Skip to main content

Cultural Austerity: Political Seriousness

In some previous posts, I suggested that the likely effect of the economic downturn might include some significant cultural changes. After the age of excess, I suggested, there might come an age of restraint, and that not of of this would be negative.

To a certain extent the suspension of Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand for making obscene telephone calls on a radio programme is the kind of thing that I meant. I do not particularly like Ross or Brand whose style of humour is pretty coarse at the best of times, but the spectacle of two middle aged men behaving like teenagers seems to have been pretty unedifying to a whole lot of people. Although some sources close to the BBC have suggested that the root of the complaint was "salary envy" at Ross's £18 million package, in many ways the whole idea of such a vast amount of money being paid to anyone seems, well so "last year". Ross's vulgar humour in any event is based on a certain level of cruelty which now seems rather dated and unnecessary.

The tolerance level for the bad behaviour of celebrities seems to be falling fast. Likewise, perhaps the tolerance for boorishness in general. The failure of Little Britain USA to attract Americans seems partly that the ideas behind the series now seem exceptionally tired, but also, perhaps, that Americans are not so eager for the kind of potty humour that La Walliams and Mr. Lucas have made their own. Being offensive is not, in and of itself, actually funny.

As the financial catastrophe brings down the curtain on the age of excess, perhaps the age of restraint may score a few more victories in the kulturkampf . It may even have already changed the political weather in the United States. The blatant insult to the intelligence that is usually the core of Sarah Palin's speeches seems to be going down exceptionally badly with the American voters. Meanwhile the fact that difficult problems- like the credit crisis- require complicated and often only partial answers seems to be accepted by the American people. It seems to be almost certain that the cerebral, even distant, figure of Barack Obama will triumph over a Republican Party that has been lead for eight years by an irresponsible frat boy.

In the UK, the shallow and vacuous figure of George Osborne has inflicted substantial damage on the Conservative brand. In Scotland the glib certainties of Alex Salmond have been revealed a simple nonsense. The age of restraint will favour the serious and the measured over the brash and the easy answer. Whoever can catch this new spirit will find a new connection with the voters, in the same way that it appears that Barack Obama already has.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes compared that Political heavyweight Nick Clegg.....Lib Dems on 15% Tories unchanged on
42%. Carry on dreaming Consul.


Lepidus
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

Bournemouth absence

Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need to be the most urgent priority of the next government. So far it has been the Liberal Democrats that have made the running, and although the Conservatives are now belatedly recognising that cuts will be required they continue to fail to provide even the slightest detail as to what they think should guide their decisions in this area. This political cowardice means that we are expected to ch