A very social secretary
October 16th 2005, 16:34 Jeff Sela
A new UK digital TV channel was launched on Monday, called More4. On their opening night they broadcast a controversial (but, it turns out, popular) drama about David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, about his affair with Kimberly Quinn and the minor scandal about her nanny's passport application.
A Very Social Secretary is apparently based on what really happened, but presented with a certain amount of comedy. There was also a lot of amusing commentary on the scary right-wingedness of the Labour government, and its predilection for spin.
I was particularly amused by this conversation between the guys playing Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell:
Blair: “…If we can't get a tough anti-terrorism bill through a few weeks after 9/11 we shouldn't be in government.”
Campbell: “Well it's the incitement to religious hatred bit, it'll never get past the Lords.”
Blair: “So, we'll bring it back some other time.”
The joke being of course that they have now brought it back, and it is going through the Lords at the moment.
Overall, this is definitely an amusing film and worth watching, particularly for Robert Lindsay's portrayal of Tony Blair as the flustered husband and dad, trying to be a Prime Minister in a Downing Street littered with kids toys.
My only concern is that the whole idea of picking on an unmarried politician for getting his end away is a good idea. It seems much too voyeuristic to me. I'd have preferred it if they fictionalised it more, and used invented characters to tell a story like this. I don't think the writers were justified in poking fun at a guy's private life in this way.
Cristina Odone, in the Guardian, was concerned that this indicates a resurgence of prudishness in the British Media:
Britain can make fun of Bush's constant references to his ‘Higher Father’ and mock his evangelical vision of America as the new Jerusalem, but increasingly our preoccupation with public morality and individuals' morals is akin to a Pilgrim Father's. The new puritanism aims to discover, expose and censor those who indulge in excesses (binge-drinkers, regular coke users, addicted gamblers).
…
The contradiction between prudishness over a minister seeing a blonde and drunken louts on our streets, sex on the telly and provocative ads on our billboards exposes the nonsense at the heart of our puritanism. They froth at the mouth with outrage, but at the same time, the moralisers are salivating at the juicy details. Let Blunkett get on with his life with the party girls at Annabel's, just as we once drew a discreet veil over the Ross Bensons of this world.
Update: Boris Johnson, who is also portrayed in the film, has an amusing and interesting perspective on Blunkett's downfall on his blog.
