… from Marina Hype, er Hyde*. Lovely Guardian piece. She’s particularly good on the increasingly-bizarre media circus that developed as the coalition negotiations dragged on.
To say that by the end of this saga the media had begun to eat itself wouldn’t begin to cover the cannibalistic orgy that has been raging in Westminster. News channel helicopters drowned out their own ground-level broadcasts, ably assisted by megaphone-wielding members of the public who chanted things like “Sack Kay Burley!” Ever more outlandishly repellent pundits were exhumed. Kenneth Baker … oof, mine eyes! For political junkies it had the flavour of Pokemon – gotta catch’em all.
For less insane members of the public, this week has presumably acted as a sort of politics aversion therapy, ensuring that every time someone even says the words “strong and stable government”, intense feelings of nausea and images of Alastair Campbell will flood their brain.
The geographically tiny village of Westminster has resembled nothing so much as a meth-assisted version of Camberwick Green, with the Sauron-like capabilities of news channels allowing viewers to follow dramatis personae round this weirdo toytown. There were the Lib Dems leaving their headquarters; there they were walking to the Cabinet Office; there they were a few minutes later arriving. And oh look — there’s Windy Miller talking to Kay Burley on College Green.
Unbelievably – although not really within the context of the past few days – a giant rainbow appeared over the palace just as Cameron’s car swept in. In the coming days, do expect unicorns to follow.
*Footnote: Thanks to the eagle-eyed Hugh Taylor for spotting the typo.
