In fairness, Nigel Farage delivered a reasonable speech to the UKIP conference. When I say ‘reasonable’ I don’t mean I expect it to be placed alongside The Gettysburg Address in the history of political oration, but his trousers remained aloft and he didn’t knock the lectern over. On the whole, for Farage and his party, the first half of Friday 20th September 2013 went well. Maybe he even allowed himself a touch of hubris as he left the hall, imagining this might be the day he morphed from a ciggie-toting, pint slugging gag on ‘Have I Got News For You, to a serious political figure to whom the disillusioned right may well be drawn. How buoyant he must have felt for an hour or so.
‘Sluts’. Two days ago, who would have thought the precise definition of the word would become so critical to the political/media axis – and yet, here we are. For any party giving him a home, Godfrey Bloom would be a handful. Unfortunately for them, UKIP were unwise enough to open the door to his knock. And indeed, foolish enough to stand by their man when his shenanigans began. Today’s events aside, the fellow has form.
In 2008 he was hauled from the chamber of the European Parliament, by an intern who spotted he was highly ‘refreshed’. In 2010 he was ejected from the same place after calling out a Nazi phrase at a German counterpart. Earlier this year, in a speech concerning economic development, he referred to foreign countries as ‘bongo-bongo land’. And that’s the abridged list.
Throughout all this ballyhoo, Bloom retained the UKIP whip – and, while his party distanced itself from his behaviour, he went undisciplined. Until today. Today, at the UKIP conference, and referencing a previous comment about women ‘cleaning behind the fridge’, he told a roomful of female colleagues they were ‘sluts’. Unsurprisingly this took only a few minutes to leak and so Godfrey was tackled by the media. His response was to suggest complainants lacked a sense of humour and didn’t understand the meaning of ‘slut’. He went on to bash journalist Michael Crick with a copy of the UKIP brochure. Nigel Farage’s afternoon suddenly looked considerably less celebratory. By sundown, Bloom had lost the party whip.
To avoid confusion, oxforddictionaries.com defines the word ‘slut’ as:
1. A woman who has many sexual partners
2. (dated) A woman with low standards of cleanliness
So Bloom’s claims of ‘misinterpretation’ seem weak at best. But having said that, the meaning of ‘sluts’ is hardly the crux of this matter. Indeed, the whole debacle is a conference season sideshow. But it does raise some interesting questions concerning our relationship with politicians and the media reporting on them.
Since the spectacular rise and ignominious fall of Tony Blair and his New Labour project, the electorate’s most consistent criticism of party politics has been insincerity. With some justification, we’ve attacked the culture of ‘spin’ – a conspiracy between the party apparatus and the press, to present artificial impressions. We feel ‘conviction’ politicians have been replaced by automatons, acting on the instructions of the Malcolm Tuckers, and resisting any inclination to reveal their actual feelings or opinions. Few commentators would deny this ‘coat of paint’ approach to politics has spread from Blair to Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. Tony may have gone off to work on his tan, but his model remains intact.
Equally, the interminable news media is a hungry beast. It requires constant feeding and political press wonks are more than happy to toss fresh meat into its enclosure. Often this is a mutually convenient arrangement, but when it comes unstuck, fear and loathing ensues. When enormous energy and treasure has been expended in the building of a gleaming shell, the tiniest crack resembles a horrendously damaging flaw.
Clearly Nigel Farage spotted a gap in the market. Although his public image is as contrived as that of Dave, Nick and Ed, it’s of a different hue. Nigel figured there was mileage to be gained from being the bloke at the end of the bar. Albeit the golf-club bar. Never afraid to be seen with a glass of beer and/or a blazing fag, his approach was genuinely picking up some traction. Coupled with a strident attitude to Europe (a subject guaranteed to send other parties into a state of shuddering anxiety), he was managing to push out a brand which could at least be understood. Whether you like or loathe him, he has managed the media pretty effectively, in as much as he has built a profile which plays well with his target audience who tend to see him as ‘authentic’ – the attribute so many politicians are thought to lack so woefully.
But then there’s authenticity and authenticity. Farage’s spin is that he is ‘unspun’. Godfrey Bloom, however, is the real thing. Bloom strikes me as a rather unpleasant, throwback of a man. A person with unacceptably archaic views and an inclination to bellow them in the most inappropriate ways. But, by definition, he is uncontrolled. In the most unwelcome of ways, he is ‘authentic’.
The old guard of political commentators often bemoan the lack of old-style characters in the election game; recalling wistfully the contributions of Sir Rhodes Boyson, Denis Healy and Denis Skinner (who remains an MP). In Godfrey Bloom, they have a living Spitting Image puppet (interchangeable with Victor Meldrew), so full of ‘character’ it’s practically dribbling down his shirt.
