Both here and in Britain political 'stories' are used in a form of warfare that has no moral bearings, writes JOHN WATERS
OUR MOST serious moral problem may be that those responsible for imposing and policing moral principles have lost all sense of right and wrong. In the past week, we saw one Government minister resign on foot of a commonplace episode of badmouthing a rival that happened and was reported months ago, but was ignored until it suddenly became useful to his political opponents. When another minister resigned having made representations to the Garda on behalf of a constituent, the first question the media asked was “Who snitched him up?”
So, which is it? Defaming a rival is wrong or is wrong only when it proves convenient to the Opposition? Making representations to gardaí is wrong, but not as bad as blowing the whistle on someone who unlawfully makes representations to gardaí? I’ll save your brain getting into a knot: it’s all a game. Nobody gives a stuff one way or another except in as far as the facts become useful. For the media it’s about “stories”, about introducing new plotlines to the public narrative. For politicians – apart from those directly involved – it’s a form of warfare, an alternative to the boring stuff of policy and legislation.
It’s not just us, of course. This week there was a brief outbreak of collective insanity across the water also, as the British prime minister became the subject of allegations of “bullying”. Extracts published by the Observer from its own columnist Andrew Rawnsley’s new book depicted Gordon Brown as a frothing psychopath, constantly swearing, throwing things and perpetrating common assaults on his staff.
In one episode related by Rawnsley, Brown was said to have become so furious with a typist that he “turfed” her out of her seat and took over the keyboard. “Turfed” is an intriguing word. If Brown pulled the chair from under the typist, one expects Rawnsley would simply have said so. Similarly, if he had given the typist a clout on the ear. But “turfed” is such an ambiguous word that I am inclined to decide that the PM somehow indicated his desire to take over at the keyboard. “Turfed” sounds like the sexed-up complaint of a miffed typist with nothing important to worry about.
Another of Rawnsley’s allegations was that Brown assaulted the clothing of a staff member: “He leapt across the room and grabbed Gavin Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, by the lapels of his jacket. Brown snarled into his face: ‘They’re out to get me!’” Perhaps something like this did take place. Perhaps Brown “leapt” across the room – though it is difficult to see him “leaping” very high or very far – but, if he did, it appears to have been to provide dramatic emphasis to some point he was making, rather than to inflict an assault on his aide.
Rawnsley related that Brown, “during one rage”, thumped the back of the passenger seat in his official vehicle “with such force that a protection officer sitting in the front flinched with shock”. We can only imagine the terror of the protection officer – employed to stand between the PM and a putative assassin’s bullet – cowering in his (or her) seat because he/she felt the upholstery quivering at his/her back.
One can only wonder at the sheltered journalistic life of Andrew Rawnsley. Had he served his apprenticeship in this country, he would have by now witnessed at least half-a-dozen aggravated assaults by editors on journalists. One Irish editor I knew was notorious for leaving pools of sobbing females behind him, but nobody ever thought of calling a bullying helpline (apparently an everyday occurrence in 10 Downing Street) because everyone understood that deep down he was a raving lunatic.
Reporting of politics has become a circus, in which all perspective is lost. All this guff would be harmless were the public not, generally speaking, disposed to taking it seriously. Willie O’Dea and Trevor Sargent are now kicking their heels, while pious journalists intone that it is “reassuring” that “politicians are prepared to take ultimate responsibility for their actions”. Regardless of its ludicrousness, the image of Gordon Brown as a bully will probably dominate the British general election.
We have arrived at a form of public discussion that constantly invokes moral and ethical questions, but is really the most cynical misappropriation of morality for commercial gain or political advantage.
At the centre of this insane culture, the public representative becomes a cartoon figure: either a po-faced literalist who insists on the letter of every regulation, or a two-faced cynic who publicly pays lip service to what are called ethical standards while secretly knowing that it is all humbug.
We, the people, enjoy the dramas but have little opportunity of seeing deeply into them. We witness the politician at the centre of the latest ethical whirlwind and either passively allow ourselves to be seduced by the moment of theatre or become outraged on one or other side of the catfight.
We collude in the construction of a culture in which everyone prates on about morality and ethics, but nobody has the faintest idea what such words might mean.