. A huge number of councillors are backing you, so don’t just use them as ‘supporters’. If you’re going to win, it’ll be because you can embody the party. Sound like the Leader of a force that’s credible in councils across the country, and sing the vision thing that unites them all. If you open your mouth without thinking and speak only for yourself, you’ll be left on your own.
I’ve found this one much more difficult to write than the last, because I know and like Simon, rather than judging him coldly. So I’ve let myself be distracted by the splendid Technicolor plotting of The Prisoner of Zenda in the background, and it’s taken longer than I was expecting. Here goes…
My big problem with Simon has always been the “Oh, Simon!” factor. I used this term when explaining why I couldn’t give him my first preference back in 1999, and I’ve noticed other bloggers using similar words as headlines this time. I use it to express the way in which so many people who’ve known him for any period of time will become so aghast at his sheer flakiness that they feel the urge to grasp him by the shoulders and shake him, exploding “Oh, Simon!” A friend of mine told me one of the really big frustrations about this leadership election was desperately wanting to enthusiastically support a Hughes leadership bid - but not actually being able to do so. That hits the nail on the head. He’s simply not as credible as Ming. And that’s not because I’ve read it in The Guardian; it’s because I’ve seen them both in operation.
I know that my instincts are often in tune with Simon’s. I’m just not confident that I’ll know where his instincts will be taking him from day to day. On policy, coalitions, his disturbingly top-down attitude to party organisation and much else, the problem with Simon is that I’ve just heard him being so inconsistent, so often, that I fear what hostages to fortune we’ll be left with. On Any Questions with Ming and Chris, I thought he won hands down in terms of performance, but he also gave the most scarily unpredictable answers. I’ve seen Simon on the Federal Policy Committee over the years, and worry.
On ID cards, to take one example, he’s roused the troops by promising he’d rather go to prison than carry one – but has frequently said he’s got no problem with a ‘voluntary’ card. He was one of those who insisted we water down our opposition with the word ‘compulsory’ for the 2001 Manifesto (check it against the line in 1997 to see how mealy-mouthed it is). It’s an attempt to sound moderate that’s merely naïve, and that’s not unusual for him. Even the Government claims ID cards will be ‘voluntary’ for 10 years, but it’s merely to smooth the way of the compulsory cards to follow, and still means you’ll need a multi-billion-pound National Identity Register, and there are many people for whom they won’t be voluntary at all. If you want a passport, or a driving licence, they’ll be compulsory. If you’re on benefits. If you’re a young black guy, driving the wrong sort of car. If you live in a poor area and want to write a cheque or rent a video. It’s already socially excluded people in places like Bermondsey that will be hit hardest by the so-called ‘voluntary’ ID card. It’s no compromise at all, and it’s the epitome of Simon simply not thinking things through.
In party organisation, he has grand ambitions and no idea of how to fulfil them. Take the London mayoral campaigns. Then unknown Susan Kramer won 12% of the vote as London Mayor. With higher opinion poll ratings, more name recognition, more media attention, more money and the gilt off Ken after his first term, Simon won just 15% four years later. Facing a more anti-establishment candidate, Simon couldn’t even run as Livingstone Lite, but as a policy-free zone. He shares with me the unfortunate distinction of having been a failure as President of the Lib Dem Youth and Students, in his case by picking sides at a time when the organisation was split and badly needed a unifier. As President of the party, most of the way through his term of office there’s been no growth in our membership, despite his aim of overtaking Labour; and I can’t be the only Liberal Democrat worried by his decision to just appoint a bunch of Deputy Presidents, without elections or even a constitution. If Leader or Prime Minister, what makes that different to charges of ‘Simon’s Cronies’? As it happens, I like most of them; but in a democracy, that’s not the point.
His speeches are both famous and infamous. When he’s on form, he puts across what we stand for superbly. He can be charismatic, passionate and uplifting. But he’s also the only candidate who’s given a speech I’ve sat through that was so long and rambling that several members of his audience fell asleep. I’ve never forgotten the Liberal Revue sketch of the party as ‘Allo ‘Allo: in through the window comes ‘Ughes, of the Resistance. “Listen very carefully – I shall say this only 47 times.” When you never know from speech to speech whether what he’ll say will be uplifting, bonkers or so monumentally tedious that by the end of the forty-seventh point you still have no more idea of what he’s saying than when he opened his mouth, he’s a bit of a gamble (people might say the same about me, but fortunately for all concerned I’m not standing). I will defend his famous lateness, though, another unfortunate tendency I share: when I was a Parliamentary candidate, I remember being dragged roughly out of a meeting by my driver to make sure I got to the next one. Leader’s aides are more than capable of doing the same for Simon, so I don’t believe it’d be a problem.
On the bright side, I do think he’s the only candidate untainted by the downfall of Charles, though he still didn’t exactly cover himself in glory. I don’t believe he did any plotting; the spectacle of him equivocating uselessly on Channel 4 News the night of Charles’ announcement about his alcoholism was so painfully self-defeating it can only have been honest. Not that that’s the most outstanding example recently of Simon being painfully naïve and self-defeating. Of course The Sun was vile, back almost to its ‘80s level of homophobia, and almost the whole rest of the press have been unforgivably horrendous. I know it can’t have been easy, but it’s gobsmacking that he’d had all this time and not thought of a proper answer. I feel huge sympathy for Simon, who’s genuinely nice and rock-solid on gay rights. But I can’t help feeling exasperated too.
Simon’s decision to obscure the issue with a technically truthful but misleading remark that he wasn’t gay was astounding in a politics after “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”; that he told The Sun rather than just going public to everyone else when The Sun tried to fling mud at him was breathtakingly naïve. Did he really expect careful handling from arguably the most viciously homophobic and viciously anti-Lib Dem paper in the country? And days later, he was still refusing to use the label ‘bisexual’ to explain why he hadn’t lied, with every news outlet reporting the ‘fact’ that he was a liar, because (in his own words) he didn’t want to be labelled. Sorry, Simon; once you’re public about something that can be labelled, either you choose a label or someone else will choose it for you. He wasn’t mendacious – just clueless and woefully lacking in judgement. Simon has said since that this was a leadership test. Sorry, Simon – the test wasn’t whether you could stand up to the storm once you’d been stupid enough to set it off. It was whether you had the elementary nous to see the storm coming, or whether you’d just say the first thing that came into your head. And you flunked it. I often worry that Simon’s wish to bring religion and ‘faith groups’ more into politics is a slippery slope for a party of individual freedom; it takes rare talent to mishandle something so badly that both the religious and the lesbian, gay and bisexual constituencies think you’ve let them down. A Leader has to realise that not everyone will want to believe the best of you, and know how to explain things so that they do.
So after all that, what would make me likely to support Simon? How do you recapture ‘good judgment’ in one bound? Well, try this. Talk about the big picture and make people feel good about what things could be like with the Liberal Democrats. Make people believe, and don’t do the details for now: stop making up policy and organisation on the hoof. Say we’re a democratic party and you’re there to proclaim its message. Don’t believe you’re always right and people will always understand. Listen to advice, and take it. And don’t overcompensate for the press saying ‘the Lib Dems are losing’; stop talking about landslides and talk about building from our local roots – sound plausible, not laughably optimistic. A huge number of councillors are backing you, so don’t just use them as ‘supporters’. If you’re going to win, it’ll be because you can embody the party. Sound like the Leader of a force that’s credible in councils across the country, and sing the vision thing that unites them all. If you open your mouth without thinking and speak only for yourself, you’ll be left on your own.
