Have you noticed it, yet? I admit, it’s subtle. This Coalition… the noise coming from it isn’t deafening. The constant stream of not announcing initiatives, not unveiling schemes and not revealing shiny new policies… it’s all a bit unnerving.
Having cut my blogging teeth mostly laughing at the exact opposite from the previous Government this new state of affairs is troubling. How can you poke fun at the Government if they’re not announcing that they’re going to be lobotomising political opponents on Monday, creating a special Gerbil Tax on Tuesday, a “George Michael’s Law” on Wednesday, a scheme to put razor blades in McDonald’s food on Thursday to “get the fatties” and a multi-billion subsidy for the Holland’s Pie Factory so long as they move next door to John Prescott and, preferably, have a door between the two homes so that John can move freely between the two.
See, that’s easy to write about. Actually actually actually getting on with the business of running the country makes it very difficult to write about this blasted Coalition. Not very… media friendly, really. They’re a bit rubbish at spin… I wondered if I was just bad at keeping up to date but, no, they’re really just quite happy to carry on doing what they said they would do a few months ago, without the constant need to tell us shiny new things.
It’s… heaven.
So this means, I think, the Conferences are going to be attracting a lot more interest this year. The media’s starved and need new things to write about. Clearly when attending a Conference, writers begin by creating a narrative. So, for example, let’s say “The Lib Dems are very unhappy with the Coalition and intend to battle their Leader”. Is it true? Who knows?! Who cares?! Let’s just pop along over to Liverpool and ask every bugger wearing a yellow lanyard wot they reckon until you find someone who’s unhappy with the Coalition… and disagrees with Clegg. Go back to the hotel, typey-typey-typey and bob’s your totally made up uncle!
Or… or maybe write about the Labour Leadership Election. I mean, that’s exciting and awesome, right? You all love that topic, right?
How all this will go down with the public is another thing, though. People are used to having daily announcements from the Desk of the Supreme Leader. Maybe… maybe they’ll start to feel lonely. A bit unloved and insecure, now that the Government isn’t trying to be the biggest news story of every single day of the year, or trying to control every single aspect of every single part of their lives.
It feels… like…. hmm… freedom.
