Why politics and showbiz don’t always mix

Matt Hancock’s brain fade, mashing up Daniel Radcliffe and Marcus Rashford, is perhaps a timely warning of what can befall a politician who affects too easy a familiarity with sport and popular culture. With rare exceptions, pop culture and politics really don’t mix – especially association football.

Who can forget, for example, David Cameron’s excruciating confusion about which football team he “supports”. Having picked, apparently randomly, an historic Brummie club within easy reach of a clutch of Labour-Tory marginals, Aston Villa, he once tried to illustrate a point at a policy launch about cultural identity and Britishness with the line: “Of course, I’d rather you supported West Ham.” Apart from sharing club colours (claret and blue) and an occasional tendency to hang close to the Premier League’s relegation zone, the Hammers and the Villa don’t have much else in common. At any rate, Mr Cameron goes to see them rather less than does Prince William, a more devoted old Etonian follower of theirs.

Gordon Brown’s passion for third-tier Scottish champions Raith Rovers was genuine, but it did neither him nor the team much good. To their credit, neither Theresa May (who likes her cricket and Geoffrey Boycott) nor Boris Johnson feigned any love of the beautiful game.

Tony Blair was the last British prime minister to have anything of the Cool Britannia about No 10, though the Gallagher brothers’ opinion of him has deteriorated since those Britpop-themed Downing Street parties with the Spice Girls and Peter Mandelson. After all, Blair was once the lead singer in his very own student band, the Ugly Rumours, modelling his strutting performances on Mick Jagger in his prime. Blair also memorably performed well in a keepy-uppy competition with Kevin Keegan, whose magnificent mullet outclassed that of the then hirsute Labour leader.

The world of entertainment has long mesmerised politicians looking to sprinkle a little stardust over their manifestos. Harold Wilson back in the Sixties was smart enough to give the Beatles OBEs (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da!) though they later sent them back. Jeremy Corbyn enjoyed near superstar status among his followers. This was to be showcased in the Labour Live event held in a north London park. This was designed to be like a mini Glastonbury and fair enough (your correspondent attended in that summer of dreams in ‘18) Clean Bandit headlined, with the Magic Numbers, Glen Matlock, Declan McKenna and the Leader of the Opposition (Corbyn, not an obscure group). It was a bit overcast, the event lost money and the free ice cream, dished out by Len McCluskey from a Mr Whippy van using the tune of the Red Flag for its chimes, ran out halfway through. A perfect metaphor, then, for the Corbyn experiment.

Margaret Thatcher had Bob Monkhouse, Vince Hill and Kenny Everett as supporting acts at her election rallies (at which the Liverpudlian Mr Everett forever shed his cuddly Ken image with his chant of “Let’s Bomb Russia! Let’s kick Michael Foot’s stick away!”) Neil Kinnock appeared in a pop video with Tracey Ullman (”My Guy’s Mad at Me” peaked at number 23, and didn’t move the polls either). Brown didn’t appear in any videos for his supposed idols the Arctic Monkeys because, as he later pointed out, they weren’t his idols at all: “At the end of an interview for New Woman magazine, there was a round of quick-fire questions. One was: did I prefer the Arctic Monkeys to James Blunt? Not knowing much about either, I said I preferred Coldplay, but added: well, the Arctic Monkeys would certainly wake you up in the morning. That throwaway remark led to a political storm: ‘Brown gets up to Arctic Monkeys’ the papers wrote, at which point all hell broke lose about me trying hard to present someone I was not.”

Indeed not, unlike his predecessor, Tony the showman, who rather enjoyed doing that. Most cultural commentators believe he comprehensively nailed it in his 2007 Comic Relief Am I bovvered? sketch with Catherine Tate. No, it doesn’t make up for the Iraq War, but it was charming.

I’ve left the most gruesome until last, leaving aside the 1974 Liberal Party broadcast featuring Jeremy Thorpe, Jimmy Savile (via telegram) and Cyril Smith in a special lead-lined coffin of its own. Only a few years ago now, the Leave.EU “bad boys of Brexit” campaign had the idea of building on their success with a huge pro-Brexit rock concert. Whereas in the past, the best they could rustle up was retired DJ Mike Read “warbling about illegal immigrants in a faux-Caribbean accent” (in the words of Arron Banks), this time they’d get Jagger and Roger Daltrey on stage with Ann Widdecombe and Nigel Farage. “An opportunity to challenge people’s perceptions of the campaign,” they hoped, though in the end it was a matter of boybands 5ive and East 17 and Alesha Dixon pulling out of the “Bpop Live” event because they didn’t want to appear with Farage. Well, that’s showbiz.