Labels: Leaders' Debate, Liberal Democrats
Let Ming Be Ming
Ming Campbell for Leader? Well, in many ways he’s the most presentable candidate, the sort of Prime Minister your Grandad might have trusted, and a gut Liberal on a lot of issues; I even agree with the lectures he’s been making to the party in the past few years about being too keen to ban everything. The press have been saying how good he is for years, making him probably still best-placed to swiftly establish Lib Dem ‘credibility’. He also has the rare ability to sound righteous without sounding merely self-important. So what’s my problem with him? ‘Charles Kennedy’, in two words.
My other half has been convinced throughout that Ming was up to his neck in plots to remove Charles. Who had motive, who had opportunity, who benefits and who does all the circumstantial evidence point to? Hmm. I won't be voting him down just as a result, but I see the point.
I notice the YouGov poll today rates Ming highest on honesty, which makes me unimpressed at the nous of my fellow Lib Dem members. They seem to be damning the painfully honest Simon Hughes for dithering about his sexuality; to me, the question of honesty in this campaign is for Ming. I simply don’t believe his very late, very lacklustre protestations that he wasn’t behind the downfall of his predecessor. Yes, I was unhappy about how it happened, but I have slightly more respect for those who are at least honest about it and made the case that it was necessary. Those who, by an uncanny coincidence, almost unanimously lined up to back Ming. The only notable exception is Chris Huhne, who appears to be getting support for the honesty of at least stabbing Charles in the front, while Ming looks like a grubby schemer who wanted rid of Charles but still won’t admit it.
Remember the way Ming kept so silent while every briefing said he wanted Charles and the horse he rode in on out of town? Remember the way that immediately after Charles’s statement, News 24 broadcast the unedifying spectacle of a dozen MPs who’d signed the deadly letter turning up to swear undying loyalty to the Emperor Ming, followed swiftly by Ming launching his leadership bid with indecent haste, just an hour after Charles resigned (and several days before anyone else)? Gosh, I wonder who they could all have been plotting with. I’m not saying Ming unquestionably has blood all over his hands, but if this was a whodunnit every reader would be jumping up and down crying, “It was him! It was HIM!” It makes it near-impossible not to believe there was an orchestrated plot to a) bring Charles down and b) scare off any other challengers with a rush to crown Ming, attempting to bypass the members entirely. If there wasn’t a contest, he wouldn't have had to answer any impertinent questions. I can’t help feeling much of the situation we’re in is because he’s an ambitious man who was gagging for another chance; of course he should have stood when Paddy went, but he knew no-one would vote for him over Charles and bottled it, and never forgave Charles for having the guts to stand. As one of his stated reasons for not standing in 1999 was that it would be too tiring, I do wonder if he has the stamina to do the job now he’s seven years older – and it would be ironic if we replaced a Leader known for his ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ with another Leader who has days when he’s not up to it but who’s less appealing than Charles when he’s ‘good’.
I don’t intend to make the last leader my only guide to how to vote on the next. But I remember discussing him with Richard later on the day that Charles went, and joking that ‘he’s probably the most competent candidate, but also the most evil’. After a few weeks of him as Acting Leader, I’ll not claim that he’s the most competent. I’m still astounded that someone with his experience could lack the most basic political nous in making his Prime Minister’s Question Time blunder about temporary headteachers. Admittedly David drop-every-policy-and-pretend-I’m-a-Liberal Cameron calling Mr Blair a flip-flopper yesterday was far more stupid, but Mr Cameron is a vacuous opportunist who’s only drifted on top with the support of media hot air. What’s Ming’s excuse? And since then, of course, he's played it safe and simply been ignored.
I was expecting by this stage of the campaign to be deciding whether I could go for a competent patrician who I don’t especially like but comes over well and won’t cock it up, so I can’t understand how he’s had so many disasters. Just about the only thing I’ve seen of Ming that’s come over well was his second campaign launch, surrounded by masses of people and speaking well, but even that made me think, “Hmm, he only needs a second launch because he did his first in such a rush,” and “I’d rather have Jo Swinson.” Ming seems to be scared of coming across as the scary – I’m sorry, I mean ‘respected’ – and aloof Ming that everyone’s impressed by, and trying to be someone else. My eyebrows raised when I first heard his newly-discovered set of priorities as Leader: “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be… Simon Hughes!” On Any Questions with Simon and Chris, I thought he came across astoundingly poorly, probably the least impressive I’ve ever heard him, and that time because he was trying to be like Charles; warm and approachable. Ming is our ‘Michael Howard’ candidate. He’s feared, not loved, and like Michael Howard his attempts to sound warm and approachable are rather less successful than those of a boa constrictor. I defy anyone who heard his Uriah Heep act on the first question (along the lines of ‘I’m so humble, I hate to put myself forward’) followed by the whiplash of arrogant scoffing that “I don’t take orders from Simon Hughes” not to have squirmed. It was clear which was the real Ming.
I served on the Federal Policy Committee for ten years, and few MPs treated it with such disdain as Ming on his rare appearances. He was impressive, knew his stuff, was hugely self-assured and even had a sense of humour, but had next to zero interest in other people’s views. If there’s one issue where I don’t see him as a gut Liberal, it’s party democracy. His attempt to engineer a coup – I’m sorry, coronation – is just a part of that. It’s noticeable that he’s speaking up far less than the other candidates. With so many thrusting, ambitious people supporting him and seemingly doing most of the speaking out for his campaign, I’ve started wondering where Ming is, and why; is it because he’s too grand to make his own case, or because other people are telling him what to do?
It’s a cliché that Leaders gradually retreat into their own bunkers, but it’s… innovative to spend your leadership campaign already inside one and let your ‘young captains’ fight all the battles. The trouble is, they’re doing it very badly. Whoever attacked Chris for not standing by his support for Ming – and in doing so supplied proof that Ming’s campaign was plotting to replace Charles back last Autumn – wants their head examined. After assassinating Charles, too few of them have said they’ll serve under whichever leader the party picks, raising the spectre that they might do it all over again if the membership gets it ‘wrong’. James Graham is crass, boorish and more a bruiser than blogger for Chris, but still compulsively readable and asks very penetrating questions. Nick Clegg never managed to answer those James put about internal democracy. Nick’s piece in the Guardian on Tuesday attacking Chris and Simon was only the latest of hugely unwise and nasty-seeming public gaffes. I’ve seen Nick on policy working groups and in public. I like him. He’s personable, talented and shares with Simon a naïve habit of saying things in public without engaging his brain first. I’ve heard him deny that he’s interested in being leader. And I have three pieces of advice for what Nick should say next: “First, Ming is fantastic and I have no doubt he’ll be a great Leader. Second, if he’s not elected, of course I’ll be happy to serve under either of the other candidates, who while not my first choice are also excellent. And third, er, that’s it.” Nick, dear, tape your mouth closed until March and stop making Ming look like you’ve got his pet rabbit held hostage. The same goes for the rest of them. I remember a dreadful old Star Trek episode in which some aged leader only appeared for brief statements while his ambitious young deputy made all the real decisions. It turned out the old guy was locked up, drugged and just held as a figurehead. Ming, I’m not interested in a Leader who wants to order the party around on every issue, but I’m vehemently opposed to a figurehead leader who lets someone else order the party around on every issue while you are unable to exercise any control or leadership over them. Tell your backers to stop sounding as if they’re making all the running, and speak for yourself.
So after all that, what would make me likely to support Ming? I’m never going to view him as a soul brother. I’m never going to think he’s a nice guy to chat to. I’m not alone in that. So play to your strengths, Ming: put some stick about. Remind people why you were trusted by the public and terror to the government on Iraq. Stop letting yourself look like a figurehead for a bunch of younger, stronger, more aggressive people, and stop trying to be liked. Sound strong, make yourself feared again. If you’re going to win, it’ll be as Francis Urquhart with a high moral tone, not the man from the Werthers Originals ad.
