Artful self satire? I fear not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t help but feel the Observer political columnist Andrew Rawnsley was totally arse-about-face in his line of questions and comment during this interview with TV political satirist Armando Iannucci.

I read the piece and commented on the website, as per below. What do you think?

Is Rawnsley brilliantly satirising his own work in this piece? I fear not.

What a lot of tosh, as per this…

I want to investigate whether he feels any responsibility for the fact that so many of the British do hold politics in a deep contempt, a contempt that is often richly deserved but which can also be indiscriminate, lazy and ultimately poisonous for democracy.

I want to investigate whether Mr Rawnsley feels HE has any repsonsibility for the same, he and a landslide majority (which means 3 men and a dog under UK first past the post system) of mainstream political journalists.

The deep contempt people feel for “democracy” is because anyone who thinks for a moment about our system of government knows it offers us only joke influence over the people who run our lives. If we like a satirical TV programme it’s because it reflects the true, sorry state of our political systems, local to global, far more than anything Rawnsley and friends ever produce.

Iannucci can have his OBE as a comedic act if he wants though it’s no way his funniest.

Satire is a weak weapon if you dream of radical political change, which I do, but at least you get a laugh.