| It's my party |
[Feb. 5th, 2005|01:27 am] |
Consider four charismatic men who liked the sound of their own voices enough to set up their own political parties, and were laughed at for doing so.
First David Sutch, bless his immortal memory. Screaming Lord Sutch founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and became, in due course, Britain's longest-serving political leader. His party never once attained the five per cent necessary to retain their deposit in a Parliamentary election, and the more po-faced members of the political community considered him a joke in poor taste. But he was a good man and a decent man - I met him a couple of times in 1993 and can testify to this - and in time he became a much-loved fixture in British politics. More than that, many of his party's policies that initially seemed 'loony' ended up as law, such as passports for pets and all-day pub opening on Sundays. Alas, like so many clowns he was crying on the inside even as he was laughing on the outside, and he took his own life in 1999. His party limps on, but it's not the same without him.
Next, Dr David Owen. For a while he was the golden boy of British politics. A young, dashing, handsome Labour Foreign Secretary in the 1970s, he was tipped to go far. But a restless ambition burned in him, and being in a party with other people held him back. In 1983 he broke away from Labour as part of the 'Gang of Four' that founded the Social Democratic Party, and swiftly became its leader. But when the membership of the SDP voted to merge with the Liberal Party he refused to play ball and took a band of followers off into the wilderness to continue with a version of the SDP. This one-man band finally died in 1990, when its candidate was beaten in a Parliamentary by-election by - of all people - Screaming Lord Sutch. Owen dissolved the party, was appointed to the House of Lords, and became an international mediator during the break-up of Yugoslavia - where he antagonised everyone and was nicknamed Lord Owen of Split. His career is a long, sorry, story of great talent wasted by an even greater ego, and it reached its apogee when (unprompted) he indicated to Conservative Prime Minister John Major that he would be prepared to serve in a senior role in his government, although as an individual and not as a member of his party. His offer was not accepted.
Thirdly, Adolf Hitler. Oh, how they laughed at him during the early days of the National Socialist Party, his recreation of the moribund German Workers? Party. Oh, what a fool he looked when he fled the abortive and shambolic Beer Hall Putsch with a dislocated shoulder and ended up in jail. But he wasn't a fool - he knew how to build support by finding scapegoats for all his country's ills, choosing the Jews and the communists as his major targets, and all this time he was building a power base among ordinary people who responded to his rhetoric. Using their support he contested elections with increasing success, eventually levering his way into total power. The rest, of course, is the most doleful of history.
Finally Robert Kilroy-Silk, the perma-tanned former MP, former talkshow host and current MEP who dragged the rag-tag maniacs of the United Kingdom Independence Party ahead of the Liberal Democrats at the last European elections by sheer force of personality. Now he's left the UKIP, categorising them as a bunch of unambitious amatures, and formed his own party, Veritas. What did the man who lost his BBC job for claiming all Arabs were "suicide bombers, limb-amputators and women-oppressers" choose to do with his first speech as Veritas leader? He warned about the dangers of "mass immigration and uncontrolled asylum" and promised to stand up for people who have "been made to feel ashamed of their culture and being British".
It is, of course, too early to judge what effect on the body politic Kilroy's latest venture will have.
But we know this: people recognise him, people listen to him, people are swayed by his rhetoric despite - or, perhaps, because of - its illogicality. UKIP had been bumping along without achieving a great deal for more than a decade before he catapulted it into the big leagues, and when he left it immediately disappeared back into the 1% opinion poll ratings again. When Kilroy speaks, TV will report it and some of the more extreme national newspapers will call what he says the voice of common sense.
So when they write the history books on Kilroy-Silk and his one-man party, will they call him the next David Sutch? Or the next David Owen?
Or the next Adolf Hitler? |
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