Monday 8 December 2014

British establishment destroys satire

When members of the Chinese establishment get upset at being mocked, they task the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television with delivering some stupidly impossible target like stopping everybody in China from making puns.

Here in Britain, it looks as if our own Very Important People have a subtler, more cunning, plan for disarming critics by adopting what I've just decided to call the Tom Lehrer Gambit, named for the great man's famous observation that 'Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.'

How else to explain this weekend's headlines? 'House of Lords refused budget cut as it would mean cheaper Champagne' or 'Nigel Farage blames late arrival at his own Ukip event on immigrants?' These headlines belong in The Daily Mash, not "straight" media outlets.

This can only be part of a deliberate media strategy - instead of ordering somebody else to ban puns, members of the British establishment* are clearly trying to break satire itself by putting themselves beyond parody.

At this rate, I give the satirists of The Daily Mash, Have I Got News for You and The News Quiz six months before competition from the real home lives of the rich and famous puts them out of business.


* Of which Farage is a comfortably-off member, no matter how often he tries to deny it

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Farage… member… *snigger*