My other half has been convinced throughout that Ming was up to his neck in plots to remove Charles. Who had motive, who had opportunity, who benefits and who does all the circumstantial evidence point to? Hmm. I won't be voting him down just as a result, but I see the point.
I notice the YouGov poll today rates Ming highest on honesty, which makes me unimpressed at the nous of my fellow Lib Dem members. They seem to be damning the painfully honest Simon Hughes for dithering about his sexuality; to me, the question of honesty in this campaign is for Ming. I simply don’t believe his very late, very lacklustre protestations that he wasn’t behind the downfall of his predecessor. Yes, I was unhappy about how it happened, but I have slightly more respect for those who are at least honest about it and made the case that it was necessary. Those who, by an uncanny coincidence, almost unanimously lined up to back Ming. The only notable exception is Chris Huhne, who appears to be getting support for the honesty of at least stabbing Charles in the front, while Ming looks like a grubby schemer who wanted rid of Charles but still won’t admit it.
Remember the way Ming kept so silent while every briefing said he wanted Charles and the horse he rode in on out of town? Remember the way that immediately after Charles’s statement, News 24 broadcast the unedifying spectacle of a dozen MPs who’d signed the deadly letter turning up to swear undying loyalty to the Emperor Ming, followed swiftly by Ming launching his leadership bid with indecent haste, just an hour after Charles resigned (and several days before anyone else)? Gosh, I wonder who they could all have been plotting with. I’m not saying Ming unquestionably has blood all over his hands, but if this was a whodunnit every reader would be jumping up and down crying, “It was him! It was HIM!” It makes it near-impossible not to believe there was an orchestrated plot to a) bring Charles down and b) scare off any other challengers with a rush to crown Ming, attempting to bypass the members entirely. If there wasn’t a contest, he wouldn't have had to answer any impertinent questions. I can’t help feeling much of the situation we’re in is because he’s an ambitious man who was gagging for another chance; of course he should have stood when Paddy went, but he knew no-one would vote for him over Charles and bottled it, and never forgave Charles for having the guts to stand. As one of his stated reasons for not standing in 1999 was that it would be too tiring, I do wonder if he has the stamina to do the job now he’s seven years older – and it would be ironic if we replaced a Leader known for his ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ with another Leader who has days when he’s not up to it but who’s less appealing than Charles when he’s ‘good’.
I don’t intend to make the last leader my only guide to how to vote on the next. But I remember discussing him with Richard later on the day that Charles went, and joking that ‘he’s probably the most competent candidate, but also the most evil’. After a few weeks of him as Acting Leader, I’ll not claim that he’s the most competent. I’m still astounded that someone with his experience could lack the most basic political nous in making his Prime Minister’s Question Time blunder about temporary headteachers. Admittedly David drop-every-policy-and-pretend-I’m-a-Liberal Cameron calling Mr Blair a flip-flopper yesterday was far more stupid, but Mr Cameron is a vacuous opportunist who’s only drifted on top with the support of media hot air. What’s Ming’s excuse? And since then, of course, he's played it safe and simply been ignored.
I was expecting by this stage of the campaign to be deciding whether I could go for a competent patrician who I don’t especially like but comes over well and won’t cock it up, so I can’t understand how he’s had so many disasters. Just about the only thing I’ve seen of Ming that’s come over well was his second campaign launch, surrounded by masses of people and speaking well, but even that made me think, “Hmm, he only needs a second launch because he did his first in such a rush,” and “I’d rather have Jo Swinson.” Ming seems to be scared of coming across as the scary – I’m sorry, I mean ‘respected’ – and aloof Ming that everyone’s impressed by, and trying to be someone else. My eyebrows raised when I first heard his newly-discovered set of priorities as Leader: “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be… Simon Hughes!” On Any Questions with Simon and Chris, I thought he came across astoundingly poorly, probably the least impressive I’ve ever heard him, and that time because he was trying to be like Charles; warm and approachable. Ming is our ‘Michael Howard’ candidate. He’s feared, not loved, and like Michael Howard his attempts to sound warm and approachable are rather less successful than those of a boa constrictor. I defy anyone who heard his Uriah Heep act on the first question (along the lines of ‘I’m so humble, I hate to put myself forward’) followed by the whiplash of arrogant scoffing that “I don’t take orders from Simon Hughes” not to have squirmed. It was clear which was the real Ming.
I served on the Federal Policy Committee for ten years, and few MPs treated it with such disdain as Ming on his rare appearances. He was impressive, knew his stuff, was hugely self-assured and even had a sense of humour, but had next to zero interest in other people’s views. If there’s one issue where I don’t see him as a gut Liberal, it’s party democracy. His attempt to engineer a coup – I’m sorry, coronation – is just a part of that. It’s noticeable that he’s speaking up far less than the other candidates. With so many thrusting, ambitious people supporting him and seemingly doing most of the speaking out for his campaign, I’ve started wondering where Ming is, and why; is it because he’s too grand to make his own case, or because other people are telling him what to do?
It’s a cliché that Leaders gradually retreat into their own bunkers, but it’s… innovative to spend your leadership campaign already inside one and let your ‘young captains’ fight all the battles. The trouble is, they’re doing it very badly. Whoever attacked Chris for not standing by his support for Ming – and in doing so supplied proof that Ming’s campaign was plotting to replace Charles back last Autumn – wants their head examined. After assassinating Charles, too few of them have said they’ll serve under whichever leader the party picks, raising the spectre that they might do it all over again if the membership gets it ‘wrong’. James Graham is crass, boorish and more a bruiser than blogger for Chris, but still compulsively readable and asks very penetrating questions. Nick Clegg never managed to answer those James put about internal democracy. Nick’s piece in the Guardian on Tuesday attacking Chris and Simon was only the latest of hugely unwise and nasty-seeming public gaffes. I’ve seen Nick on policy working groups and in public. I like him. He’s personable, talented and shares with Simon a naïve habit of saying things in public without engaging his brain first. I’ve heard him deny that he’s interested in being leader. And I have three pieces of advice for what Nick should say next: “First, Ming is fantastic and I have no doubt he’ll be a great Leader. Second, if he’s not elected, of course I’ll be happy to serve under either of the other candidates, who while not my first choice are also excellent. And third, er, that’s it.” Nick, dear, tape your mouth closed until March and stop making Ming look like you’ve got his pet rabbit held hostage. The same goes for the rest of them. I remember a dreadful old Star Trek episode in which some aged leader only appeared for brief statements while his ambitious young deputy made all the real decisions. It turned out the old guy was locked up, drugged and just held as a figurehead. Ming, I’m not interested in a Leader who wants to order the party around on every issue, but I’m vehemently opposed to a figurehead leader who lets someone else order the party around on every issue while you are unable to exercise any control or leadership over them. Tell your backers to stop sounding as if they’re making all the running, and speak for yourself.
So after all that, what would make me likely to support Ming? I’m never going to view him as a soul brother. I’m never going to think he’s a nice guy to chat to. I’m not alone in that. So play to your strengths, Ming: put some stick about. Remind people why you were trusted by the public and terror to the government on Iraq. Stop letting yourself look like a figurehead for a bunch of younger, stronger, more aggressive people, and stop trying to be liked. Sound strong, make yourself feared again. If you’re going to win, it’ll be as Francis Urquhart with a high moral tone, not the man from the Werthers Originals ad.
