Letters from London (2 page)

I
MPTV

T
he best show in town” opened last November, with the unusual promise from backers that it would definitely run for eight months. The latest Lloyd Webber, or the speedy return of Dustin Hoffman after his triumphant Shylock? Not a bit of it: the new entertainment promised us was the televised proceedings of the House of Commons. And, in the finest traditions of showbiz, the high claim made for this live matinee show (Mondays through Fridays) came from one of its principal actors: Sir Bernard Weatherill, Speaker of the House, a Tory MP elected into benign impartiality by his office. The sixty-nine-year-old Sir Bernard, scion of a tailoring business that once presented jodhpurs to the Queen, now stands before the TV cameras as well as before the unruly House in buckle shoes, black stockings, bridal-length black gown, and full, clavicle-tickling wig. Bizarrely, he has landed himself the double job of Parliamentary disciplinarian and TV warm-up man. The barker outside the fairground boxing booth turns up inside as referee.

The British Parliament, which in the eighteenth century tried to jail those who sought to log its activities with precision, had doggedly
resisted the claims of television since they were first debated back in the sixties. Coverage of the House of Lords was permitted a few years ago, though it can’t be said that this golden-age soap opera has pulled in many viewers: everyone in the Upper House is formidably polite (some with the civility of Morpheus) and makes a show of attending to the graybeards opposite. This has not been the stuff of drama or ratings; on the other hand, it did point up the anomaly whereby the business of the Upper House was available to the citizen in normal televisual reality, while that of the Lower was represented on the nine-o’clock news by colored drawings backed by a radio tape.

There were, of course, the usual arguments beforehand. Television would detract from the dignity of the House; MPs would play up to the camera; the solemn process of government would fall victim to the TV ambitions of bit-parters. To outsiders, this seemed back to front, since the evidence of radio showed how undignified the House was already. The proceedings sounded to the mere voter’s ear less like wise debate than beer-garden babble, with speakers struggling to make themselves heard over the interruptions of gargling shire-voiced Tories and raucous vox-pop Labourites. The Mother of Parliaments—which is how the British are encouraged to think of their legislature—came across more like a fat sow rolling on her farrow. Skeptics also wondered if the cameras were not being kept out of the club by members who didn’t want the trouble of smartening up their act. The predominantly male chamber has for decades exhibited a shabbiness unmatched by any other profession except that of Oxford don: the place has been a market stall of ill-fitting suits, a museum of short socks, a vender’s tray of matching tie-’n’-hanx sets, a flour bomb of dandruff. And, just as it remains spectacularly easy for an Oxford don to become famous as a local “character” (wear secondhand clothes, ride a motorbike, sit in the same chair in the same pub every evening), so in the House a career of facetious insult got a man labeled a wit, while the mildest self-indulgence in dress turned you into a dandy. Perhaps this is what they were afraid of letting us see.

Naturally, given the years of suspicion that preceded the introduction of the cameras, and the extra suspicion that the staid have of
the flamboyant, strict rules were laid down about where the camera’s snout could wander. General, wide-angle establishing shots of the House are permitted, but thereafter the director must (for the trial period, at least) follow a set of guidelines designed, according to your point of view, (a) to emphasize the solemnity of the proceedings or (b) to drain events of all possible drama. Thus, the camera must remain on a speaking MP for the duration of his or her speech; cutaways to other Members—reaction shots—are permitted only if an MP is specifically referred to in the course of the speech; coverage of the press or public galleries is not allowed, nor are pans across the benches; finally, in cases of disorder the camera must either settle for a picture of the Speaker calling the House to order or else revert to a wide shot that does not include a sighting of the fracas. As a set of rules to discourage showmanship and eye-catching bad behavior, it no doubt has its logic; but it reminds the impartial viewer of the stern guidelines that once governed burlesque revue at the old Windmill Theatre. Showgirls were permitted to be naked so long as they didn’t move; if anything wobbled, it was against the law.

Not surprisingly, MPs have already begun to exploit the restrictions imposed upon the camera. If reaction shots depend upon the naming of an MP, then the speechifier may be tempted to casually throw in the name of a Member on the opposite benches who is ostentatiously not paying attention. And if the camera is otherwise to be held loyally on the speechifier, then it must also be held on the small cluster of people (members of the same party) beside and behind him or her. This leads to a technique known as “doughnutting,” whereby those surrounding the speaker behave as if they had not heard such a riveting speech since Henry V addressed his troops before Agincourt. Doughnutting presents a problem for the smaller parties, and in the beginning the Liberal Democrats were seen to surge en masse (the masse being no more than half a dozen) into the Chamber as soon as one of their number was about to make a televised speech. “Doughnutting!” cried the other parties. Not at all, explained the Liberal Democrats; it’s just that when one of us makes a speech, all the others like to listen…. There is also the ploy of
“negative,” or “poisoned,” doughnutting. This occurs when a dissi dent member of a party is attacking his own front bench; in such circumstances, loyalists surrounding the dissident might yawn, scratch, fidget, shake their heads in vigorous negativity, and generally make with the body language.

