What do you want? HECKLERS When do you want them? NOW

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 25 April 2005 20:29:24

Hurrah to BBC 3 for showing a documentary about political heckling (tonight, 11pm apparently). Glad that someone has realised that this is a lost art.

Think back to some of those great days of old. Before the last election, a heckler annoyed Prescott enough for the Deputy Prime Minister to give him a thump. In 1992, John Major stood on a soapbox in the middle of a crowded street, got out a megaphone and blared his message to the crowd, using the hecklers to his advantage. It was the only interesting thing he ever did (Edwina Currie doesn't count. Doesn't bear thinking about). Michael Heseltine even went to the lengths of getting a lift with people who he knew would heckle him 'Because it always livened things up and got people to listen to you'.

Now those days are gone.

The most we were allowed this election was Our Tone in a Leeds shopping centre getting the once-over from a student. Wow. It's been replaced with hired mobs, people who are paid to show up to make things look real on the news. And they wonder why people are apathetic.

However, The Greasy Pole does not point to problems without giving solutions. And here they are.

1. Socialist Party to give up actual political campaigning. They are wasting their time, their deposits and most importantly their vocation. Socialists exist to shout at people. They serve no other political purpose, as their creed died with Lenin, Stalin and Mao. But boy can those lefties shout. And when do they shout loudest? - when they're shouting at people who say they're left but aren't quite as left as they are. So stop putting candidates up and start putting banners up, and shouting at Our Tone.

2. Ban all stage managers. Campbell, the annoying Tory Aussie, and the rest of them can go. Anyone object? The silence roars.

3. Compulsory quota of hecklers for all political gatherings.

4. Politicians to actually trust themselves. With the notable exception of Prescott, most leading politicians are very quick witted. One of the recent times that I almost fell back in love with Our Tone was when he gave a witty riposte to a heckler a year or so ago. Politicians are bright, and usually if they relied on this when dealing with the public, as they rely on this dealing with interviewers, they'd get people to respect them.