Rant du Jour: Luvvies and politics

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 by Charon QC

Beam the bugger up, I was going to write on twitter…. why celebrities, with no greater insight into politics (many of them, I suspect) should feel the need to *pronounce* on matters politic, vainglorious in the belief that we actually care what they they think, is quite beyond me. They are, of course, entitled to a view – but then the snake oil carpet baggers from the political parties PR departments grab it and broadcast to a largely uninterested world.

There … I’ve had my rant du jour – now a spot of late lunch with a glass of vino rosso.

Posted in Charon | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:53 pm NotEvsie

I quite regularly “pronounce on matters politic” on twitter – quite safe in the knowledge that nobody really cares what I think.

Perhaps they do to, perhaps they realise that nobody REALLY cares what they think, and secretly smile that our celebrity obsessed media pounce on their every utterance as if it mattered in the slightest. Perhaps they are not all the narcissistic drones I have long believed (most of) them to be. Perhaps they believe they’re helping bring the “common man” (i.e. their fans) into the political debate by weighing in on matters of state.

Then again, perhaps not.
on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 1:57 pm charonqc

Notevsie – I have met a fair few luvvies – very pleasant and amusing people – but one would never accuse them of modesty or of being reticent in coming forward. I have also noted that they appear to have remarkable powers and are experts on everything.

Cross examination reveals, however, that they (a) do not know as much as they think they do and (b) That some of them are astonishingly thick……. this may come from reading other people’s lines – it uses up so much of the brain that they don’t have time for their own thoughts.
on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:44 pm Westengland

Most performing artists would be well advised to keep their mouths closed off-stage to avoid the inevitable taste of shoe leather…

Closer to home, there is another profession whose practitioners have to perform in a kind of area, in a form of costume, using a particular means of speaking. Several of its members could likewise keep their views of the world outside the Bar to themselves ( I cannot name them but I’m thinking of “Michael”. “Geoffrey” and “Helena”, amongst others).
on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:51 pm Steve Jones

Don’t I recall Tony Blair surrounding himself with “cool” pop culture people back in 1997? I think we shouldn’t necessarily blame the luvvies here. It’s the politicians that often like to associate themselves with these personalities.

Of course you can always come unstuck if the wrong celebrity supports you, or they say the wrong thing. Remember Kenny Everett and his “let’s kick Michael Foot’s stick away” and “let’s bomb Russia” remarks during the 1983 election campaign? To this day, nobody knows whether Kenny Everett really did support Maggie or was just having a bit of subversive fun. (Or, indeed, whether the episode did her any damage – I suspect Myra Hindley could have been introduced as a Conservative supported that year and Michael Foot would still have lost).

A fun game is wondering celebrity politicians would most avoid. Michael Winner is a Conservative supporter and, in the most cringe-making part of the BBC’s election night coverage, Andrew Neill interviewed “celebrities” on a boat on the Thames, including a clueless Joan Collins. I don’t think you’ll find David Cameron wanting to be too closely associated with at least the first of that pair.

nb. politics and personalities always makes me think particularly nasty thoughts reagarding Bono.
on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:58 pm charonqc

Steve – you are absolutely right!

I don’t blame the luvvies…. they can’t help themselves…. I have no doubt if I had played King Lear, ‘been’ the Lawrence of Arabia of my day, or thought I was actually Dr Strangelove… I’d be at it as well!

Westengland – You may think that… I could not possibly comment… as the old saying goes!
on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 3:17 pm WitteringsfromWitney

Presumably, referring back to your twee about some luvvies being dead, they do it because it is ‘de rigor – mortis’?