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A Very Social Secretary

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:45 / 10.10.05

A very enjoyable sticking-the-knife-in session aimed at people who really, really deserve it. What I liked best about this was the way it was able to balance broad humour with heartfelt political commentary: as appropriate when dealing with a man who is such a farcical character in many ways, and yet responsible for so much serious human suffering and fermenting of hatred. Bernard Hill did very well here. Equally, I thought Robert Lindsay handled Blair brilliantly: simultaneously pathetic and weak yet capable of real nastiness - as we all know he is.

One can only hope some of the people involved watched it, and then felt bad in a variety of ways.

Smoothly

21:20 / 10.10.05

God, I'm gutted I didn't watch this now. I just thought it would be too Edinburgh fringe to be watchable. Bound to be repeated though, innit.

I'm pretty sure Blunkett will have seen it. He was threatening to block its transmission at one stage, wasn't he? Of was that just more 4 spin?

sleazenation

21:50 / 10.10.05

It is going to be repeated in, um, less than an hour on More 4...

_Boboss

09:32 / 11.10.05

yeah was good. very creepy final ending (SPOILER)with blinkett having ditched the nice assistant and stuck with the nasty one, who's always been trying to take over the country police-state style, ameliorating his tone to suit blanky's 'just doing what's right' delusions.

excelent excellent performance from lindsay, getting the blairite tics and smiles and little shakes of the head just right. good performances also: carol caplin (bit less fit in real life, surely?), doon mackichan as cherie and campbell, who got the blank, casual, 100% self-assured evil down perfectly. the guy playing johnson was a bit naff though, wasted opportunity there to remind everyone just how they managed to win again, what with the most famous member of the opposition being a career-minded buffoon like him.

Alex's Grandma

10:12 / 11.10.05

If nothing else, I'd be willing to bet Alisdair Campbell watched it, taped it, and will be watching it again. Generally speaking, he must love how he's portrayed in this kind of thing, as the power behind the throne, the man what was holding the project together, and so forth - it'll be interesting to see how he fares when someone gets round to a satire of the events surrounding the Hutton inquiry, as I dare say they may do, eventually.

So many great moments in this show though -

'But I like baked beans...'
'Do you think you can take on a Sheffield lad? Eh?'
'It's not an anorak, it's a kagoul...etc.

It's bound to be repeated ad nauseam, but it really deserves to be.

Tryphena Absent

12:06 / 11.10.05

I really loved the bit with Cherie and Carole Caplin.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:46 / 11.10.05

I'm pretty sure Blunkett will have seen it.

Are you sure?

Makes me wish I had Freeview... I would have really liked to see this. Did anyone tape it?

Smoothly

15:00 / 11.10.05

Are you sure?

Ah, hmmm. I’d like to be able to claim that was a joke, but, alas, twas pure blunder. Reminds me though, I once had a lunch with a blind colleague whom I’d spoken to on the phone a lot but not met in the flesh before. Being somewhat gaffe prone, I had coached myself on the various things I had to make sure I didn’t say – but he quickly beat me to every single one of them: ‘Nice to put a face to the name’, ‘Looks like rain’, etc etc. I expect this was a conscious tactic for assuaging a common anxiety, and it did make it easier to ignore that difference between us. So, I can only conclude that I’m now so hep to it, I don’t even notice that Blunkett is blind.

By the way, I’ve got a Freeview receiver I don’t use anymore, Stoat, if you want it. But they’re pretty damn cheap new these days.

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:10 / 11.10.05

"SHUT UP LAWYER!"

My only doubt about this show was that it did depict Blunkett as having pangs of conscience every now and again, and there's no evidence for that really, is there? It wasn't clear in the scene where the guy accosts him in the pub and starts going on about how it's great how hard he is on asylum seekers, whether we were meant to interpret his discomfort as pure snobbery or an aversion to the guy's racism: the latter isn't plausible as far as I'm concerned.

Still, bloody great.

Alex's Grandma

12:19 / 12.10.05

For God's sake Shaftoe, he cares about the LITTLE LAD

Nice ambiguity in the show, I felt, as to which 'little lad' he was actually talking about.

I took the scene in the pub as yet one more example of Blunkett's inability to face up to the consequences of his actions, though - the logical result of the legislation he's passed is standing right there in front of him, but he can't, or won't, y'know, 'look' at it.

'Is there anyone else in the room?' indeed.

Ganesh

22:10 / 12.10.05

Just watching this on Sky, and agree with Flyshaftoe that there's a little too much by way of conscience pang on display. I think the two assistants are a dramatic device in the same vein, a riff on the angel/devil, superego/id dichotomy - so the pricklings of conscience are externalised, ineffectual and ultimately dismissed.

Tryphena Absent

09:52 / 13.10.05

Blunkett has pangs of conscience?

Do you really think he'd have brought in the type of laws he did if his conscience was panging? Blunkett's not that type of politician, would you apply that kind of logic to a Conservative politician? What's with the assumption that he must have doubts. Blunkett gives the impression that he believes in what he's doing- he's not a socialist or a liberal, he's a red and he believes in the state from the position of higher government. I don't think he's got a conscience that's panging.

Ganesh

13:30 / 13.10.05

I don't think anyone's advancing a Blunkett-conscience-panging argument here. If anything, we all appear to be taking issue with that particular piece of dramatic license.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:31 / 22.10.05

OK, I'm halfway through finally getting round to watching this and I'm objecting to this on two levels:

1) It's making me have to think about what happens when Blunkett has sex. Ewwww, mind erasers, someone for the love of God invent mind erasers now!
2) It's making me feel sorry for Blunkett, portraying him as a feckless idiot being controlled through his penis by the evil American.

Bernard Hill's performance slips past being an accurate impersonation of Blunkett and into portraying a blind man with some sort of mental impairment, who is permanently having a wank.

The guy playing Boris Johnson is great though. "My wife's locked me in the cupboard!"

Mysterious Transfer Student

09:47 / 23.10.05

I think the final scene was meant to underline the writer's intended portrayal of Blunkett - as a man who wasn't bad, just naive and having a vast capacity for self-delusion. A man who fooled himself that he could have a real family life with a woman like Kimberley Quinn could easily believe that his policies were what was right for the country.

Of course, I don't consider a film like this to be an accurate representation of reality - all of the blame for David Blunkett's political errors should be laid squarely at his feet, not at those of the eeevil Blair/Campbell duo. It was enormously entertaining fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

Alex's Grandma

13:54 / 23.10.05

Interesting that the crits for this (or at least the ones I read anyway, Observer, IOS,) were fairly negative though. There was a feeling that Blunkett's eye trouble was distastefully over-used as a comic device, which I can (*coff*) just about see - I suppose my feeling must have been something like 'oh it's Blunkett, fuck him, hanging's too good' and so on, but on the other hand, if the sight gags over-played, and I think looking back (sorry) that they possibly might have been, did this detract from the films bite slightly, by allowing Blunkett's defenders ( it's hard to believe but they're still out there somewhere,) an easy 'out'?

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