A small, ridiculous gesture for a massive, undignifed death jamboree.
One of the problems that comes from Labour deciding to just let the Tories have their week of mourning/deification with the very minimum of criticism is that you let the likes of George Galloway represent what a significant amount of people are thinking. It was an utterly absurd, cowardly move for the BBC to not play Ding Dong in full, instead opting for the typical compromise that pleased neither side. I really thought we'd moved past the point at which things that were in poor taste were banned/censored due to outside pressure, not least when it comes to music. There's plenty of music in the top 40 that's offensive in terms of how objectively awful it is, but if people buy it, it gets played. It's how the system works. Start altering that and it renders the entire exercise even more completely and utterly pointless than it already is. Also, regardless of what Guido or the Mail think, for 52,000 people to buy a song in one week purely as a protest only underlines how the attempts to claim Thatcher as our greatest peacetime prime minister are a step too far.
And so now Big Ben is to be silenced for the duration of Saint Margaret's funeral. It's a small, ridiculous gesture for what is turning into a massive, undignified summation of how for all Thatcher's rolling back of the state, the parts that were in most need of trimming are still fully functioning. Turning your back on the entire charade really does seem to be the best possible way to register discontent with what has been a fully fledged political campaign from the moment the news of her death came through.
And so now Big Ben is to be silenced for the duration of Saint Margaret's funeral. It's a small, ridiculous gesture for what is turning into a massive, undignified summation of how for all Thatcher's rolling back of the state, the parts that were in most need of trimming are still fully functioning. Turning your back on the entire charade really does seem to be the best possible way to register discontent with what has been a fully fledged political campaign from the moment the news of her death came through.
Labels: Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Labour, Mail-watch, Margaret Thatcher, media analysis, obituaries, politics, Tories
| Permalink
Post a Comment