I'd recommend this fine article in the new edition of Standpoint by Nick Cohen about the state of broadcast comedy.
He argues that, despite Daily Mail columnists and their ilk claiming that the BBC favours left-wing comedians, those charges are misplaced. Because, he says, the comedians who make regular appearances on The News Quiz, Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You are not really very left-wing at all: 'The reverse side of the coin that sees them damn Mail readers as provincial bigots is the strong dislike of the urban poor ... Today's political comedy is the laughter of the privileged scoffing at those beneath them.'
I think he has a very fair point, and it's related to the increasingly middle-class nature of popular culture.
I should also note that Cohen makes reference to my forthcoming book, A Classless Society. He's one of the few people who's read it, and I'm enormously pleased - and relieved - that he seems to like it.
Showing posts with label Standpoint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Standpoint. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Nick Cohen
In the new edition of Standpoint magazine, Nick Cohen spends most of what is ostensibly a television column writing about Things Can Only Get Bitter. And, happily for me, he's very flattering: 'the most interesting essay on British culture I have read since George Walden's New Elites.'
He also, I'm glad to see, credits Dan Atkinson's blog entry that originally inspired the piece.
There's the bit where Cohen says my 'grasp of politics is feeble', of course, but obviously I think he's wrong. It's not really true that I'm 'interested solely in the left' - hell, I've just spent the last two months writing about the John Major government for my forthcoming book on the 1990s. But this essay is about the left-inclined section of a particular generation, and is therefore necessarily partial.
He is right, however, that my interests are parochial. Britain fascinates me, and British culture is what I write about. I don't really feel qualified to comment on international subjects.
This is the bit I really like: 'Yet for all his parochialism, his description of how we moved from the harsh and confrontational world of Thatcher to the soft and mendacious world of Blair remains superb.'
As someone who's enjoyed Cohen's own books, I'm rather pleased with that.
He also, I'm glad to see, credits Dan Atkinson's blog entry that originally inspired the piece.
There's the bit where Cohen says my 'grasp of politics is feeble', of course, but obviously I think he's wrong. It's not really true that I'm 'interested solely in the left' - hell, I've just spent the last two months writing about the John Major government for my forthcoming book on the 1990s. But this essay is about the left-inclined section of a particular generation, and is therefore necessarily partial.
He is right, however, that my interests are parochial. Britain fascinates me, and British culture is what I write about. I don't really feel qualified to comment on international subjects.
This is the bit I really like: 'Yet for all his parochialism, his description of how we moved from the harsh and confrontational world of Thatcher to the soft and mendacious world of Blair remains superb.'
As someone who's enjoyed Cohen's own books, I'm rather pleased with that.
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