I watched the BBC’s election debate on iPlayer, with a plan to fast-forward the really buttock-clenching parts. But, my God, I had to be strict with myself: if I’d carried on as I began, I would have seen only about ten minutes in all; truly, these productions are better for the glutes than hours of Pilates, and when they’re not embarrassing, they’re boring. Of course, not everyone agrees. “[They] are very dramatic,” squeaked Nick Watt, the political editor of Newsnight, afterwards. But he would say that, wouldn’t he? One suspects his editor knows differently, which may be why sitting next to him on the sofa that evening was Boris Johnson’s former aide Cleo Watson, the title of whose new book – Cleavage – flashed up helpfully as she commenced her pontificating (I’m amazed Newsnight’s ratings appear to be up: in its new bargain-basement incarnation, it’s basically ITV’s Loose Women, with added blokes and the odd person who used to work at Vice).
But like some filibustering politician, I’m getting wildly off point. These debates are entertainment, not current affairs. I’m not going to bother telling you what the SNP’s Stephen Flynn said about Nigel Farage, or what Daisy Cooper of the Lib Dems said of Paddy Ashdown (she was off point, too): let’s focus instead on performance. There were seven politicians on screen – the others were Penny Mordaunt, Angela Rayner, Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru) and Carla Denyer (Greens) – and collectively, they reminded me to a Proustian degree (no, not Mr Farage’s favourite writer) of the teachers at my comprehensive after a Friday lunch hour spent drinking too much Mellow Bird’s and reading Ken Baker’s latest evil directive (younger readers: Baker was a Tory education secretary, back in the day). With the exception of Cooper, who has the same vibe as the woman who gave me my last mammogram (“All right, sweetheart, just SQUIDGE”), they were ratty as all hell, and unable to disguise it. Well, OK, I guess Mordaunt had a go at disguising it. The hair! I bet you a magnum of Elnett she listened to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” before she came on. You could see it in the eyes.
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