Modern Britain: No Laughing Matter

Published on The Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com)
Modern Britain: No Laughing Matter
By A. Millar
Created 2008-05-01 09:03

Earlier generations of Britons believed that certain things simply could not happen in Britain. Even in the country’s darkest moments of war or depression, this conviction differentiated the then proud nation from the U.S.S.R., third world countries, and unstable regimes that might fall to dictatorship any moment. News blackouts, and the banning of a book or film of course occurred here or there, but these never seemed very serious events.

When the Thatcher government banned the sale of the novel, Spycatcher, in Britain, it was smuggled into the country from abroad, and reported in the press despite legal challenges. Humor was the public’s usual way of dealing with such things, and the banning of a book that most people could get ahold of, turned politics into a laughing stock. And not for the first or last time either. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, when Oswald Moseley’s “black shirt” fascists were parading through London, Lady Astor commented that if they should ever gain power the British people would die laughing. How prophetic this was. A few years later Charlie Chaplin denounced and mocked the Nazis in his film, The Great Dictator, even as prime minister Neville Chamberlain sort to win “peace for our time” by appeasing Hitler.

In the 1980s and early 1990s the satirical puppet show, Spitting Image, which mocked the politicians of the time, became a staple of television viewing, even for those who generally did not like television that much. The puppets were grotesque, but politics at that time – and before that time – was raw, unscripted. Thatcher, like other leaders, spoke from the gut as well as the brain, and the picture was not always pretty, but it was human, and it represented the British people. In an excellent op-ed piece for The Daily Mail recently, Lord Tebbit – Thatcher’s once right-hand man – spoke of his love for his puppet-portrayal as a “leather-clad bovver boy,” his dismay at the banal, politically correct, mainstream parties who seem indistinguishable from one another, and constant political failings that are, “so ridiculous that it is beyond satire.”

Political correctness has cowed society and politics, and trodden down common sense and humor. Unlike the defiant, bawdy Brit of the past, today he thinks before he speaks, running through the list of forbidden words, and making sure not to let one slip. And so much now is taboo. The English Democrats Party is under investigation for racism, for using the term, “tartan tax,” a student was arrested for calling a police horse “gay,” and, if you need to see the proof of such extreme “politically correct” intolerance, a Youtube video showing a young man being arrested for singing, “I’d rather wear a turban” (deemed racist by the arresting officer), can be seen here.

A common language is one of the traditional, defining marks of a nation, and the criminalization of words will have a very profound consequence for the British. Though rarely acknowledged as such, humor is another defining mark, and one that makes use of the nation’s language in particular ways that relies on the audience having a good general knowledge of culture, history, and politics. Notably, Voltaire once commented that tragedies could be translated from one tongue to another, but that comedies could not. Anyone wishing to grasp the English comedy would need to, “spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the English tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night,” he suggested.

Political correctness has changed British politics and society, the latter of which has been famed for its ability to laugh at itself – an ability that has certainly helped to keep it free and democratic. Extremists – whether of the fascist, politically correct, or Islamic type – are united in their suspicion – even rejection – of humor. Humor shows them for what they really are. When the “Mohammed cartoons” provoked riots and death threats by Islamic radicals, Jack Straw could only remark,

I said at the time that the cartoons were reprinted in Europe – though not here in the United Kingdom – that doing so was needlessly insensitive and disrespectful. The right to freedom of expression is a broad one and something which this country has long held dear. […] But the existence of such a right does not mean that it is right – morally right, politically right, socially right – to exercise that freedom without regard to the feelings of others.


With those words Straw beheads the figure of humor before our eyes, in order to appease those who might be offended. Not every Muslim is humorless, of course, and in the U.S., for example, there is a comedy show called “Allah made me funny,” with Muslim comedians who are able to poke fun at themselves. The show was the initiative of Preacher Moss, who wanted to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims after 9/11. Yet in Britain we see that appeasement has become de facto policy of the “liberal” media, with various controversial words or subjects banned. Ben Elton – a comedian and author once noted for his staunchly Left-wing politics – recently accused the B.B.C. of being too “scared” to poke fun at radical Islam, noting that he was even told not to use the entirely innocuous phrase, “Mohammed came to the mountain” apparently for fear of the consequences.

A few days ago, it emerged that the B.B.C. and rival television broadcaster I.T.V. insisted that the Christian Choice political party make changes to the language of its electoral broadcast concerning their opposition to the building of Europe’s largest mosque in London. The party had described Tablighi Jamaat, the group behind its planning, as “separatist,” and noted that some “moderate Muslims” were against the mega-mosque. But the B.B.C. was worried, and insisted the group be described as “controversial” instead. And, it disallowed the term “moderate Muslims” as it implied that Tablighi Jamaat was not moderate. I.T.V. would not even allow the group to be described as “controversial,” although this would certainly appear to be an appropriate – if mild – term. Tablighi Jamaat is opposed to Muslims mixing with non-Muslims, and wants to separate their flock from Jews and Christians by – according to one of their advocates in Britain – creating, “such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta.”

Ten years ago, we would have laughed at a comedy sketch in which people were banned from describing hate mongers as “controversial.” We would have laughed at a sketch of a student being arrested for calling a horse “gay.” The lunacy of it all seems so Monty Python or Spitting Image, yet this is the reality of modern Britain.

But I wonder if bawdy, rowdy humor is not now being confined to the past, and along with it an entire way of thinking, and an effective weapon that has proved the best defense of common sense and ordinary people. Gone, it seems, is the type of politician that was feisty and unapologetic in the pursuit of liberty. Contrast Churchill – drinker, cigar smoker, and a man with a quick wit and sharp tongue – with those who embody modern politics – Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Ken Livingstone, Tony Blair, or David Cameron – and one cannot help but feel that the future of Britain may be no laughing matter.


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