Little Britain

Ben Wildsmith 

There was a sketch on Little Britain when Matt Lucas’s schoolgirl character, Vicky Pollard, has been informed that she is pregnant by her teacher. Denying that she’s ever had sex, Vicky eventually concedes that she has once but only, ‘as a JOKE!’

This conflict between flippancy and real-life consequences is a scenario which plays out on a seemingly looping basis in the political career of Nigel Farage.

His latest ‘as a JOKE’ moment arises from his side gig recording Cameo messages. For those unfamiliar, Cameo is where you can hire financially insecure celebrities to film themselves saying things for your entertainment.

Here, our predicted next Prime Minister, competes with figures as diverse as Ken Barlow off of Corrie (£56), the surviving Chuckle Brother (£41), and Hemi Yeroham (£21) – shame on you if you haven’t heard of Hemi, he played Manuel in ‘Fawlty Towers’… the play.

By this stage, I think we’ve all been spiritually impoverished enough not to object to this line of work on the basis of dignity.

Granted, it’s difficult to imagine Clement Attlee or Anthony Eden knocking out goodwill messages for stag parties in between founding the NHS or botching the Suez crisis but times move on. Nigel’s problems arise from his reluctance to do any due diligence about what he’s being asked to say.

In the past, for instance, he has been paid to celebrate the Lostprophets singer and convicted Paedophile, Ian Watkins (‘a good man, a really good guy’ who ‘loved his children.’)

Previously, the statesman/comedian was induced to end a birthday message with, ‘Up the Ra!’ which, one imagines, probably didn’t play all that well with his Shankill Road fan club.

The show must go on, however, and you can still hire the likely keeper of the UK’s nuclear codes to say anything at all for the princely sum of £78.

Today’s Cameo-related debacle  has Farage referring to Welsh people as ‘foreign speakers’. I’m not going waste our time analysing the wrongness of this, it’s offensive to many, frustratingly idiotic to others, and factually incorrect.

The message was recorded for a wedding, at which Welsh people would be present, and the tone is one that Farage uses frequently. His persona is that of the embarrassing uncle at a do; a ‘what’s he like?’ relic from the 1970s who is too fond of a joke to rein himself in.

To be generous, he seems to be parodying himself to a degree – suggesting that he’s unsafe to attend a function that includes anyone from outside of his immediate cultural hinterland.

Context

Jokes, however, cannot be divorced from context. A traditional joke structure involves concealing context until the punchline.

Frankie Howard spoke gravely of having warned then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, about the folly of his European policy. ‘I don’t know if he heard me through the letterbox,’ he added.

The contextual punchline to Farage’s half-finished joke would be, ‘and I lead a party which, in six weeks, is seeking responsibility for the health of the Welsh language.’

Bit of a clunker.

‘Banter’

Farage’s public persona is heavily reliant on flippancy. A champion of ‘banter’, he’s persuaded a great many people that it’s possible to evade responsibility for questionable views by cloaking them in humour. In reality, much of what he says in jest ends up solidifying into serious intent. A joke is made, he gets away with it, the seed is planted and, soon enough, he’s saying it for real.

This is a perfect example of that process. Does anyone really believe that it’s laughable to suggest that Reform in government would defund and degrade Cymraeg?  I’d take it as a given that they would do that, so Farage is not projecting absurdity here but merely smirking through his authentic attitude to anything that contrasts with his Anglocentric view of Britain.

Jokes like Frankie Howard’s work because of the powerlessness of the character speaking. He’s the everyman to whom politicians never listen. That schtick sort-of worked for Farage when he was a fringe politician tilting at windmills. Nowadays, he’s on the cusp of legitimate power and the act has begun to curdle.

With the country, and the world, in peril, it is a dangerous time to be ambiguous, still less deliberately disingenuous. As the Turks say, when a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.