Television
Just men talking
Wendy Cope
hen we were children and didn't feel like going to sleep at night, my sister and I sometimes went and sat on the stairs. If our mother appeared in the hall, we asked to come down again and watch television. She had a good way of dealing with this. 'There's nothing interesting,' she would say regretfully, 'Just men talking.' We always went back to bed without an argument.
My mother's words would be a fair comment on a large part of last week's output. At the beginning of This World or Week after Week or An Hour of Politics they're all pretty much the same at the moment — the studio lights go up to reveal three boiled sweets sitting in a row with their legs crossed. After they have been introduced to us there will, with any luck, be a film report on an election issue, which shortens the time available for discussion. Then the really boring part begins, as the participants make their predictable points and get in their predictable digs at the other parties. The Alliance boiled sweets, it seems to me, have a slight advantage in this kind of programme because their policies are less well-known. Now and again I have experienced mild curiosity as I waited to hear what an Alliance spokesper- son was going to say. But I don't find these three-way debates very helpful as a method of informing myself about policies and `Of all the places to get a poltergeist!' issues. However hard I try, it is more or less impossible to concentrate and I won- der how many viewers bother to make the effort.
At the end of last week I discovered a programme that tells us what we need to know much more efficiently. Produced by Diverse for Channel 4, it goes under the encouraging and accurate title Election Brief. The one I saw was about local government. It included some recent his- tory, an explanation of the current posi- tion, details of party policies on the sub- ject, and some comments from experts. All in ten minutes and not a politician in sight. Election Brief continues most evenings next week and is repeated in the afternoon.
And then, for light relief, there ate the party election broadcasts. The first few minutes of last week's Conservative broad- cast were so sinister that I didn't know whether to laugh or tremble. They re- minded us of our love of freedom and the battles our fathers fought to defend it (film of soldiers in the trenches and war graves). Unfortunately, however, we British some- times respect freedom a bit too much and allow 'imported ideologies like Marxism and its step-brother socialism to creep into our thinking'. It sounded to me like some- thing out of Orwell. The opening words of the broadcast, interestingly enough, were `Man is born free' — a quotation from Rousseau. These imported ideas creep in everywhere.
The Kinnock party broadcast was more amusing. It featured Neil's Auntie Sadie and his Uncle Bill, along with the ubi- quitous Glenys and the children. The programme established that this party leader had wonderful parents, that he thinks well of his wife, and that his offspring, too, are quite picturesque. But it seemed to me that there was something missing. What are Neil's cousins like? What does his mother-in-law think of him? Has the family got a pet and, if so, is it attractive and compassionate? I think we should be told.
The Alliance effort was called 'Talking with Rosie'. A child, a dog and a rabbit appeared in the opening sequence but after that it was just Rosie Barnes explaining her views to an unseen interviewer, while aeroplanes roared overhead and traffic rumbled on a nearby road. One of the Sunday papers mentioned that this broad- cast had been scripted by an advertising man but it didn't sound scripted to me and I liked it better than the other two. Perhaps it is because Rosie hasn't been a politician for very long that she is easier to listen to than most. And, of course, a female talking head, whatever you think of its opinions, is at least a change.
However, there is no evidence, so far, that the broadcast did the Alliance any good. The section of the electorate that might have been favourably impressed probably thought it would be just men talking and went off to do the washing up.
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