Labels: Leaders' Debate, Liberal Democrats
Good Luck Dunfermline!
Very best of luck to Willie Rennie today in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election. We'll be up on tenterhooks tonight hoping he wins, and he certainly deserves to.
Unfortunately I've not been well enough to get up there (bah!), but hopefully I'll lose my record of getting to every by-election the Lib Dems have won since late 1991 (including leafletting and canvassing on the orders of some terrible martinet agent called Willie Rennie. No, he was brilliant). My first was Kincardine and Deeside, when I was much younger and painfully thin; in the chilly November wind and rain my main canvassing appeal seemed to be to ladies of a certain age who wanted to mother that nice well-spoken young man who was turning blue on their doorstep. Awwhh. That was a long time ago.
Well done to all the Lib Dems who did manage to get up there and help, especially if they too went blue in the cold wind off the Forth. I'm rubbish at predictions, but I'm sure that whatever the result is, the electorate won't be turning blue tonight (groan). Sorry, Mr Cameron - egg all over your face for a u-turn you didn't mean, and for nothing...
Unfortunately I've not been well enough to get up there (bah!), but hopefully I'll lose my record of getting to every by-election the Lib Dems have won since late 1991 (including leafletting and canvassing on the orders of some terrible martinet agent called Willie Rennie. No, he was brilliant). My first was Kincardine and Deeside, when I was much younger and painfully thin; in the chilly November wind and rain my main canvassing appeal seemed to be to ladies of a certain age who wanted to mother that nice well-spoken young man who was turning blue on their doorstep. Awwhh. That was a long time ago.
Well done to all the Lib Dems who did manage to get up there and help, especially if they too went blue in the cold wind off the Forth. I'm rubbish at predictions, but I'm sure that whatever the result is, the electorate won't be turning blue tonight (groan). Sorry, Mr Cameron - egg all over your face for a u-turn you didn't mean, and for nothing...
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Some Questions I’d Like Answered…
Liberal Democrats have never had a high economic profile, but since 1992 what financial credibility we’ve gained has been through the ‘honesty’ of hypothecated tax rises, on the principle that if we say “We want this so much here’s a specific tax to pay for it," people reckon it must be true or why take the hit? Every party claims they’ll cut bureaucracy, but polls show almost no-one believes that. If you believe in a shift to an entirely fiscally neutral position, where will the money come from for any spending commitments? And why should anyone believe it?
I was on the Lib Dems' Policy Committee through the years-long rounds of spending arguments for the last three General Elections, all of which have been incredibly tight and used as a way to cut down masses of policy commitments, and never mind ‘positioning’, it’s very evident that the party has a serious problem in saying where the money comes from if we drop our last overall tax increase.
Already the media are talking up the possibilities of a hung Parliament after the next election. In elections such as 1987 and 1992 the Lib Dem campaign was completely side-tracked into talk of coalitions. Charles Kennedy’s response to this was to fight two General Elections on the position that in any hung Parliament the Liberal Democrats would remain independent and vote entirely on the issues rather than joining any coalition. Would you change this?
Or you could just ask, ‘Is it not the case that Labour and the Conservatives have so much in common that they would be better off in coalition with each other than with us?’
How would you approach local government funding? Is local income tax the right way to raise the small fraction of local spending taxed locally? Should the local tax take increase? As Lib Dem policy consistently argues for more local spending to be raised locally to increase the independence of local government, and Lib Dem campaigns consistently argue for yet more subsidy from the central pot to keep local taxes down, should we continue to face both ways?
How do we ensure that we are more consistent in our political approach without losing the principle of localism within the party?
While the Liberal Democrats have strongly opposed compulsory ID cards, some Lib Dems think voluntary ID cards might be a good idea. Are you equally opposed to both?
Is it the voting system, the media, the politicians or the voters that are to blame for the low turnout from younger people and those that habitually don't vote, and how would you engage them?
How do you balance the libertarian imperative to roll back government and centralised over-control of people's lives with the environmental imperative of very intrusive measures to change people's attitudes and behaviour towards things such as minimising energy and resource use?
And finally: Which of the MPs who have nominated you are you most embarrassed by, and why?
Thanks to a few friends who shall remain nameless for some of the questions… And should any reader happen to be at Question Time or one of the hustings, you have my happy permission to ask any of these yourself.
I was on the Lib Dems' Policy Committee through the years-long rounds of spending arguments for the last three General Elections, all of which have been incredibly tight and used as a way to cut down masses of policy commitments, and never mind ‘positioning’, it’s very evident that the party has a serious problem in saying where the money comes from if we drop our last overall tax increase.
Already the media are talking up the possibilities of a hung Parliament after the next election. In elections such as 1987 and 1992 the Lib Dem campaign was completely side-tracked into talk of coalitions. Charles Kennedy’s response to this was to fight two General Elections on the position that in any hung Parliament the Liberal Democrats would remain independent and vote entirely on the issues rather than joining any coalition. Would you change this?
Or you could just ask, ‘Is it not the case that Labour and the Conservatives have so much in common that they would be better off in coalition with each other than with us?’
How would you approach local government funding? Is local income tax the right way to raise the small fraction of local spending taxed locally? Should the local tax take increase? As Lib Dem policy consistently argues for more local spending to be raised locally to increase the independence of local government, and Lib Dem campaigns consistently argue for yet more subsidy from the central pot to keep local taxes down, should we continue to face both ways?
How do we ensure that we are more consistent in our political approach without losing the principle of localism within the party?
While the Liberal Democrats have strongly opposed compulsory ID cards, some Lib Dems think voluntary ID cards might be a good idea. Are you equally opposed to both?
Is it the voting system, the media, the politicians or the voters that are to blame for the low turnout from younger people and those that habitually don't vote, and how would you engage them?
How do you balance the libertarian imperative to roll back government and centralised over-control of people's lives with the environmental imperative of very intrusive measures to change people's attitudes and behaviour towards things such as minimising energy and resource use?
And finally: Which of the MPs who have nominated you are you most embarrassed by, and why?
Thanks to a few friends who shall remain nameless for some of the questions… And should any reader happen to be at Question Time or one of the hustings, you have my happy permission to ask any of these yourself.
Labels: Leaders' Debate, Liberal Democrats
I Wouldn’t Start From Here
Surely what the bulk of Lib Dem members and supporters are thinking about the Leadership, along with ‘For goodness’ sake, why are they all being so beastly to each other?’ I’m at least reasonably familiar with each of the candidates, but I’m still unpersuaded – not least because despite their numerous advantages, none of them seem to hold a candle to Charles. So I’ve been working on some questions I’d like to see answered, and what each of them could do or say that might win my vote. I’ve no doubt each could be impressive, and I know that after preferring other candidates to Charles last time that I ended up not just pleasantly surprised by him but firmly convinced. So, let’s hope my worries about these three turn out just as wrong, and that the large numbers of people whose instincts I trust who are backing each of them turn out to be right.
In 1999, the two things that most made me concerned about Charles were that he seemed to be the candidate most likely to do deals with New Labour, and that despite having listened to many of his speeches, I had no idea what he stood for. Instead, he swiftly pulled the plug on the constitutional committee when it was plain Labour had no interest in listening to anyone else, and led the party in a plainly and outspokenly Liberal direction. I don't think we was a perfect leader; he often chose the wrong people, but I was very happy with his political instincts, both in public and in debates on the party Policy Committee. For exactly the reasons I warmed to Charles, many of his initial backers from the more conservative wing of the party never forgave him for turning out differently than they expected, and I’ve no doubt that had as much to do with the almost non-stop briefings against Charles in the last seven years as his drinking did. I still feel disgusted with the way our MPs behaved over Christmas, not least because so many of them running round in naked panic trying to crash the plane at the thought of a few weeks of good Tory publicity doesn’t bode well for their own leadership qualities. But that’s by-the-by.
