Back in the olden days when I used to be a Lib Dem, I found myself attending their Autumn conference. It’s true. Had great fun, if I’m honest, but the highlight came when I was surprised (or is that taken aback?) to see the BBC’s Andrew Neil and his strangely coarse hair and curiously humped gait. I immediately offered my friend £20 to ‘steal his wig’ but the challenge wasn’t accepted.
Was only later that I suddenly connected the coarse, densely matted hair with his more popular nickname: Brillo. It makes perfect sense.
Of course, Lib Dems have a special loathing for Andrew Neil – Despite having 60,000 members and taking 25% of the vote at the last general election, Wiggy (or Brillo) regards the party (and, by extension everyone who voted for them) as beneath contempt and not worth discussing. You can argue the merits of the Lib Dem Party but the idea that British Politics is nothing more than a tribal battle between Conservatives and Labour, that nothing else matters, that nothing else is worth our time discussing?
That’s what I thought. Pretty shoddy, if you ask me. Diversity everywhere, except in politics it seems. Nothing winds up Lib Dems more than seeing Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo sitting on a sofa together every week representing ‘balance’ and a full spectrum of political opinion.
So if this is how the third largest party fares at the hands of Andrew Neil, how do you suppose a tiny little party with only 450 members gets on? That’s right… they get torn to shreds. I have a lot of respect and time for Chris Mounsey, the Libertarian Party’s leader. He’s also a very sweary blogger, and it seems Brillo has been waiting for a long, long time to give him a bit of an on-air bollocking.
If we’re ever going to get a ‘different kind of politics’ in this country, perhaps one suggestion is for the BBC to recognise that believing the only axis that matters is Labour Versus Conservative is, itself, a political opinion. It’s a form a bias and one that is suffocatingly self-reinforcing. It’s a hard enough job to make people realise that there’s nothing special about Labour, nothing special about the Conservatives as it is – they’re just people with no great gift for governance and certainly no monopoly on ideas or being right.
So why do we behave as if they do? And why do we pay money to have this bullshit spoon fed to us by witless hacks like Neil?
But then, to break through the glass ceiling that’s over every other party in the UK it needs people to realise that politics isn’t something to be spoon fed through the television or by newspapers. It’s a living, breathing thing that comes from real people and what they need and want from this life.
The Libertarian Party may only have 450 members. They may have a lot of very sweary bloggers in their ranks… but it’s a spontaneously occurring political party that’s come from normal people realising they have a lot in common with each other and absolutely bugger all in common with what passes for the “State Approved Choices.” It’s not been created by some rich old bastard trying to wind up the Tories. It’s not a front group for some trade union wankers. It’s not just a bunch of splitters from some other party. In short I think it deserved better than being dismissed with “You’ve only got 450 members? Stop wasting my time!” There’s actually an interesting story about the internet and what role it might play in the politics of the future here, but I guess you have to understand that first. Wiggy doesn’t.
So it’s not the Libertarians he’s insulting. He’s insulting everyone who dares have an opinion that doesn’t fit into neat ‘red or blue.’ He’s insulting anyone who dares imagine that they’re allowed to participate in politics outside of the prescribed paths (you know… pretty much the majority of people). Thanks Wiggy, but no thanks. You’re a dinosaur and your days are pretty much numbered.
Well, I can hope anyway.
JuliaM said...
14 Apr 10 at 4:52 pm
“Diversity everywhere, except in politics it seems.”
Certainly, there’s little diversity between the Big Two this election…
Dick Puddlecote said...
14 Apr 10 at 6:47 pm
Great piece, CG.
Instead of asking what Mounsey is doing on a blog, Brillo should be asked what the hell he was thinking of in avoiding any talk of policies and instead focussing on size of membership. Willy-waving, quite literally.
Jennie said...
14 Apr 10 at 7:48 pm
I could have done with that £20 too…
sconzey said...
14 Apr 10 at 7:53 pm
Absolutely; interview fail, Mr Neil, interview fail.
Dick Puddlecote said...
14 Apr 10 at 8:07 pm
It got me thinking actually. Yes, not necessaily a good thing, but …
John Demetriou said...
14 Apr 10 at 11:08 pm
Brilliant article. Sums up how I feel about the sorry business and the need and legitimacy for people who belong to belief systems and parties not connected to the two main outfits.
Bravo.
Toque said...
14 Apr 10 at 11:26 pm
If you think being a Lib Dem or a LPUK member gets you short-shrift from the BBC, you should try being a member of the Campaign for an English Parliament.
