Tony Benn & Rory Bremner

On March 30th, 2010, Tony Benn appeared on stage in Sheffield City Hall, for the second half of a programme whose first act was Rory Bremner
doing his comedy impersonations.

I can imagine the sneering reaction of pompous politicians to the idea of Benn appearing on stage with a comedian.

On October 4th 2007. BBC News contained an item about Tony Benn offering himself for re-selection as an MP for Kensington. But nothing more has been heard of Benn returning to the House of Commons. I wonder what the Kensington selection committee would think of him working alongside Rory Bremner.

On February 28th, 2009, Rory Bremner gave a speech about how our liberty as citizens is in danger. Bremner, Bird and Fortune, the Channel 4 satire show used laughter to illuminate politics. Bremner, Bird and Fortune: the Last Show before the Recovery was a three-part series on Channel 4 in 2009, which gave the bankers a bit of the lambasting they deserved.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place was a Channel 4 Bremer, Bird & Fortune show at the time of the Iraq invasion. Apart from making me laugh, I found it offered the clearest commentary on what was happening in the run-up to that illegal invasion. It was much more informative than the ordinary news.

I’ve written in many other places about how Aristophanes is a hero of mine. A poet, a master of silly farce, he was also passionate about politics, and devoted much of his huge energy to creating laughter in the cause of peace. Now, in the 21st century AD, as well as laughing with Aristophanes at the stupidity of the 5th century BC Athenian politicians and generals, we can also see the ordinary Athenians of the time brought to life by Aristophanes’ documentaries. How he would laugh at our scholars: but the fact is he now provides very important historical source material, and illuminates our understanding of the politics then. It is pitiful to see the destructive idiocy of Aristophanes' contemporaries. It is even more pitiful to see how our contemporaries repeat the idiocy even more destructively.

If important politicians and political commentators have, by some strange chance, happened upon this blog, they will no doubt have been appalled already by my ventures into fantasy and farce. But our situation is so appalling, we can only grasp how appalling it is through farce and fantasy.

On March 17th, 2005 The Guardian contained an article by Tony Benn titled Not apathy, but anger.

“My own experience,” he wrote “four years after leaving parliament to devote more time to politics, has convinced me that, far from being apathetic, most people are angry that no one seems to be listening to them; nor do they believe what they are told. Anger and mistrust are highly political responses and in no sense can they be described as apathy.”

As Tony Benn wrote in 2005, we are indeed very angry. But we are also flabbergasted at the insanity displayed by politicians.

Often the only sensible reaction to contemporary politics is to assume there is a kind of Gadarene swine mentality which has taken possession of them, and they are just about to hurl themselves at speed down the steep slope into the lake and drown.

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