Poke-ing fun at politicians

It’s always a bit of a surprise to hear a politician admitting they got something wrong, and apologising.

I understand there have actually been more confirmed sightings of rocking-horse poo.

So when the Deputy PM, Nick Clegg, did his earnest to-camera apology regarding tuition fees, you could have heard a penny drop. If any of us actually had any pennies left to drop. Strangely, this apology seemed to be more about the fact that the Lib Dems had stated that they were going to do something, not the fact that they hadn’t. Which is a bit like saying you’re aren’t apologising for forgetting to put the bins out, you’re just sorry you said you’d do it in the first place. Still, Nick is darn sorry, and stared forlornly down the lens at us with big, sad, eyes (like the cat in Shrek) whilst saying so.

Luckily, the wonderful world that is the internet was on hand to immortalise this awkward moment, capturing it forever with millions of YouTube viewings, where otherwise it would have been rapidly replaced in our consciousness by the next daft thing an MP did. Or said. Or appeared to have said. Or might have appeared to have done or said. Allegedly.

What could be more appropriate in the disposable-pop age of reality TV and X-Factor ‘talent’ contests that autotuning Cleggy, putting his speech to a catchy song, and flinging it back out into the webosphere?

Handily, website The Poke curates a fantastical world of idiocy, amusing human frailties, ‘Epic Fails’, Venn diagrams, flowcharts, and the obligatory amusing animals. Plus many other items that cause you to shake your head, smile wryly, and think to yourself “Muppets!” They brilliantly had this masterpiece of cringeworthiness online the next day, and it went viral rapidly, and was soon being reported by all the major TV news channels in the UK, on the radio and in print.

Spotting that the fragile tide of public ambivalence might be about to turn and drown him, His Cleggness hastily agreed that it could be released as a single, as long as the money raised went to charity. Hey presto! Chart hit.

By the time you read this, it will probably already have started to fade from our collective consciousness, so rapid and mind-boggling is the rate at which something new grabs our miserably short attent... sorry, what was I saying?

Still, look on the bright side. Politicians are prone to being gaffe-magnets, so another hapless soul will be caught, rabbit-like, in the headlight-bright glare of public scorn and scrutiny before you can say “I WILL answer your question in a moment, Jeremy...”

What we could do with right about now is a posh politician to try and cycle the wrong way out of a gate at Downing Street, and then get uppity with a policeman.

Have a, politically correct, weekend.

If you can.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 28st September 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here Amazingly, it's another victory against the sub-editor at the NWEM this week, in that they just add 'our' to my suggested title. At this rate, I might actually look like I know what I'm doing by about 2018.

A fairly substantial 105 words got edited out this week, which hurts a bit, but hey - life's a bitch, right?

(Freeform abstract noodling from Monstrance is wafting moodily around my head this evening. Yeah. Cool.)

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