Television
Loonies
Richard Ingrams
A few years ago the idea that Wedgwood Benn would be treated as an important figure and a serious contender for the Labour Party deputy leadership would have seemed absurd, as would the notion of homosexualists of both sexes being allowed on television to make propaganda for their perversions. However, such is the nature of the times that all these things are now regarded as perfectly normal and respectable. To any sensible person, such as myself, it is obvious (a) that Wedgwood Benn is a ridiculous figure and (b) that it is not a good thing to be a homosexualist.
My main objection to Wedgwood Benn, who was interviewed by Brian Walden on Sunday's Weekend World (LWT),is that he talks about the need to restore integrity to the Labour Party. First of all, I don't think Wedgwood Benn is such a scrupulously honest man that he is entitled to talk in this holier-than-thou manner. His adopted name of 'Tony Benn' is in itself a prize piece of hypocrisy. But that is not the main point. Wedgwood Benn's argument on SundaY was that the Labour Party has always been fed on a diet of humbug; it passes a lot of reformist motions when in opposition but when it comes to power it does nothing about them. Therefore in future he proposes that a Labour leader will be forced to carry out the Party's wishes or else. In so arguing he ignores the fact that this humbug is an electoral asset to the Labour Party, helping to secure the support of a lot of people who would otherwise be frightened off. But again he is guilty of humbug himself in arguing that his main concern is democra cy, when the decisions of the Labour PartY Conference are reached in the most un democratic way possible by a number of self-perpetuating trade union leaders wielding millions of votes which from a democta" tic standpoint are meaningless and invalid. It was a pity that Brian Walden did not make this point to Wedgwood Senn. Not only does it destroy his proud claim to be a democrat; it has also been shown to be a most effective debating point on programmes. On a recent edition of S'r Robin Day's Question Time, the granite' faced Moss Evans was so discomfited bY mass attack on the block vote system fr°,111, his fellow panellists and most of the wider ence that he had a seizure and had to be taken to hospital. I will deal with the homosexualists lateT had hoped to write something this wee' about Gay Life (LWT) but my courage failed me when it came to listening t° lecture about lesbianism from a woman 011 Gay News at 11.30 on a Sunday night. This week I hope to be feeling stronger. While ITV dabbles with lesbians and Wedgwood Benn, the BBC's latest idea for family entertainment is mental illness. The star of Maybury (BBC2) is a consultant psychiatrist called Dr Roebuck. He is a Stirling Moss look-alike with a nice reassuring manner, as you would expect. On Tuesday I sat through a very authentic looking nervous breakdown on the part of a young man called Colin, who like the Yorkshire Ripper was quickly labelled 'schizophrenic' by the good doctor. Any hopes of a speedy cure were ruled out when the story came to an abrupt end just when Cohn had been admitted to Maybury and asked Roebuck's young sidekick, `What's the matter with me?' The theme music then began to play and we were told by a mysterious BBC voice, `Colin's searching question will be answered next week.',It was a bit tough on us viewers who had braved the harrowing scenes beforehand to be told we had to come back for another basinful next week. Besides which I have an awful feeling that next week Dr Roebuck, just like any other TV doctor, will pull off a quick cure and young Cohn will be sent home as right as rain; whereas we all know that psychiatrists have a very limited knowledge about mental illness and that most of their so-called cures occur spontaneously. This does not mean that we shouldn't have programmes about psychiatrists. The trouble with Maybury is that it has been conceived as a public relations exercise for the psychiatrists, and the intention is to dispel the public's in many ways well-grounded apprehensions about them, by making a psychiatrist into a TV hero figure, just as if he was a GP like Dr Finlay or a vet like James Herriot. It won't work because mental illness cannot be realistically presented as drama, and besides which we have quite enough genuine loonies on the telly, not to mention Wedgwood Benn and lesbian ladies, without having artificial ones as well.
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