Shared Opinion

16 May 2009

All that has really changed is that we’re all angry now. It isn’t just students who are cross

I’m worried that we are running out of people to hate. It’s all moving too fast. In the space of just a few months, we’ve had bankers and the BBC and the police and now MPs. What’s left for the summer? It’s barely 18 months since we did the House of Lords; we can’t possibly do them again already. Nurses? Trains? Traffic wardens? Something more left-field? A summer of hate against the RSPCA?

Mind you, maybe I’m being too hasty. Because, and humour me here, just close your eyes and try to imagine a copy of the Daily Telegraph. Look at the headline. It’s about MPs’ expenses, isn’t it? Now knuckle your eyelids, shake your head and visualise another. Expenses again, right? Not a bad thing, in my view. It’s probably the dormant gossip columnist in me, but I can’t get enough of this sort of thing. John Reid’s glittery loo seat? Brilliant. What I’d like to see, most of all, is a big CGI mash-up of every claim, all stuck together, like a crazed version of Through the Keyhole. Who bought a ladies’ blouse like this? Bing! Phil Woolas! Five points! Who needs a £1,300 television? Who claimed a 23p lemon? Not with Loyd Grossman, though. Is Peter Snow still around? He’d be great.

But no, I don’t think it’s going to last. I think we’re going to need somebody else. So I’ve been casting about, trying to figure out who could be next. The royals, maybe? I think they’re probably due a kicking. Because really, it’s all one story, isn’t it? The MPs, the banks, the BBC, the Metropolitan Police, even those bastards at the RSPCA. It’s the impotent rage of the little man against the big system. I interviewed a bunch of students a few months ago, about student protest. They thought they were angry about the environment, or Gaza, or tuition fees, or animal rights, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that their anger was actually an amorphous, bubbling thing, and all they were after was an outlet. We’re all angry now. That’s all that has changed.

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