Charles’ most appealing quality for me in 1999 was that he could appeal to people as something other than an ‘ordinary politician’; for a party that relies so much more on an anti-establishment appeal, that’s crucial. Back then, I backed Jackie Ballard, the only other candidate that I thought came across as similarly down-to-earth; today I worry that none of the three on offer have got it. Yes, Simon has anti-establishment instincts, but stick him on the telly and his manner is very much of ‘typical politician’. The only one who doesn’t come across as ‘typical’ is Ming, and that’s because he’s so grand he’s ‘super-establishment’; reassuring to grannies as the sort of Prime Minister their grandfathers might have voted for, and that’s a useful attribute, but hardly going to invigorate the youth vote.
It’s easy to knock each of the candidates and their supporters, and I notice that each camp is laying into the other with gusto. Well, I’m going to try and set out what I think are the strengths and weaknesses of each, and how each might strengthen their appeal to me. At this stage, I could easily vote for any of them (and I was never going to vote for Mark, though I’m sad at what happened to him). So it’s up to them and their supporters to persuade me and people like me. I’ve already heard more than enough along the lines that ‘Scary’ is only backed by the establishment and Young Turks who want to be leader in five years’ time; that ‘Flaky’ is only backed by ‘lefties’ and Christians; and that ‘Who?’ is only backed by Young Turks who don’t want to be leader in five years’ time.
Tip: slinging mud at another candidate is a big turn-off for me.
Labels: Charles Kennedy, Leaders' Debate, Liberal Democrats
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Escape to Danger
I met a Thal today. Well, all right, today I visited Tenth Planet, one of the best little shops in Britain, to meet an actress who in 1964 played a Thal in The Daleks, the second Doctor Who story. It’s just been released on DVD in Doctor Who: The Beginning, a superb three-DVD set of material that’s 42 years old yet still some of the most startling and imaginative television ever produced, and actress Virginia Wetherell was signing to promote it. In Troy McClure style, you may remember her from such films as A Clockwork Orange and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, but in Doctor Who she was Dyoni, one of the blond and beautiful Thal people. She still looks fabulous today, just as blond and in a glittering cape she may have invested in for the occasion (or perhaps is regularly seen like that on the high street. I’ll look out).
Doctor Who was created by a remarkable group of people for the BBC in 1963 – iconoclastic Canadian drama supremo Sydney Newman chose a Producer who was young and female (uniquely for the BBC at the time, and since an industry legend), Verity Lambert, who I suspect is one of the few people I might get a serious ‘we are not worthy’ attack over if I were ever to meet her. The first director she chose was a young Indian, Waris Hussein, who also became a big name in the industry and did a stunning job on the first story. We’ve not finished the DVD set yet and there are plenty of extras to go, but it’s a real joy to hear Verity and two of the original leads still so proud and enthusiastic on a commentary for the first episode. With modern restoration techniques, the picture looks almost as good as new, too, and right from the start that eerie music and swirling titles grab you.
Uniquely, there’s an alternative version of the very first episode, and it underlines just how superbly directed and atmospheric the broadcast version was. Flashes of that brilliance come through in this early version, but it’s beset by technical problems and rather more fluffs than usual (the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan rigidly declaiming “It’s true! Every word of it’s true!” just after a line’s been messed up completely always cracks me up). The Doctor and his unearthly grandchild come across as much more alien and threatening, and while some of that’s compelling it’s also difficult to see how the aggression between the regulars would have lasted much beyond 26 minutes, let alone 26 years. A fascinating start, but I’m glad they had another go.
The second story made the show a hit by introducing the Daleks (irritating Newman, who wanted no ‘bug-eyed monsters’). They change the Doctor, too; initially more selfish and abrasive, up against these fascist mutant creatures in personal tanks he takes a moral stand and defines himself against oppression. The whole thing looks extraordinary, with outstanding design for a petrified forest, a city that doesn’t look built for humans and, of course, the Daleks themselves. The plot, on the other hand, starts off intriguing but runs out about an hour early, and the climax is a mess, with clunky dialogue and characterisation compared to the previous story. There’s also a slight problem with the moral in that ‘ugly’ means ‘evil’. The strong current against fascism is undermined by the ‘good race’ being blond and ‘perfect’ while we know the others are evil because they’re mutated horrors with funny voices. Ah well.
The third story is a short one that’s mainly a creepy character study with the regulars having some impressive shouting matches, though the mystery has a rather silly resolution. The next story made was one of those many pieces of great television from the 1960s that the BBC tossed into a skip and burnt – and, incredibly, that isn’t hyperbole – but, thanks to viewers captivated by Doctor Who from the first, still exists as audio recordings. Available separately on CD, there’s a mini-version here on DVD with the aid of photos. That’s probably wise, as it’s a jolly travelogue at the side of Marco Polo that has long stretches where not very much happens. There are some great moments along the way, though, so if the DVD and CD give you a yearning for what it might have looked like, you could follow them with the labour of love that is a ‘reconstruction’.
Add to that some remarkable documentaries and some variable comedy sketches (in the terms of another popular show of the time, one hit, one maybe, two misses) and other extras, and it’s one of the best DVD releases we own. And we’ve got rather a lot. It’s not perfect, of course, and my biggest quibbles are things that the BBC used to put on their DVDs, but have dropped through budget cuts. While Doctor Who usually has commentary tracks on every episode, you’ll find they’re few and far between here, and if you’re deaf, forget it. Astonishingly, while the rest of society gradually makes things more accessible for people with different disabilities, since they’ve gone into public-private partnership with 2Entertain the BBC have actually reduced accessibility by dropping subtitles for the commentaries altogether and making it impossible for deaf people to enjoy them, after years of making the commentaries accessible to all. I thought it was part of the BBC’s mission to increase accessibility, not reduce it?
Beyond all that, I have to admit that I love early Doctor Who. As my profile and many other writings testify, Doctor Who in general was a huge influence on me growing up, and I go along with Russell T Davies that it’s just about the best idea in the history of anything. However, as I’ve got older I’ve been particularly drawn to episodes some people would dismiss as creaky, cheap and black and white. The series starts with a staggeringly strong, varied and imaginative set of stories, setting out the series’ manifesto of science and history, though not yet really mixing the two. It's hard to imagine a better launching-point than these, where the Doctor starts off as a mysterious old git making life difficult for the clean-cut leads and sees him wrestle his way to being the undoubted star and hero.
