Opinion
An Actor’s Life: The political bias that never ends
An Actor’s Life
May 20th, 2017
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This article is more than 7 years old.
“Sorry, who are you again?” …. “Jeremy, he’s the leader of the free world” (photo: Pete Souza)
Getting tired of the constant coverage of elections? From Denmark’s Europol veto in November 2015, to Brexit last June, and President Donald Trump’s rise to power, the campaigning never ends – and the most important issue is always the subtext.
Forget about the policies, elections are increasingly an opportunity to voice a protest, and to hell with the repercussions. Could this vote make Denmark vulnerable to an unprecedented wave of crime – we don’t care, as long as we make the status quo listen!
Meddling media
Britain’s the worst culprit, thanks mostly to a biased right-wing press that is personal, vitriolic and hell-bent on stopping Jeremy Corbyn winning the June 8 General Election – at all costs!
It’s a dirty tactic the Tories have chosen to follow and one their rich-boy club of multi-millionaires and billionaires supports wholeheartedly.
The Tories mock Labour’s manifesto, even though they have no manifesto of their own. Corbyn will take us back to the 1970s. Well, I thought Britain was a decent place to live in back then. There was more opportunity for people of all social status.
What the Dickens!
Meanwhile, PM Theresa May has told us she wants to bring back something that we’re all burning to see reintroduced: the thrilling chance to hunt foxes and rip them to pieces. And the Tories complain about taking us back to the 1970s? What century are the Tories actually living in? Judging by the amount of people in work who need food banks to survive, it must be Dickensian Britain.
The mantra of Theresa May’s team is to focus purely on Brexit and to be negative about Corbyn’s leadership qualities. (Sigh.) I naively used to think the BBC was a pillar of fair reporting! Silly me. These days I find myself angrily shouting at the radio. I know I could choose not to listen and play escapist music instead, but I believe it’s important to know what your enemy is thinking.
Whatever happens on June 8, Brexit has already divided Britain and half of us are going to have to find ways of communicating and co-existing with the selfish, blind, myopic and easily-led people who will vote to destroy the NHS, undermine social services and the armed forces, whilst selling off all the country’s best bits of silver for quick profit.
Sådan Søren!
Given how the UK press is controlled by megalomaniacs it makes me wonder if there are any right-wing billionaires with a burning desire to pour their poisonous personal agendas into our souls and control the Danish media?
I’m relieved to say that Danes are smarter than that, although there are of course a few extreme nationalists calling themselves politicians who need to be either ignored or called out for the racists and homophobes they
are.
For example, there’s Søren Krarup, a former priest and Danish Folkeparti politician (2001-2011) who’s in the news right now for saying all sorts of politically incorrect things, such as how being gay is a disease that requires a national registry. Just last week, he called French President Emmanuel Macron a “pretty little gay boy”. They’d love him in Chechnya, eh?
Children of the cloth
Lightbulb moment: I’ve just spotted a possible link between religion and right-wing extremism. Britain’s beloved ‘strong and stable leader’ is the daughter of a vicar. Could there be a link between that and her delusional aspirations?
She wants this election on June 8 to signal the end of all opposition and to be her coronation. Tell you what dear reader, if I never hear the phrase ‘strong and stable’ again, it’ll be too soon.
About
An Actor’s Life
A resident here since 1990, Ian Burns is the artistic director at That Theatre Company and very possibly Copenhagen’s best known English language actor thanks to roles as diverse as Casanova, Shakespeare and Tony Hancock.
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