After weeks of speculation, Gordon Brown has finally asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament in order to call a general election for May 6. Even the most ardent Labour supporter would be hard pressed to define his premiership as even a qualified success. Yet, the Conservatives, under the leadership of David Cameron, have only managed to establish a precariously narrow lead in the polls, with many experts believing that at best, the Tories may just be able to squeak through with a narrow majority. Given the numerous disasters of Brown's reign, how is it that David Cameron's crew has not blown Labour out of the water?
Well, a spoof article that appeared in the Guardian last Thursday (April Fools' Day), that purported to have the inside scoop on Labour's election strategy, provides some clues. The article claimed that Labour was going to try to capitalize upon Gordon Brown's hardman (i.e., tough guy) image in the wake of a Whitehall bullying scandal to portray him as the ultimate alpha-male ready to lead the country into recovery. As a part of this campaign, the story revealed that there were plans to initiate confrontations between Gordon Brown and David Cameron that would allow Brown to physically dominate his opponent.
Now, at the heart of all satire is a small kernel of truth that gets exaggerated, twisted, and reformed to humorous ends. In the case of the Guardian story, the kernel of truth being manipulated for comedic effect is not so much the perception of Gordon Brown but the perception of David Cameron and other senior Tory brass. And despite years of slick PR campaigns, reassuring speeches, and attempts to modernize their image, Cameron and the Tories still come across as bullies, not matter how warm and fuzzy they try to be.
But it is a different type of bully to the 'hardman' image satirized in the Guardian article; it is the cowardly two-faced bully, the type of bully who is nice to your face while undermining you behind your back. It is also the type of bully who gets others to attend to the directly confrontational aspects of bullying in order to preserve his/her image. Obviously, this plays into perceptions of class privilege as many members of the Conservative shadow cabinet come from some of the richest families in the UK and were educated at the same elite public schools and universities (see the excellent docu-drama 'When Boris met Dave' for more).
The satire is also reliant on the way that the Conservative party is being gendered as prototypically feminine. Thus, where the satirical Gordon Brown actively pursues physical confrontation, the Tories try to avoid it, relying on others to physically defend them if it becomes necessary. The Conservatives therefore are to be seen as effete girly-men, undeserving of the reigns of political power.
Thus, what is most interesting about the Guardian article is that it relies on entrenched gender stereotypes as a source of its humour. For me, the reliance on these stereotypes, even in satire authored by a left-leaning media outlet, reveals that real political progress and change--as opposed to a change in government-- is going to be difficult to achieve in the United KIngdom no matter who wins this election.
