Radio
Can't avoid them
Michael Vestey
Even Colditz had its escape route but while the radio is on we remain prisoners of freedom, unable to tunnel ourselves out. I do not just refer to the massive coverage given to the party conferences which have now mercifully ceased, but to the preva- lence of politicians on the radio pretending to be human. Nor do I agree with the late American poet e.e. cummings that a politi- cian is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man.
Just as we thought we were about to be released for good behaviour and repatriat- ed, we heard Roy Hattersley reading from his memoirs on Radio Four (Monday). Last week it was the former Transport Minister, Steven Norris, reading from his book Changing Trains, which should have been titled Changing Mistresses, as some of it dealt on his success with women. I have no idea what Hattersley's views on this sub- ject are but he concentrated more earnestly on his success with Jim Callaghan as PM, having previously failed to catch Harold Wilson's eye.
Another MP, Ken Livingstone, now has his own show on Radio Four, And I'm the Queen of Sheba (Thursday), a desperately unfunny panel game about lies and deceit, and of course over on Radio Five there's David Mellor mixing it with the lads on Six- 0-Six (Saturday), a football phone-in. The MP for Putney displays an encyclopaedic knowledge of groin strains and his pro- gramme is easy to avoid as it's on Five.
The problem with well-known politicians like these is that when we hear them speak on the radio we can also picture them, which doesn't help. We know they're not as self-deprecating as they try to sound. They can be funny, both deliberately and unin- tentionally. Hattersley, for example, the most rounded of them, tells some good anecdotes against himself. But just as we're thinking what an avuncular, sausage jowled old cove he is, we remember what he looked like when he used to threaten us with measures to curtail our liberty, such as preventing us from educating our children the way we'd like to, or imposing limits on the price of bread as part of his govern- ment's Prices and Incomes Policy.
It sounded like 1876 not 1976, those grim days of incompetence and meddling, and even Hatterslev seemed surprised that it was only 20 years ago. He seems. by the way, to have become every radio produc- er's favourite politician. popping up on the News Qui: and various other shows. Time for his own phone-in„ perhaps. He'd proba- bly sound more patrician than Mellor does with serious football fans. Much of it was about as penetrable as Sanskrit to me but .Mellor certainly knows his Runs and Erics. His callers like to say. 'Hi, mate.' to which Mellor responds, .Hi, Chris.' There are matters of moment to discuss: 'We don't want to get too single-minded about refer- ees but it is one of the great issues of our time.' He matches plenty of `yeahs' with his fans, dropping his Ts to sound more matey. Perhaps he'll retain Putney after all — or become a referee.
The comedy of Steven Norris shone through his description of being urgently summoned from an important meeting on the painting of white lines in the middle of the road, or something of the sort, to be told that the tabloids were publishing details of his five mistresses. He found it difficult to concentrate on the matter in hand — how many white lines we lost at that moment, we'll never know. He's a master of the understatement. saying things like, Not surprisingly, Emma was not pleased to hear about Sheila.' Or was it Sheila displeased about Emma? I can't remember. One reassuring element for us men was that he didn't have five mistresses on the go at the same time, just one after the other, as he pointed out.
What is there to say about Ken Living- stone? More than can be said for his show, I suspect. The old newt-fancier is a skilled broadcaster and has a sense of humour. But once again we picture that amiable, smiling face and remember his ruthlessness at the Greater London Council, leaving us with the conundrum: before they became politicians were they people? It's easy — and healthy — for us to satirise politicians but the World Tonight on Radio Four has bungled its attempts to do so. Every year, it sends a comedy writer, Alistair Beaton, to party conferences to send them up. His first efforts were badly delivered, weak in humour and embarrass- ing to listen to, and he confessed to his producers that he found Labour confer- .inces difficult because he tended to agree with most of the views expressed. Tories were an easier target but this year the red mist seemed to have descended. His tech- nique is to use snippets from speakers and then add his own satire. So, last Thursday at Bournemouth, he broadcast a sound bite from an Asian Tory and then said, 'We believe in giving equal opportunities to men and women of every ethnic origin. Especially those with such nice accents that when you shut your eyes you could imagine they were white. We believe in firm and fair asylum laws. Well, actually, we only believe in firm asylum laws, but it sounds had going around saving you don't give a stuff about people being tortured. We are Conservatives.'
This poisonous tripe might be all right on Weekending but not on the World Tonight.
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