Television
A dying breed
James Delingpole
In The Real Queen Mother (Channel 4, Monday), we were told that beneath those distinctive hats and behind that 'fairytale' and 'beatific' demeanour lurks a steely, ruthless right-wing Machiavel with extreme Victorian values, a staggering overdraft and a gift for propaganda which would have put Dr Goebbels to shame.
None of this bothered me, particularly, first because I'd heard most of it before and second because the programme still allowed for a positive reading of the Queen Mother's character: namely that without her indefatigable sense of duty and her gift for spin the monarchy might well have col- lapsed years ago.
What did worry me, though, was that I was personally acquainted with at least half the programme's expert witnesses: Geordie Greig, Hugh Massingberd, Andrew Roberts and so on. This gave me the nasty thought that, like the Queen Mum and her defenders, I too was part of a dying breed Of out-of-touch traditionalists whose views had no relevance in Blair's thrusting New Britain. And I thought, 'God, come the inevitable civil war, we're going to be seri- ously outnumbered.'
I mean, we're probably going to be fairly safe as far as the officer class is concerned, but where, I've often wondered, are we going to recruit our foot soldiers? And the other day, I thought I'd found the answer. Driving round the evil, smelly Elephant & Castle roundabout, I noticed two huge posters featuring the menacing, thuggish faces of Ross Kemp (the yobby one out of EastEnders) and Chris Ellison (the yobby one out of The Bill).
`Aha,' I thought to myself, 'these are just the sort of fellows we need in a rumble. I'll bet they've no truck with metres and euros; I'll bet they remember Agincourt; I'll bet they think Blair and Irvine and Mandelson and Macpherson are a right bunch of tossers. With sturdy Essex-man types like these on our side, we might just stand a chance.'
Or so I imagined until I made the big mistake of watching their new 'television series. And I don't know whether it's because they've been infected by luvviedom or whether it's because they're just desper- ate to play against type but, whatever it is, they've both been hijacked by the dread forces of PC.
In Burnside (ITV, Thursday) Ellison reprises his Bill role as the copper so brutal and charmless that you can't help loving him. Except now, in some misguided attempt to make absolutely 100 per cent sure we can't help loving him, he has been revealed to have the heart of a warm fluffy liberal. He's tolerant and friendly towards his black, gay sidekick. He finds prejudice — 'he's a racist bastard,' you hear him snarl at one point — at least as offensive as multiple murder. Just like all Burnside types would in real life, I don't think. In Defence (ITV, Monday) is even more emetically bien-pensant. All the black peo- ple in it have hearts of gold while about the only white one who does is Ross Kemp's crusading lawyer Sam Lucas. This week's episode involved a black policeman who had been framed for suffocating a (black) prisoner by his white, typical-police-racist- scum colleagues, at which point I gave up watching. Shame really because, primary- school-level didacticism apart, it's quite well done and the performances by Kemp and Sophie Okonedo are first-rate.
One group I definitely don't want on my side in this forthcoming civil war, however politically simpatico they may be, are estate agents. Not after having witnessed their unseemly antics on the silly but watchable new game show Bare Necessities (BBC 2, Thursday), in which two teams are sent somewhere remote and inhospitable and forced to fend for themselves (eating igua- nas etc.) for five gruelling days.
The opening episode saw three estate agents competing against a trio of nurses in 'VS who?' the jungles of Mexico and being judged according to their achievements and their level of morale by ex-commando instructor Hugh McManners. From the beginning it seemed a foregone conclusion that the nurses would win, being of a more practical bent. But somehow — it wasn't quite clear — the estate agents slimed their way to the first prize of a night in a luxury hotel, while the sobbing nurses were forced to endure another squalid night in the jungle.
Really, though, two of the three estate agents should have been disqualified for behaving so disgustingly. While one of them — the well-upholstered public-school type — did most of the hard work, the oth- ers just whinged and skived, left the toff to dehydrate and then stole his share of the food. Then, again, I suppose this might not have been typical estate agent behaviour but rather a metaphor for the new pecking order in Blair's Britain.
A quick word about Road to Riches (BBC 2, Sunday), Peter Jay's much-vaunted history of money. It got off to a very patchy start and was nowhere near in the league of Channel 4's brilliant The Day The World Took Off If anyone knows of any useful service the Jays have yet performed for the world, can they please enlighten me.
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