The launch of “MPTV,” as it is known, comes at a point when Mrs. Thatcher has been Prime Minister for ten years and the leader of her party for fifteen; by the time she takes the Conservatives into the next election (in 1991 or, at the latest, 1992), there will be first-time voters who since their earliest years of sentience will have known no other Tory leader (and hence no other Tory tradition—for instance, the liberal Conservatism of the previous leader, Edward Heath). The opposition parties—which effectively means only Labour, the others having retreated once more to rump status—have known a decade of schism, bickering, and impotence. But now, for the first time in years, the Labour Party is ahead—well ahead—in the opinion polls. And if the political ice packs are breaking up in Eastern Europe, why not at home? Seen from the Opposition benches, Mrs. Thatcher is an outcast among her fellow EEC leaders, cannot boast the cuddly relationship with Bush that she had with Reagan, is incapable of flexible response to the speedy unraveling of Eastern Europe, and remains as dogmatic and doctrinaire in her eleventh year of office as she was in her first. On MPTV, the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, likes to begin his questions, “Is not the Prime Minister
totally isolated
in her position on…” Again and again, Labourites seek to present the Prime Minister as out of touch even with her allies—a leader surrounded by gibbering yes-men who conceal from her the realities of the world.

Isolation, however, is a matter of viewpoint. There was a bubble of excitement at the end of last year when, for the first time in her fifteen years, Mrs. Thatcher was challenged as the leader of the Conservatives. There is a provision in the Party’s rules for an annual objection, but this was the first time anyone had wanted—or dared—to stand against her. Sir Anthony Meyer, an elderly, wettish backbencher with no obvious political future, put himself forward: he was the sacrificial rabbit, the twittering canary thrust into the coal mine to test
the noxious air, or—to submit to the correct animal cliché—the stalking-horse. He wasn’t expected to win; what would be interesting was the manner in which he lost. If he raised, say, 80 votes (out of a possible 374), then the great she-elephant would be seen to be wounded. If he raised enough to force a second ballot, then the real candidates would emerge: lone predators driven crazy with hunger after chewing long grass on the back benches; carnivorous front-bench pack leaders waiting for the first stumble.

The ballot showed that wherever else Mrs. Thatcher may be isolated, it isn’t within the Conservative Party. She received 314 votes, Sir Anthony 33; there were 24 spoiled ballot papers and 3 nonvotes. These last two items require some explanation. It may seem odd to outsiders that 7.2 percent of a party supposedly versed in and proud of the ways of democracy should prove unable to answer a simple question as to which of two individuals it prefers to see leading its party. Not the sort of behavior to set a good example to the electorate at large. Why should an MP spoil a ballot paper? Does it mean what it means when a voter does so in a general election: the anarchic addition of an extra name on the paper, a harebrained attempt to vote for more than one candidate, a scrawled obscenity? Apparently, it’s not so different. The most plausible explanation to be advanced for the spoiled ballot papers was that the Tory MPs in question didn’t want to support Mrs. Thatcher but didn’t want to confess their treason, either: by voting for both candidates (and thus invalidating their franchise), they could return to their constituencies and assure their more right-wing supporters that of course they had voted for Maggie, while all the time keeping their consciences warm.

The Labour Party, trying to look on the bright side, asserted that this result was exactly what it had wanted: the Prime Minister had been hurt but was still in residence. There is a certain plausibility in the Labour Party’s view that Mrs. Thatcher is the Tory Party’s greatest handicap (as well as in the Tories’ view that she is their greatest strength), but the sight of Labourites congratulating themselves that the Prime Minister will now definitely lead the Conservatives into the next election isn’t altogether convincing. Whom would you rather
line up against in an Olympic final—a triple gold medalist whose practice times have recently been a bit disappointing or a novice substitute brought in at the last minute?

Labour has naturally greeted MPTV as an opportunity for public demonstration of what it had long felt certain of but had failed to get across at a general election: that the Prime Minister is a pigheaded extremist who has been systematically ruining the country for a decade. The time to make that demonstration is during an institution known as Prime Minister’s Question Time, which takes place at three-fifteen every Tuesday and Thursday. This is a moment in the process of government which Parliamentarians boast of: no such equivalent, they point out, occurs in the American system. The Prime Minister is obliged to appear twice a week before the Commons and answer questions for a quarter of an hour from Members on both sides of the House about her duties and the policies of her Government. This, they say, is the moment when a Prime Minister is potentially most vulnerable, when Mrs. Thatcher, reliant only on her briefing notes and her wits to handle anything that is thrown at her, may be “bowled out” by the Opposition. The Speaker acts as referee and game-show host, calling on Members seemingly at random (he usually alternates between sides of the House) while reserving up to three questions for Neil Kinnock, and one for the leader of the Liberal Democrats. This is a moment—both sacred and vital—in the democratic life of the country which at last was to be fully witnessed by the voting public.

Such, at any rate, was the theory. The reality, now disclosed twice weekly live, is a bit less crisp and vibrant. For a start, there is tradition to be obeyed. Thus, each segment of interrogation is preceded by a nominal, not to say fatuous, question—about, for instance, what the Prime Minister is going to do that evening. In reply, she explains that she intends to dine with the Zambian Ambassador, then resumes her seat while the MP asks his “real” question. When the Speaker moves the House on to the next topic, the same opening question will be asked, whereupon the Prime Minister will rise, say, “I refer the Honorable Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago,” and resume her place again to listen to the proper query. There
is a lot of standing up and sitting down during Prime Minister’s Question Time. When the first question on a topic has been dealt with, MPs will seek to “catch the Speaker’s eye” in order to ask a supplementary question. This involves leaping vigorously to the feet, looking hopefully in the direction of the Chair, and then relapsing onto the green leather benches, all except for the solitary Member who, by some brief and seemingly arbitrary justice, has been smiled upon by the Speaker. With approximately half the House rising and falling in this manner every thirty seconds or so, the effect is of a ragged yet persistent Mexican wave.