No Laughing Matter

Ben Wildsmith

I don’t have a sense of humour so much as an overreactive defence mechanism that’s jammed on attack and impervious to nuance.

As such, it’s quite useful when describing politicians but not much good at children’s parties, funerals, or moments of romantic tenderness.

Mrs. W. is obliged to issue ‘the look’ on so frequent a basis that she’s at risk of rictus if we attend social functions for longer than half an hour.

Dating ads in the UK feature ‘GSOH’ as a top requirement so routinely that you’d imagine comedic skill to be as universally desirable as good looks or wealth.

In France, however, one is more likely to see people looking for a partner who is ‘serieux’.

Serious people

Serious people in the UK are expected to keep that malarkey for the workplace. It’s all well and good performing emergency medicine, we’re very happy that you do, but once you’re out of that operating theatre don’t be bringing down the vibe.

It is, I suspect, a feature of life in a monarchy that nobody is expected to take themselves seriously. In a sense, the buck never stops with us because, unless you are actual royalty, there is always a tier of responsibility above yours.

The French, on the other hand, have felt the awesome responsibility of loosing the slicey bois on to aristocratic necks. They have stood before the crowd and God, accountable for their actions. Well, not all of them, and recently they’ve been more likely to cause a traffic nuisance than violently overthrow the government but it’s in their culture.

They know their power and consequently feel less obliged to mock themselves.

The lack of seriousness in current UK politics is depressing. Observing Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch exchange jokes each week at PMQs is like an endless game of Pong: the white dot of weak humour beeps from one side of the chamber to the other with no purpose, joy, nor skill in play.

Snigger

Their acolytes snigger along emptily as the nation glazes over and lickspittle journalists debate which of them ‘won’ the exchange.

As a spectacle, it’s similar to watching hotel entertainment on a package holiday: a desultory sideshow where every expense has been spared and neither performers nor audience has any investment in the act.

A new, more startling mutation of political comedy is at work online. Here, particularly on Twitter/X, we are being treated to an unfiltered glimpse at how our rulers think humour works. It’s telling, I think, that the tone of the recently deceased Andrew RT Davies’ tweets hasn’t changed one iota since he was fed into the threshing machine by his disgruntled colleagues last month.

Stylistically, Davies’ output is perfect for the platform. He bangs out one-liners like a toxically depressed Tim Vine and doesn’t hang around to discuss them.

‘Blah blah Labour and the nationalists, blah blah shockingly illiberal and unsupported conclusion.’

Whether it’s the 20mph limit, the UBI trial, or today’s output on grooming gangs, the formula is the same: say something shocking, ignore the response, and then say it again.

His refusal to engage over misleading statements is the key to driving views.

Rage farming

Whether the NFU actively support rage farming is unknown, but Davies’ practice of it whilst leading the official opposition in the Senedd went unchecked for so long and resulted in such little censure that his transition to the back benches seems to have given him no pause for thought at all.

Today, he was citing Elon Musk in his tweets, and there is the heart of the matter. Musk’s persistent trolling of the UK government, and Keir Starmer in particular, is a new phenomenon.

Employing the same grenade lobbing technique used by RT, Musk has four and a half years to see if he can use shitposting to delegitimise a government elected with a huge majority.

For now, Starmer is trying to keep above the fray, perhaps sensing that perceived dignity is his only weapon in a mismatched fight. Will he hold out, though?

Davies has shown us that nobody actually stops officeholders from behaving like insolent teenagers if that’s what they want to do and if restraint doesn’t shift the numbers for Starmer, then how long before Labour reaches for someone shameless enough to wrestle with the porcine Musk?