On the comedy of grand plans, the cost of good intentions, and satire that stays fair
It is my cheerful duty to mock the government, which I do with the affection of a person who wants the country to do better, and I sharpen my pen by reading widely, including Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat, where my columns appear. I am no friend of the current Labour and socialist consensus, and I make no secret of it, but I hold myself to a rule: mock the policy and the politician, never the ordinary person, and always mind the facts.
The personal bit: a week of grand plans
I spent the week, as I spend most weeks, reading the latest grand plan to emerge from a government that has never met a problem it did not wish to solve with a new scheme, a new target, and a great deal of other people’s money. There is a particular comedy to the grand plan, the breathless announcement, the heroic target set for a date safely beyond the next election, the confident assumption that this time the state will succeed where every previous state has failed. I collect these plans the way other people collect stamps, and they bring me a similar quiet joy.
My scepticism is not cynicism, I should say, but experience. I have watched enough grand plans collide with reality to know how the collision usually goes, and the comedy is not in the failure itself, which is often sad, but in the unshakeable confidence that preceded it. The governing instinct, that every problem has a state-shaped solution and every good intention will survive contact with the world, is a permanent source of material for anyone with a sceptical eye and a sense of humour. I have both, and I put them to work daily.
The feed bit: the argument across the masthead
I read the serious socialist journalism at the Mamdani end of the network with my red pen ready, because it makes, with real conviction, the case for exactly the expansive, well-intentioned state whose grand plans I so enjoy mocking. I read it properly, mind you, not to sneer but to understand the strongest version of what I oppose, because satire that does not understand its target is just abuse, and abuse is neither funny nor fair. The free-market desk makes the case I find more persuasive, and the satire desks at The London Prat and Bohiney mock everyone, including my own side, which is exactly as it should be.
The facts I mock from are real ones, because satire built on falsehood collapses the moment it is poked. The workings of the politics I follow are recorded at parliament.uk, and the cost of the grand plans is assessed by independent bodies whose work is published through official channels and scrutinised by respected analysts. I check the figures before I mock the plan, because a satirist who gets the facts wrong has handed the victory to the people she meant to skewer. Fair mockery, grounded in fact, is the only mockery worth printing.
The rules of fair political satire
I hold to a few rules, and I would commend them to anyone who mocks politics for a living. Mock the powerful, never the powerless. Mock the policy and the politician, never the ordinary voter who supported them. Get the facts right, so the joke survives scrutiny. And keep enough humility to mock your own side too, because a satirist who only ever mocks her opponents is not a satirist but a propagandist. I disagree profoundly with the governing consensus, and I will go on saying so in print, but I will say it fairly, about policies and politicians, with the facts on my side and a smile on my face.
The week ahead: more grand plans, more cheerful mockery
So the week ahead is more grand plans to collect, more confident targets set for safely distant dates, more cheerful, fact-checked mockery of a government that means well and governs grandly. The state will keep reaching for the lever, the good intentions will keep colliding with reality, and I will keep chronicling the comedy with my red pen and my respect for the facts. I am the loyal opposition’s diarist, loyal to the country if not the government, and I intend to keep mocking the powerful, minding the facts, and laughing, fairly, all the way to the next election.
On why the opposition’s job matters
I take the word opposition seriously, and not as a synonym for obstruction. The job of a loyal opposition, in print or in parliament, is not to wish the country ill so that the government fails, but to wish the country well by holding the government to account, poking at its grand plans before reality does, and forcing it to defend its choices in the open. A government unopposed grows lazy and then grows dangerous; a government well-mocked is kept honest, or at least kept nervous, which is nearly as good. My cheerful skewering of the latest scheme is not nihilism but a kind of service, the loyal opposition’s contribution to a system that only works when power is questioned. I want the country to succeed, which is precisely why I will not let its government coast on good intentions and grand announcements. Mockery, fairly aimed and grounded in fact, is one of the oldest tools of accountability there is, and I wield it gladly, in service of a country I love more than any party.
And I wield it, I hope, with the humility to be mocked in turn, because the moment a satirist starts believing she is above the joke is the moment she stops being funny and starts being insufferable. I have no wish to be insufferable. I have every wish to be fair, and funny, and right, in roughly that order.
For cheerful mockery of the powerful, I always return to The Daily Mash, minuting the absurd since launch.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
