Celebrity squares
It is a long, long, time since the Conservative party had the support of a clever, truculent lesbian. In fact, has it ever happened before? Clever, truculent lesbians are usually very left-wing, in my experience. But now one of them has come out, so to speak, for David Cameron — the extremely talented writer Jeanette Winterson. He must be bowled over. I mean, inclusive or what? It’s a long time since British writers were allowed to be Conservative, never mind clever, truculent lesbian British writers. The question, I suppose, is whether the truculent lesbian community has swung decisively to the Right or the Conservative party has made itself more amenable to truculent lesbians.
The singer Iggy Pop once recorded a song entitled ‘I’m a Conservative’, which consisted of him snarling ‘I’m a Conservative’ for six or seven minutes over the top of some typically vigorous electric guitar. It was regarded at the time as a quite hilarious piece of satire, a cogent and biting comment on the vacuity of right-wing politics. Later, though, Mr Pop put the record straight. ‘Actually, I am a Conservative. That’s what I meant when I sang “I’m a Conservative”. I didn’t mean that I wasn’t.’ We have become unused to our celebrities affixing their names to the party of Charles Moore and Michael Howard. That they are now willing to do so suggests that either it is no longer the party of Charlie and Mike or that celebs are heading back to the Right. Conservative Central Office has recently found itself a few stars. Not enough just yet, maybe, for a rally of the proportions held by Margaret Thatcher before the 1983 general election — which had every smug, desperately unfunny Liverpudlian comedian, perma-tanned crooner, emetic game-show presenter and those grand old dames Lulu and Cilla pledging their support for Maggie (and made me vow never, ever, to vote Tory in my life) — but a start, at least. Back then, in the early 1980s, the most exciting star Labour could rustle up was Derek ‘I’ll ’ave you, Butler’ Guyler from the appalling, witless comedy On the Buses. But for the best part of 15 years our luvvies and our writers and our pop musicians have dressed to the Left, as evidenced by that sickening gathering at No. 10 Downing Street to celebrate Tony Blair’s accession to power — a glittering array of comedians, coke-headed pop musicians and moppety actresses.
Now, though, the tide has turned. It may be that the celebs are coming back to the Conservative party because Mr Cameron has positioned himself some distance to the left of Derek Hatton — but never mind, credit where credit’s due. Bob Geldof is to help the Tories by providing them with advice, which I daresay he will impart with his customary grace and humility. The pubescent boy band Busted are Tories, or at least one of them is, the one who is allowed to speak to the press. Our most successful footballing import, José Mourinho, is a Tory (and his boss, Roman Abramovich, strikes me as being a few yards short of a welfare socialist). The likeable chef Marco Pierre White and the most dislikeable singer Bryan Ferry are both Tories. And the great news is that Bill Roache — who plays someone called Ken Barlow in a soap opera — is, after all these years, still a Tory. All they really need now is Coldplay, David Walliams and Ricky Gervais. To let bygones be bygones, I contacted a couple of stars from that 1983 Wembley bash and asked if they still supported the Tories — but I haven’t heard back from Vince Hill and Errol Brown yet. Errol’s just got an MBE from the government so he might well consider it rude to come out for Cameron; but you never know. Watch this space.
The backlash against the luvvie Left began in the US, where for years Hollywood has provided air-headed succour to the Democrats. Now a whole bunch of talented and credible stars rather than wooden-headed bores like Charlton Heston — are proving that it is not necessarily damaging to one’s reputation and standing to lean to the Right — the likes of Robert Duvall, John Malkovich, Dana Carvey and Vince Vaughn.
The question for the Tory party is whether this is a good thing or not. Having plainly sentient and illustrious human beings like Jeanette Winterson and Marco Pierre White on board cannot, surely, be too harmful. But the view we have of celebrities has changed over the years; we are far less deferential towards them, we use them for our own purposes, laugh at them and then let them go. Their status has degraded to such an extent that in some cases their support might be a downright liability: the pretty actress standing beside a Tory candidate on the hustings might, the next day, be featured on a Channel 4 reality programme applying hand relief to a pig.
In any case, a recent study by the IPPR suggested that there was very little to be gained from celebrity endorsements. A momentary buzz of attention and then nothing. But I suppose if you have been as bereft as the Conservative party these last few years, a momentary buzz is as good as it gets.
Rod Liddle
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