Coalition - one-off docu-drama C4 last night

Mildly surprised C4 got away with showing this so close to this year's General Election.

I guess their defence against any complaints/accusations of political bias from any one party is that all players - Cameron, Clegg, Brown etc seemed to be depicted as all being as equally unsure of themselves, opportunistic and generally unprincipled as each other.

BUT...having said that I would say it appeared to me :

Tories were portrayed as being the better schemers (Osborne in particular).
Clegg as being a vacillating sell-out (assisted by a slightly unbelievable about-face from Paddy Ashdown being decisive in swaying the Lib Dem MPs to accept the deal with the Tories: "I came here to resign...but FUCK IT! Let's go for it"
Brown & Labour as being arrogant in trying to hang on assuming the Lib Dems would prop them up but then Brown belatedly trying to be dignified after hanging on too long and in deciding to go when he realised Lib Dems were just using him to try to get a better deal from the Tories.

Given the sort of thrust of the narrative being "Oh look, Nick Clegg's campaign, wasn't it great - a new type of politics being offered, not the same old same old....oh dear he got more votes but less seats..oh and then he sells out to be called Deputy PM"....if anything, the most subversive exchange was given to the civil servants at the end, basically along the lines of :

"we've got an entire system to make sure this doesn't happen and the undecided voters bugger it up"
"perhaps the problem wasn't the voters but the choices they were being offered"

That could be interpreted as "For God's sake vote for one of the big main parties, don't vote for the smaller protest party leader promising a shiny new breakthrough, as they'll just sell out to support whichever larger party will offer to get into bed with them " and so this time round is in fact not only an anti-Lib Dem but also an anti-UKIP stance ?

they got away with it because the election hasnt been called yet that happens 2moro the same reason why the UKIP one got thru

I thought it was rather good. They managed to find actors who could accurately portray the awkwardness of Brown, the slipperyness of Cameron and the spinelessness of Clegg. I suppose they had to use some artistic license but as they politicians themselves probably won't ever tell us what happened warts and all I suspect this the most accurate account of what happened we will ever see.

(29-03-2015 14:25 )M-L-L Wrote:  seemed to be depicted as all being as equally unsure of themselves, opportunistic and generally unprincipled as each other.

You sound as if this is a surprise

I'm afraid these docu-drama efforts just come across as pantomimes where the fun is in seeing who similar the impressions are, rather than trying to learn anything useful.

There was no way Clegg would have gone into coaltion with Gordon Brown. LDs had wanted coalition links with Labour for years and years, but Labour always brushed them off. No wonder they stuck 2 fingers up when Labour were suddenly desperate.

(29-03-2015 14:54 )Doddle Wrote:  

(29-03-2015 14:25 )M-L-L Wrote:  seemed to be depicted as all being as equally unsure of themselves, opportunistic and generally unprincipled as each other.

You sound as if this is a surprise

No - not surprised, just saying. Don't think they could possibly been have so surprised/ indecisive as they were being depicted : they would all have "gamed" out the Hung Parliament scenario beforehand.

The media clearly didn't, though. That's why they've been so hostile (one reason, anyway) - they can't say "we told you so".

And the whole pantomime will probably start again on May 8th as it is looking unlikely anyone will get a working majority.

I dunno....I wouldn't be surprised if the Tory vote went up : it's the Labour/left wing vote that doesn't really seem to have anything to vote for.

(29-03-2015 18:43 )M-L-L Wrote:  it's the Labour/left wing vote that doesn't really seem to have anything to vote for.

"Keep the friggin Tories out!" #yosser

I'm surprised/not much that the Tories haven't tried to paint Harriet, Yvette and the Two Eds as the New Gang of Four. or even just use The Two Eds as a punchbag.

I do plan to watch this drama by the way, I'm not just on auto-pilot

Having now watched this, it didn't offer any surprises really, and I wonder at people who would watch this and be remotely surprised. Beyond the principal characters, some of the lesser ones needed sash banners to explain who they were.

For myself, I thought a couple of more points could have easily been made (that Gordon was opposed to closer ties with the LDs after 97 and stuffed Paddy in the process; that Labour had let the LDs down with promises for years & years; most obviously - if you only get 9% of the MPs, you can't expect 100% of your manifesto to happen). #brokenrecord