The treatment Chris received was unfair and, some would say, unprofessional of Andrew Neil, but I can’t say I found it shocking because it was half-expected. The blogosphere can have its revenge on the received opinion of Westminster and the Red and Blue careerists and hacks who populate it, by getting behind Hang Em and giving them a bloody nose. Do it. Make them change, because the system won’t change itself.
Devil’s Kitchen – Reborn | Crazy Elmont said...
14 Apr 10 at 11:42 pm
[...] the whole story again, especially since you can find a whole range of comments here, here, here, here, and here. I thought the whole 5 minutes was disgraceful, Neill had no intention of asking anything [...]
Woman on a Raft said...
14 Apr 10 at 11:58 pm
Neil doesn’t wear laced shoes. He’s a slip-on man if ever there was one. White patent mock-croc loafers with gold details.
Charlotte Gore said...
15 Apr 10 at 2:11 am
Yeah. Yeah, now you say that I can’t really see anything else.
Stop Common Purpose said...
15 Apr 10 at 4:58 am
With the general election campaign underway, here are some ideas for questions to ask candidates about Common Purpose.
tomdaylight said...
15 Apr 10 at 8:22 am
Rubbish – he held him up to the same standards as any other politician. That is the only way you can take a fringe party seriously – if it was just the sort of fluff piece you presumably want it would mean he wasn’t taking them seriously at all.
Paxman’s way is to bludgeon them with a mace – Brillo’s is to poke a fine dagger through a chink in the armour.
FlipC said...
15 Apr 10 at 8:56 am
Only 450 members! Perhaps Brillo should take a look at my local ‘independent’ party. 10 district councillors, 3 county councillors and 1 MP; yet no fixed membership. Must be irrelevant then?
Old Slaughter said...
15 Apr 10 at 12:11 pm
Er…
The bits about the Devil are fine, but this nonsense about the Lib Dems?
The Lib Dems are pointless because they can’t get to power. Now I don’t mean because nobody votes for them, (I always loved the polling stat that showed that if all the people that would vote Lib Dem if they thought they could get into office did vote Lib Dem, they would be in office), I mean becuase they don’t really exist. They are a collection of reactive positions, merely reflexing against whatever the big two do. If you can see a patch of ground open between Lab/Con, there resides the Lib Dems.
The closer to the speed of light you get the harder it becomes to accelerate.
The closer to being serious contenters the Lib Dems get then the less they will exist. There is fundementally,no core, no ideology, only a disposition to the alternatives.
They require a fundemental inability to succeed to be as successful as they have.
On Speaking Too Soon at The Charlotte Gore Blog said...
15 Apr 10 at 1:43 pm
[...] unconstrained by censorship or regulation, people do the right thing anyway. It doesn’t let Wiggy off the hook, of course – he’s still absolutely 100% part of the problem of robotic, [...]
John Q. Wagonwheel said...
15 Apr 10 at 5:54 pm
Old Slaughter – Reactive? I think you’re still seeing things from one or the other side of a very worn pitch. While the LDs may have a touch of flexibility on policies for which there is no possibility of concrete proof, it would be crass to call them reactionary for defending liberalism as far as is practical against the real reactionaries – the vote-winning club of the big two.
I’d be interested to see if, when Buggin’s turn finally comes round for the Lib Dems, these core principles are lost. As it is, I don’t buy it.
John said...
15 Apr 10 at 7:05 pm
The LPUK may only have 450 members but I bet that’s more people than watch Neil’s shitty lunchtime programme.
No matter whether you agree or not with the politics, Neil should have at least shown some respect to the guy. Instead the viewer ended up with nothing but sympathy for Mounsey. Neil came over as a grade-A prick and a bully. No change there then.
Old Slaughter said...
16 Apr 10 at 8:41 am
Yes. Reactive, as in they have no idea what they will say until others have acted.
I did not call them ‘reactionary’, as in wishing to roll back progress.
Unlinked « Fuck Grapefruit said...
19 Apr 10 at 5:59 am
[...] DK’s version of events is here. Hat-tips and links from Mark [Thompson] Reckons and Charlotte Gore [...]
missive » Blog Archive » On Speaking Too Soon said...
20 Apr 10 at 10:27 pm
[...] unconstrained by censorship or regulation, people do the right thing anyway. It doesn’t let Wiggy off the hook, of course – he’s still absolutely 100% part of the problem of robotic, [...]