You wouldn’t want him as Prime Minister, or a dinner guest, or a neighbour – but the likes of Godfery do splash a bucket of colour over a political class so two-dimensional it’s a wonder it has a backside. We have nothing to fear from him, obnoxious as he is. He has more or less guaranteed he is untouchable and his political ambitions are a busted flush. In the meantime, his hideous antics give the news media some real roughage, and everyone else sufficient fuel for a thousand mocking belly laughs.
In the clumsiest and loutish of ways, Godfrey Bloom has stamped on Nigel Farage’s bubble in a way his nervous competitors couldn’t manage in five years of concerted effort.
In 2008 he was hauled from the chamber of the European Parliament, by an intern who spotted he was highly ‘refreshed’. In 2010 he was ejected from the same place after calling out a Nazi phrase at a German counterpart. Earlier this year, in a speech concerning economic development, he referred to foreign countries as ‘bongo-bongo land’. And that’s the abridged list.
Throughout all this ballyhoo, Bloom retained the UKIP whip – and, while his party distanced itself from his behaviour, he went undisciplined. Until today. Today, at the UKIP conference, and referencing a previous comment about women ‘cleaning behind the fridge’, he told a roomful of female colleagues they were ‘sluts’. Unsurprisingly this took only a few minutes to leak and so Godfrey was tackled by the media. His response was to suggest complainants lacked a sense of humour and didn’t understand the meaning of ‘slut’. He went on to bash journalist Michael Crick with a copy of the UKIP brochure. Nigel Farage’s afternoon suddenly looked considerably less celebratory. By sundown, Bloom had lost the party whip.
To avoid confusion, oxforddictionaries.com defines the word ‘slut’ as:
1. A woman who has many sexual partners
2. (dated) A woman with low standards of cleanliness
So Bloom’s claims of ‘misinterpretation’ seem weak at best. But having said that, the meaning of ‘sluts’ is hardly the crux of this matter. Indeed, the whole debacle is a conference season sideshow. But it does raise some interesting questions concerning our relationship with politicians and the media reporting on them.
Since the spectacular rise and ignominious fall of Tony Blair and his New Labour project, the electorate’s most consistent criticism of party politics has been insincerity. With some justification, we’ve attacked the culture of ‘spin’ – a conspiracy between the party apparatus and the press, to present artificial impressions. We feel ‘conviction’ politicians have been replaced by automatons, acting on the instructions of the Malcolm Tuckers, and resisting any inclination to reveal their actual feelings or opinions. Few commentators would deny this ‘coat of paint’ approach to politics has spread from Blair to Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. Tony may have gone off to work on his tan, but his model remains intact.
Equally, the interminable news media is a hungry beast. It requires constant feeding and political press wonks are more than happy to toss fresh meat into its enclosure. Often this is a mutually convenient arrangement, but when it comes unstuck, fear and loathing ensues. When enormous energy and treasure has been expended in the building of a gleaming shell, the tiniest crack resembles a horrendously damaging flaw.
Clearly Nigel Farage spotted a gap in the market. Although his public image is as contrived as that of Dave, Nick and Ed, it’s of a different hue. Nigel figured there was mileage to be gained from being the bloke at the end of the bar. Albeit the golf-club bar. Never afraid to be seen with a glass of beer and/or a blazing fag, his approach was genuinely picking up some traction. Coupled with a strident attitude to Europe (a subject guaranteed to send other parties into a state of shuddering anxiety), he was managing to push out a brand which could at least be understood. Whether you like or loathe him, he has managed the media pretty effectively, in as much as he has built a profile which plays well with his target audience who tend to see him as ‘authentic’ – the attribute so many politicians are thought to lack so woefully.
But then there’s authenticity and authenticity. Farage’s spin is that he is ‘unspun’. Godfrey Bloom, however, is the real thing. Bloom strikes me as a rather unpleasant, throwback of a man. A person with unacceptably archaic views and an inclination to bellow them in the most inappropriate ways. But, by definition, he is uncontrolled. In the most unwelcome of ways, he is ‘authentic’.
The old guard of political commentators often bemoan the lack of old-style characters in the election game; recalling wistfully the contributions of Sir Rhodes Boyson, Denis Healy and Denis Skinner (who remains an MP). In Godfrey Bloom, they have a living Spitting Image puppet (interchangeable with Victor Meldrew), so full of ‘character’ it’s practically dribbling down his shirt.
You wouldn’t want him as Prime Minister, or a dinner guest, or a neighbour – but the likes of Godfery do splash a bucket of colour over a political class so two-dimensional it’s a wonder it has a backside. We have nothing to fear from him, obnoxious as he is. He has more or less guaranteed he is untouchable and his political ambitions are a busted flush. In the meantime, his hideous antics give the news media some real roughage, and everyone else sufficient fuel for a thousand mocking belly laughs.
In the clumsiest and loutish of ways, Godfrey Bloom has stamped on Nigel Farage’s bubble in a way his nervous competitors couldn’t manage in five years of concerted effort.
