strange_complex | Entries tagged with politics

Seen last night at the Cottage Road cinema with

planet_andy.

I didn't expect to be so absolutely gripped by this, but it really was enthralling. At micro level, it focusses entirely on the preparations for and recording of the series of interviews which Nixon gave to David Frost in 1977, but in the process it casts a very searching light indeed over the nature of politics and the media and the relationship between them.

~~Martin~~ (oops!) Michael Sheen and Frank Langella are absolutely brilliant as the nervous young Frost and the ageing and embittered Nixon respectively, managing to capture the mannerisms and speech patterns of their subjects beautifully without ever coming across as slavish impressionists. And I very much liked the device of having most of the major secondary characters appearing not only within the story itself, but also in 'talking head' guise, looking back on their experience of the interviews from a perspective in what appears to be something like the early '80s. It was a great way of allowing the interviews to be commented on from a position of hindsight at the same time as presenting the unfolding process as it occurred, which was important given that one of the main things the film wanted to do was emphasise the contrast between the eventual success of the project and the risk of total failure which had been run along the way.

That said, I think it would also be incautious to be too easily swayed by a film which demonstrates so clearly the persuasive and distorting power of the screen (small or large). It's fairly clearly mythologising both Frost and the interviews, and it presents Nixon's final confessions about Watergate as a crushing and unexpected defeat for him. But I find it hard to believe that so canny and manipulative a politician as Nixon would really have allowed himself to be pushed by Frost into saying anything he didn't entirely want to say anyway. And then again, we do in fact see Nixon's Chief of Staff looking back on the interviews a few years later on and saying that he felt they had been a success - so maybe the possibility that Nixon knew exactly what he was doing is allowed for as well.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed the close treatment of such a fascinating moment in the history of both television and politics. I'll be looking out to see how this one does at the Oscars.

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I can't help feeling today rather like the Italian allies apparently felt on the eve of the Social War in 91 BC. They fought alongside the Romans on campaign, and were therefore profoundly affected by Roman foreign policy. Rome's enemies were their enemies, and Rome's campaigns were their campaigns. But they had no vote in Rome, and thus no say in the decision-making process that lay behind declarations of war.

Velleius Paterculus describes their situation thus:

In every year and in every war they served with twice as many foot and horse as the Romans, and yet were not given the right of citizenship in the very state which had reached through their efforts so high a position that it could look with contempt on men of the same race and blood as if they were outsiders and foreigners. (Roman History 2.15.2)

Their reaction was to rebel against Roman power, causing warfare throughout Italy: an action which in fact resulted in them getting exactly what they wanted, since the Romans realised that extending the vote to the whole of Italy was a small price to pay for peace and stability on their doorstep.

I'm not saying anything of the sort is either desirable or necessary now - it would be far better if the United States simply stopped throwing its weight around so much, and dragging the rest of us into its ill-thought-out wars. But I empathise with that sense of frustration. Today the world's future is being decided by the electorate of one nation. And all the rest of us can do is stand there crossing our fingers.

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You've probably heard about this on the news already, but the government is planning to cut the budget of the British Library by up to 7%. The library is saying that the only way it can survive if this happens is to dramatically reduce its opening hours, and charge fees to use its reading rooms.

In other words, the nation's greatest and most comprehensive repository of printed information could be changed from a freely accessible resource into one which is only available to those with the wealth to pay its entrance fees and the flexibility to attend during limited opening hours. Personally, I feel very strongly that this should not be allowed to happen.

Thankfully, over 6000 people so far have shown that they feel the same way by signing a petition on the new Downing Street petitions website to protest against this. If you'd like to join them, the link is here. (But only UK residents and ex-pat citizens can sign up, I'm afraid).

Edit: or, as

sushidog advises, go to Write To Them to send an email about it directly to your local MP. It only takes a minute or two, and you don't even have to know who they are - just where you live.

So Gordon Brown is concerned that the union between England and Scotland is under threat.

What do you think?

[Poll #905956]

Sorry - there are no snowflakes here.

No, Prescott, don't you get it?

Those are good things to be saying.

Cor, I hope the BBC's exit poll doesn't turn out to be accurate. I'm all for seeing Tony's majority slashed, but barely any change for the LibDems? *grumble*

Last election:
Labour - 413
Conservative - 166
Lib Dems - 52
Other - 28

Exit poll predictions (c. 20,000 voters):
Labour - 356
Conservative - 209
Lib Dems - 53
Other - 28

My hopes:
Labour - 370
Conservative - 150
Lib Dems - 100
Other - whatever's left

Of course that's not my dream parliament. But it's within the bounds of plausibility (or appeared so before the exit poll came out), and would see everyone going in the right direction (according to me!). Labour still in power with a slight majority, thus giving us the better of two evils until the LibDems are really ready for a full attack next time round. And meanwhile the Tories impotent, and the LibDems in a position to kick some serious ass as an opposition party, and fight from a solid foundation next time.

Well, we'll see. Right now I'm off to cheer on Sunderland South in their attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records by being the first seat to declare four elections in a row.

EDIT: They did it! Results as follows:

Monster Raving Loony Party - 149
British National Party - 1166 (yuk!)
Liberal Democrats - 4492
Conservative - 6923
Labour - 17982

Swings:

Labour -5%
Conservative +2%
LibDem +3%

... tonight is election night on The West Wing!

I hardly think the result is actually in doubt, but:

Go Bartlet! Four more years!

UPDATE: Man on Channel 4 announcing the programme this evening:

"First [before Friends] it's election night on West Wing. Now that's scheduling..."

I registered for a postal ballot for the forthcoming local and EU elections, since I am in one of the pilot areas for it. Unlike some people, I received my ballot papers in good time, and sent them off last Tuesday evening, after

diffrentcolours had verified my identity.

Since I voted, though, I have been inundated with election leaflets through my letter-box and bombarded with 'election special' interviews and Party Political broadcasts on TV and on the radio... all of which are totally irrelevant to me, 'cos I can't change my mind now even if I wanted to.

It's all made me realise that if postal ballots catch on and are implemented across the country for all elections in future, political parties are going to have to rethink the way they campaign quite radically, in order to make sure they've got all their messages across in time to catch the postal voters as well as the people who vote in polling stations. Last-minute smear campaigns, for instance, are going to lose a lot of their effectiveness if half the country have voted by the time they come out.

I think on the whole a change like this will probably be positive, because I don't much like the current tendency to ignore the electorate most of the time, and only pull out desperate fawning measures at the last minute. Having to allow for a 10-day (or so) period during which people are voting, rather than direct everything towards one day, might just encourage some slightly more thoughtful campaigning. (Well, I am an optimist by nature...)

On the other hand, though, I think I might prefer to vote in person in the next general election, because voting by post does make it all seem a bit less of a ceremony. I like the feeling of being one of millions of people across the country going to play my part in the democratic process on polling day: it's part of the build-up towards the ritual of then staying up all night to see what happens (something I've done for the last 3 general elections, despite the fact that I was too young to have voted in the first of those!).

That's just sentiment, though, and given that not very many people get quite that excited by elections (especially local ones), anything which encourages people to vote at all has got to be a good idea. Overall, I reckon postal voting is definitely a good thing: but it is going mean some differences if it becomes standard practice.