I watched / listened to all the first Doctor’s stories in a row for the first time a couple of years ago and found to my surprise that I was completely captured by William Hartnell, who simply is the Doctor. And he’s fantastic. He’d always held a certain magic in being ‘the First’; I loved the few books with him in them, as well as being spellbound by the fragmentary scenes I could listen to on my Dad’s hissy open-reel recording of the documentary Whose Doctor Who. Perhaps it’s that he’s an old man with huge authority and strong moral sense, who in every other respect behaves like a child. Like the TARDIS and many of the series’ greater moments, he up-ends your expectations. He’s fiercely intelligent and utterly irreverent. He shows off outrageously. He sulks or shouts when he doesn’t get his own way, but is unexpectedly kind. He’s unpredictable, and it works brilliantly that the actor is, too, with so many little mannerisms and, yes, the odd endearingly wrong line. He’s hugely watchable. Too many ‘wise old men’ characters are deeply dull or paternal, but this one starts as an explorer who asks all the difficult questions, and it seems a natural progression from that to discovering the sheer fun of toppling empires. He dresses up, hams it up, and giggles uncontrollably when things go wrong, but risks his life to stop genocide. I can believe in him as a person, and there’s never a single story when Hartnell lets us down; any actor has their off days, but he never showed disdain for the material or gave the sense he was tired of being the Doctor, even when he was physically tiring by the minute. He’d never be cast in a TV today of sexy young heroes, and though I think sexy, relatively young David Tennant (five months older than me) has the makings of a great Doctor, for me the original is the best. Of course, it’s also not impossible my taste in Doctors may be ageing to keep up my differentials ;-)
Having had a good time out there today, I thoroughly recommend Tenth Planet to anyone after anything to do with Doctor Who and various other ‘specialist’ merchandise, if you’re in reach of sunny Barking. It’s not just because they have a good selection, reasonable prices and a good line-up of guests coming along to sign autographs (without charging anything extra). It’s because the guys who run it are both nice and helpful. When it’s easy to think of a particular specialist shop that’s ludicrously overpriced and shockingly rude to customers, that’s an attractive quality. I’m also enough of a wuss to point out it’s much more fun to queue up in an indoor centre than on the street. I had a particularly nice time today waiting around with a father and son couple of fans, chatting about what each of us liked, and I’d rather do that in the warm than shivering and rained on.
The apparently out-of-left-field title for this entry is from the three Doctor Who books to feature the Thals – two of which are jolly good – which each have chapters that are a variant on ‘Escape to Danger’. It’s since become probably the most over-used title in Doctor Who fiction, but I grew up finding it exciting…
Doctor Who was created by a remarkable group of people for the BBC in 1963 – iconoclastic Canadian drama supremo Sydney Newman chose a Producer who was young and female (uniquely for the BBC at the time, and since an industry legend), Verity Lambert, who I suspect is one of the few people I might get a serious ‘we are not worthy’ attack over if I were ever to meet her. The first director she chose was a young Indian, Waris Hussein, who also became a big name in the industry and did a stunning job on the first story. We’ve not finished the DVD set yet and there are plenty of extras to go, but it’s a real joy to hear Verity and two of the original leads still so proud and enthusiastic on a commentary for the first episode. With modern restoration techniques, the picture looks almost as good as new, too, and right from the start that eerie music and swirling titles grab you.
“Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles…?”The best story in the set remains the first, labelled ‘An Unearthly Child’ (with several other names attributed to it). It’s in four episodes and people usually rave about the first; they’re right. It’s an unbeatable introduction to the series, full of mystery, character and amazingly quotable lines, and like the start of the 2005 series it begins from the perspective of ordinary people who encounter someone different, then follow them to a strange blue box that’s larger on the inside than the outside and travels in time and space. They land up in 100,000 BC or so among desperate cave people wanting the secret of fire, and while that’s a fairly simple story, it’s damn good, too. The two ‘contemporary’ characters, young teachers Ian and Barbara, take it in turns to be reassuring or get rather hysterical at the bizarre turn their lives are taking (Barbara becomes rather a strong character but loses it a bit too much here – though at least Ian panics first) and there are far more harrowing emotional trials for the cast than in most of the stories that follow. It doesn’t help that this one time when people are saved by our heroes, they’re anything but grateful (shame that didn’t happen more often). Even the Doctor is pretty disturbing, played by William Hartnell as, well, a git with brilliant facets.
Uniquely, there’s an alternative version of the very first episode, and it underlines just how superbly directed and atmospheric the broadcast version was. Flashes of that brilliance come through in this early version, but it’s beset by technical problems and rather more fluffs than usual (the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan rigidly declaiming “It’s true! Every word of it’s true!” just after a line’s been messed up completely always cracks me up). The Doctor and his unearthly grandchild come across as much more alien and threatening, and while some of that’s compelling it’s also difficult to see how the aggression between the regulars would have lasted much beyond 26 minutes, let alone 26 years. A fascinating start, but I’m glad they had another go.
The second story made the show a hit by introducing the Daleks (irritating Newman, who wanted no ‘bug-eyed monsters’). They change the Doctor, too; initially more selfish and abrasive, up against these fascist mutant creatures in personal tanks he takes a moral stand and defines himself against oppression. The whole thing looks extraordinary, with outstanding design for a petrified forest, a city that doesn’t look built for humans and, of course, the Daleks themselves. The plot, on the other hand, starts off intriguing but runs out about an hour early, and the climax is a mess, with clunky dialogue and characterisation compared to the previous story. There’s also a slight problem with the moral in that ‘ugly’ means ‘evil’. The strong current against fascism is undermined by the ‘good race’ being blond and ‘perfect’ while we know the others are evil because they’re mutated horrors with funny voices. Ah well.
The third story is a short one that’s mainly a creepy character study with the regulars having some impressive shouting matches, though the mystery has a rather silly resolution. The next story made was one of those many pieces of great television from the 1960s that the BBC tossed into a skip and burnt – and, incredibly, that isn’t hyperbole – but, thanks to viewers captivated by Doctor Who from the first, still exists as audio recordings. Available separately on CD, there’s a mini-version here on DVD with the aid of photos. That’s probably wise, as it’s a jolly travelogue at the side of Marco Polo that has long stretches where not very much happens. There are some great moments along the way, though, so if the DVD and CD give you a yearning for what it might have looked like, you could follow them with the labour of love that is a ‘reconstruction’.
Add to that some remarkable documentaries and some variable comedy sketches (in the terms of another popular show of the time, one hit, one maybe, two misses) and other extras, and it’s one of the best DVD releases we own. And we’ve got rather a lot. It’s not perfect, of course, and my biggest quibbles are things that the BBC used to put on their DVDs, but have dropped through budget cuts. While Doctor Who usually has commentary tracks on every episode, you’ll find they’re few and far between here, and if you’re deaf, forget it. Astonishingly, while the rest of society gradually makes things more accessible for people with different disabilities, since they’ve gone into public-private partnership with 2Entertain the BBC have actually reduced accessibility by dropping subtitles for the commentaries altogether and making it impossible for deaf people to enjoy them, after years of making the commentaries accessible to all. I thought it was part of the BBC’s mission to increase accessibility, not reduce it?
The Doctor. The Original, You Might Say
Beyond all that, I have to admit that I love early Doctor Who. As my profile and many other writings testify, Doctor Who in general was a huge influence on me growing up, and I go along with Russell T Davies that it’s just about the best idea in the history of anything. However, as I’ve got older I’ve been particularly drawn to episodes some people would dismiss as creaky, cheap and black and white. The series starts with a staggeringly strong, varied and imaginative set of stories, setting out the series’ manifesto of science and history, though not yet really mixing the two. It's hard to imagine a better launching-point than these, where the Doctor starts off as a mysterious old git making life difficult for the clean-cut leads and sees him wrestle his way to being the undoubted star and hero.
