Mick Hartley

No other programme gets so close to the essence of the BBC as “Have I Got News For You”. This is where they let their hair down, forget about all that “impartial” crap, and just say what they really think. And it’s oh so daring and controversial and witty. The Times TV reviewer writes breathlessly, “the one consistently funny programme on the BBC is back for its 28th series…” I imagine that within the world of London journalism this is as good as it gets; a must-see, and if at all possible a must-appear-on.

The sadly unmissed Angus Deayton, together with Ian Hislop, set the tone for the series, which is one of unrelieved smugness. Paul Merton provides the wit and is genuinely funny, if occasionally self-indulgent. The guest hosts really do little but read out the scripts and captions penned for them by the writers, but preferably in as superior a manner as possible.

The new series started out with the formula as before: one “good” guest who knows the score and accepts the beeb world-view without question, here Germaine Greer, who couldn’t resist being awfully naughty and saying “fuck” (it was bleeped out) – hilarious! – and one misfit guest, here Les Dennis, who plays the part of the grammar school oik: everyone’s polite, but the poor chap doesn’t really get it, doesn’t fit in, tells the most inappropriate jokes, and everyone’s sort of sniggering at him behind his back. Good Lord, the fellow actually admitted he’d played Blackpool! Most BBC staffers would die rather than go to Blackpool.

The main theme? Ah yes, no surprises there. It’s the central belief of the chattering classes, the central plank of the anti-American world view they espouse: Bush, and how stupid he is. It’s one long seemingly endless sneer at his lack of intelligence, his lack of eloquence, his lack of….well, his lack of a decent Oxbridge education, quite frankly: something that Clinton at least managed to acquire. That plus the odd joke about Americans being fat – a reliable laugh-generator among the type of people who provide the show’s audience. But mainly it’s Bush.

The Times has an editorial on the subject today (the subject of anti-Americanism, that is):

The close relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush is mystifying to those louche liberals whose political prejudices are complemented by cultural cariacatures. It is just too easy to mock the US President for his “downhome” mannerisms and obvious awkwardness at press conferences. Given that politics is partly theatre, Mr Bush should expect tough notices — but less acceptable is the facile tendency to draw global conclusions about policy and identity from the mannerisms of a man who sometimes doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

It has always been open season on Americans. Too many people in Britain define themselves, in part, by being “not American”. Reflexive judgments are fine among the sentimental, self-regarding members of the Left, for whom (or for some) political views are fashion statements worn proudly in the salons of London.

The belief that Messrs Bush and Blair have so staunchly defended for so long, that both political and economic “freedom” (the very word jars on the Left) should be a global given, has traditionally been anathema to those parts of the British Left that subtler reasoning did not reach. It is the birthright of this unfortunately unreconstructed group to dislike America for itself: because as a nation it believes in free markets and popular democracy.

War in Iraq has simply given those who hold this view a chance to graft new discontents on to old, and attract new audiences as they vent. Alarmingly, this agenda of anti-Americanism has begun spreading into milieux which are not viscerally anti-American. An unholy alliance of Left and Right is taking the simplistic and intellectually lazy way out of solving the world’s problems by blaming them on American policies in general, and those of Mr Bush in particular. It is not uncommon nowadays to turn on the BBC and find speakers talking with contempt about “the Americans”. (Who are they? How many of them are there?) But nor is it uncommon to open the pages of right-of-centre newspapers and find views expressed there that cross traditional barriers of ideology.

A view expressed widely in Britain is that the rise in anti-American sentiment has been caused by Mr Bush’s “war mongering”, and that if he were not in power the older warmth between nations would flourish again. Yet this, like so much else, is a convenient misinterpretation. The resentment currently expressed towards America would not be dispelled simply by a change of face at the top. It arises, in part, from a broader geopolitical trend: the rise of America as a single superpower since the end of the Cold War, and the complex feelings arising from that change of role.

Bill Clinton’s warm’n’fuzzy, touchy-feely, presidency obscured the scale of the shift in sentiment towards America. He was media savvy and an unusually gifted speaker whose ability to charm exceeded his policy capability. But September 11, 2001 brought a fundamental change. For decades, the West could unite in defining itself and its culture as “not Communist”; with the Soviet collapse, that character-defining opposite disappeared. Increasingly, British and Europeans — especially those motivated by unexamined feelings of envy — have defined themselves as “not American”.

That shift becomes dangerous when people begin to distort and oversimplify not only the actions of the “other” whom they blame for unwanted change, but also to exaggerate their own selflessness. Yet tolerance has never been more vital. Those who choose to define themselves as “not American” rather than as “not theological extremist”, risk contributing to the toleration of intolerance.

Which all fits the HIGNFY demographic pretty well. But I’ll probably be watching it next week. It may be smug, but it’s funny. The only problem is one identified by that Times TV reviewer, on the prospect of a new host: “With the Spectator up for sale, [Boris] Johnson may soon be in the market for a new job. That would be icing on the cake.” Not for me it wouldn’t, but then again I’d be quite grateful for a reason not to watch any more.