I watched / listened to all the first Doctor’s stories in a row for the first time a couple of years ago and found to my surprise that I was completely captured by William Hartnell, who simply is the Doctor. And he’s fantastic. He’d always held a certain magic in being ‘the First’; I loved the few books with him in them, as well as being spellbound by the fragmentary scenes I could listen to on my Dad’s hissy open-reel recording of the documentary Whose Doctor Who. Perhaps it’s that he’s an old man with huge authority and strong moral sense, who in every other respect behaves like a child. Like the TARDIS and many of the series’ greater moments, he up-ends your expectations. He’s fiercely intelligent and utterly irreverent. He shows off outrageously. He sulks or shouts when he doesn’t get his own way, but is unexpectedly kind. He’s unpredictable, and it works brilliantly that the actor is, too, with so many little mannerisms and, yes, the odd endearingly wrong line. He’s hugely watchable. Too many ‘wise old men’ characters are deeply dull or paternal, but this one starts as an explorer who asks all the difficult questions, and it seems a natural progression from that to discovering the sheer fun of toppling empires. He dresses up, hams it up, and giggles uncontrollably when things go wrong, but risks his life to stop genocide. I can believe in him as a person, and there’s never a single story when Hartnell lets us down; any actor has their off days, but he never showed disdain for the material or gave the sense he was tired of being the Doctor, even when he was physically tiring by the minute. He’d never be cast in a TV today of sexy young heroes, and though I think sexy, relatively young David Tennant (five months older than me) has the makings of a great Doctor, for me the original is the best. Of course, it’s also not impossible my taste in Doctors may be ageing to keep up my differentials ;-)
Having had a good time out there today, I thoroughly recommend Tenth Planet to anyone after anything to do with Doctor Who and various other ‘specialist’ merchandise, if you’re in reach of sunny Barking. It’s not just because they have a good selection, reasonable prices and a good line-up of guests coming along to sign autographs (without charging anything extra). It’s because the guys who run it are both nice and helpful. When it’s easy to think of a particular specialist shop that’s ludicrously overpriced and shockingly rude to customers, that’s an attractive quality. I’m also enough of a wuss to point out it’s much more fun to queue up in an indoor centre than on the street. I had a particularly nice time today waiting around with a father and son couple of fans, chatting about what each of us liked, and I’d rather do that in the warm than shivering and rained on.
The apparently out-of-left-field title for this entry is from the three Doctor Who books to feature the Thals – two of which are jolly good – which each have chapters that are a variant on ‘Escape to Danger’. It’s since become probably the most over-used title in Doctor Who fiction, but I grew up finding it exciting…
Labels: Doctor Who, DVD, Recons, Reviews, William Hartnell
Ecological Win Is Not Gonna happen
Much as I’d love to take President Bush’s ‘addicted to oil’ remark at face value – more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, and so on – I notice most of the headlines missed that it was only in the context of dependence on foreign oil. I used to watch Dallas in the ‘80s and it never struck me as a model of environmental sustainability.
“Woof!” “Market! Heel!” John Prescott has decided of his own free will to back the government’s education ‘reforms’ after all. Shocker.
I’m still mulling over a temperate response to the illiberal mush that Sajjad Karim MEP was coming up with on Newsnight last night (catch it online today). Our human rights spokesperson (imagine!) seems to think that freedom of speech is only all right if it’s not used about anything important. I recommend watching Dave Allen tonight, in the same slot on the same channel, and on much the same subject. It’ll almost certainly have a more slanderous attack on religion than a bunch of cartoons, and I’m prepared to put money on zero Catholic death threats.
Today’s TV included two particularly fine railway thrillers from the middle of the last century: Terror By Night, with the superb Basil Rathbone and much-maligned Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, followed directly by Hitchcock’s brilliant but spiteful Strangers on a Train. I was, obviously, on the train at the time and only noticed when I got in. BBC2 has another decent thriller tonight: The Talented Mr Ripley isn’t quite as fine, but scores higher on the measure of ‘Jude Law wearing very few clothes’. If you’re up around two in the morning, you might also turn to Channel 4 for William Hartnell’s frail and moving performance in This Sporting Life…
Richard wins in EuroMillions Lottery!
Though he’s distressed that it was only £70, and not the £125,000,000 for which he was hoping. So, no heated indoor swimming pool to invite all our prettiest friends to, but it’ll cover the price of the Miss Marple DVD box he’s just bought. He’s watching one now to commiserate with himself. It’s Joan Hickson, of course, as he likes the interpretation of her as ‘evil old bat’ (ask anyone in Wivenhoe). I’m more a Margaret Rutherford ‘camp old nonsense’ chap, but neither of us were impressed by ITV1’s farrago: ‘Marple’ is a place a stout walk from where I grew up, not a proper series title. It's just plain rude without a genteel ‘Miss’ in front.
And finally… According to my ‘Interests’, I am the only blogger interested in ‘wittering on’. I find that very hard to believe.
“Woof!” “Market! Heel!” John Prescott has decided of his own free will to back the government’s education ‘reforms’ after all. Shocker.
I’m still mulling over a temperate response to the illiberal mush that Sajjad Karim MEP was coming up with on Newsnight last night (catch it online today). Our human rights spokesperson (imagine!) seems to think that freedom of speech is only all right if it’s not used about anything important. I recommend watching Dave Allen tonight, in the same slot on the same channel, and on much the same subject. It’ll almost certainly have a more slanderous attack on religion than a bunch of cartoons, and I’m prepared to put money on zero Catholic death threats.
Today’s TV included two particularly fine railway thrillers from the middle of the last century: Terror By Night, with the superb Basil Rathbone and much-maligned Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, followed directly by Hitchcock’s brilliant but spiteful Strangers on a Train. I was, obviously, on the train at the time and only noticed when I got in. BBC2 has another decent thriller tonight: The Talented Mr Ripley isn’t quite as fine, but scores higher on the measure of ‘Jude Law wearing very few clothes’. If you’re up around two in the morning, you might also turn to Channel 4 for William Hartnell’s frail and moving performance in This Sporting Life…
Richard wins in EuroMillions Lottery!
Though he’s distressed that it was only £70, and not the £125,000,000 for which he was hoping. So, no heated indoor swimming pool to invite all our prettiest friends to, but it’ll cover the price of the Miss Marple DVD box he’s just bought. He’s watching one now to commiserate with himself. It’s Joan Hickson, of course, as he likes the interpretation of her as ‘evil old bat’ (ask anyone in Wivenhoe). I’m more a Margaret Rutherford ‘camp old nonsense’ chap, but neither of us were impressed by ITV1’s farrago: ‘Marple’ is a place a stout walk from where I grew up, not a proper series title. It's just plain rude without a genteel ‘Miss’ in front.
And finally… According to my ‘Interests’, I am the only blogger interested in ‘wittering on’. I find that very hard to believe.
Sheer Pleasure
We’re sitting up watching The Avengers: The Superlative Seven on BBC4, and my, it’s fantastic. It begins and ends with the most gorgeously frivolous ‘shooting’ you’ll ever see, and in between does a remarkably sinister take on And Then There Were None. Though bursting with guest actors like Donald Sutherland and a quietly menacing Brian Blessed, Patrick Macnee steals it utterly, turning in an instant from fey to dangerous. We both laughed for sheer pleasure when instead of driving himself to his appointment he arrives standing upright in Mrs Peel’s Lotus wearing the full rig of an 18th Century general. I’ve not seen anything so magnificent on the telly all year. It might just be the best of the colour Diana Rigg episodes, and she’s hardly in it… There’s probably my second favourite nearly-very-rude-joke from The Avengers, too.
Next week’s is set in a railway station and stars demented John Laurie, so that’s another to tune in for (Thursday at 7 as well as late Friday). And near-confirmation for my views of the characters’ politics at the end, so look out for that.
Next week’s is set in a railway station and stars demented John Laurie, so that’s another to tune in for (Thursday at 7 as well as late Friday). And near-confirmation for my views of the characters’ politics at the end, so look out for that.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Testing the Faith
No, not more about this week’s remarkable triple news shocks on religion and freedom of speech; I’ve inscribed my name in The Book of the Damned and followed a link from more than one blog there to the slightly less daft than usual ‘politics test’ at www.ok.cupid.com (though it could do with a UK version).
“You are a:
Social Liberal (76% permissive)
and an:
Economic Liberal (33% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Democrat
You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.”
Well, that’s a surprise to no-one (I was never in any danger of voting other than Kerry in ’04). I notice I’ve come out in almost exactly the same position as the excellent Iain Sharpe, owner of possibly the best-titled blog in the world.
“You are a:
Social Liberal (76% permissive)
and an:
Economic Liberal (33% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Democrat
You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.”
Well, that’s a surprise to no-one (I was never in any danger of voting other than Kerry in ’04). I notice I’ve come out in almost exactly the same position as the excellent Iain Sharpe, owner of possibly the best-titled blog in the world.
Questionable Time
Perhaps oddly for a political animal, I don't usually watch Question Time. My other half does, but I find that I'm either too sleepy to start watching it or that, when I do, I shout too much at the screen.
As there's a Liberal Democrat leadership contest on at the moment and I remain undecided between the three candidates, I've broken my habit recently and started watching it again to see if Chris, Ming or Simon's performances enthuse me into a commitment. As it happens, I thought Chris Huhne was fairly impressive last night - best on the first question, not giving an inch on freedom of speech, and sound if repetitive on Iraq - but it was two of the other guests who caught my attention. Not Cheryl Gillan, who came across as quite sane and reasonable for a Tory (and far better than the gloating nastiness of John Redwood last week), nor the strangely forgettable Plaid Cymru AM, but Adam Rickitt and Rhodri Morgan.
Rhodri provided the star turn of the night, though not in a good way. I used to think he was quite independent-minded for a Labour person – well, anyone who the Blair machine has attempted to destroy gains a certain amount of kudos, deserved or not – but I've never seen anyone self-destruct so badly live on TV before. Does he no longer have a brain of his own?
Pressed constantly on the perfectly reasonable question of whether it was right to go to war against Iraq, he spent answer after answer talking about seemingly anything else that came into his mind (visiting squaddies, the Boer War, the Nazis – four times in his first two answers, which seemed to be aiming for some kind of Godwin’s Law jackpot) while winding up the audience and digging himself deeper with every evasion. According to him, because he’s no longer an MP he doesn’t need to have an opinion on it. In fact, he shouldn’t have an opinion, and he told the audience that neither should they. I suspect most of the audience started off on his side; it takes some doing to have them all either laughing at him or baying for his blood.
It's incredible that he expects anyone to believe he never once thought to make up his mind about Iraq, and offensive that he told all the rest of us we were wrong to have our own opinions and should leave it our lords and masters in Westminster as the only people allowed to have a view. And then to attack the audience for disagreeing! He was shameful. If I were anyone in Plaid Cymru, I’d be on the phone to BBC Worldwide to license that ten minutes of flakiness and send a DVD of it to every target voter.
Adam was a different problem altogether. He wasn't the worst panellist they've ever had on, and wasn't the airhead that his reputation suggests, though his habit of saying one thing, being taken to task for it by a wiser panellist (usually Chris) and then agreeing with the other panellist as if that's what he'd meant to say all along ("Exactly!") did make him seem a bit all over the shop. And I have next to zero dress sense, but as he was looking thinner and more unhealthy than I've ever seen him, even I could suggest that wearing a large suit he looked lost inside (as if he might 'grow into it') was a mistake.
However, my problem with him wasn't how he looked or even what he said. It was that he was introduced as an 'actor', and that was how he was billed every time his name flashed across the screen. No, bear with me, I'm not casting aspersions on his acting ability. It's just that the reason he was on the programme wasn't because he used to be on Corrie; it's because he is seeking to become a Conservative MP. Last week, another young man appeared as the fifth panellist, billed as a magazine editor. At no point was it mentioned that he's chairing a Conservative policy group (though strangely enough, Ms Gillan mentioned him last night). Call me old-fashioned, but if someone's on the programme as a 'new Tory', shouldn't we be told?
I'm disturbed that it's the second week in a row that QT has had a second Tory by stealth. Isn't it lying to the audience to not tell us all where such 'independents' are coming from?
As there's a Liberal Democrat leadership contest on at the moment and I remain undecided between the three candidates, I've broken my habit recently and started watching it again to see if Chris, Ming or Simon's performances enthuse me into a commitment. As it happens, I thought Chris Huhne was fairly impressive last night - best on the first question, not giving an inch on freedom of speech, and sound if repetitive on Iraq - but it was two of the other guests who caught my attention. Not Cheryl Gillan, who came across as quite sane and reasonable for a Tory (and far better than the gloating nastiness of John Redwood last week), nor the strangely forgettable Plaid Cymru AM, but Adam Rickitt and Rhodri Morgan.
Rhodri provided the star turn of the night, though not in a good way. I used to think he was quite independent-minded for a Labour person – well, anyone who the Blair machine has attempted to destroy gains a certain amount of kudos, deserved or not – but I've never seen anyone self-destruct so badly live on TV before. Does he no longer have a brain of his own?
Pressed constantly on the perfectly reasonable question of whether it was right to go to war against Iraq, he spent answer after answer talking about seemingly anything else that came into his mind (visiting squaddies, the Boer War, the Nazis – four times in his first two answers, which seemed to be aiming for some kind of Godwin’s Law jackpot) while winding up the audience and digging himself deeper with every evasion. According to him, because he’s no longer an MP he doesn’t need to have an opinion on it. In fact, he shouldn’t have an opinion, and he told the audience that neither should they. I suspect most of the audience started off on his side; it takes some doing to have them all either laughing at him or baying for his blood.
It's incredible that he expects anyone to believe he never once thought to make up his mind about Iraq, and offensive that he told all the rest of us we were wrong to have our own opinions and should leave it our lords and masters in Westminster as the only people allowed to have a view. And then to attack the audience for disagreeing! He was shameful. If I were anyone in Plaid Cymru, I’d be on the phone to BBC Worldwide to license that ten minutes of flakiness and send a DVD of it to every target voter.
Adam was a different problem altogether. He wasn't the worst panellist they've ever had on, and wasn't the airhead that his reputation suggests, though his habit of saying one thing, being taken to task for it by a wiser panellist (usually Chris) and then agreeing with the other panellist as if that's what he'd meant to say all along ("Exactly!") did make him seem a bit all over the shop. And I have next to zero dress sense, but as he was looking thinner and more unhealthy than I've ever seen him, even I could suggest that wearing a large suit he looked lost inside (as if he might 'grow into it') was a mistake.
However, my problem with him wasn't how he looked or even what he said. It was that he was introduced as an 'actor', and that was how he was billed every time his name flashed across the screen. No, bear with me, I'm not casting aspersions on his acting ability. It's just that the reason he was on the programme wasn't because he used to be on Corrie; it's because he is seeking to become a Conservative MP. Last week, another young man appeared as the fifth panellist, billed as a magazine editor. At no point was it mentioned that he's chairing a Conservative policy group (though strangely enough, Ms Gillan mentioned him last night). Call me old-fashioned, but if someone's on the programme as a 'new Tory', shouldn't we be told?
I'm disturbed that it's the second week in a row that QT has had a second Tory by stealth. Isn't it lying to the audience to not tell us all where such 'independents' are coming from?
Dipping my toe in...
Gosh, my first blog post. I'd love to say it was about swimming, but sadly I've got out of the habit of that (and rather out of condition). So, hello to anyone reading it, and welcome in.
I thought I'd start with a nice one, as I have a curious feeling some of my posts may turn out to be rather intemperate...
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I thought I'd start with a nice one, as I have a curious feeling some of my posts may turn out to be rather intemperate...
