Pooh sticks it to the Party
The authorities in China have clamped down on social media outlets which have had the temerity to run picture comparisons of the country’s leader Xi Jinping with Winnie the Pooh. They caught on a few years back when a shot of portly Xi walking alongside slim Barack Obama was placed next to an image of Pooh and his friend Tigger. The inference was unmistakable. That’s why it was funny.
In a country such as China, where the Communist Party (rather like the European Commission closer to home) never bothers putting itself up for irksome complications such as popular elections, few things are more subversive – or brave – than laughing at the leaders imposed on you. As George Orwell said: “Every joke is a tiny revolution.” in Paris he visited, the President opined: “His one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities and they froze to death.”
On his predecessor Obama’s policy towards North Korea he stated: “He talked tough to North Korea. And he didn’t actually. He didn’t talk tough to North Korea. You know we have a big problem with North Korea. Big, big, big.”
Another American politician once said politicians should campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Trump has dispensed with both niceties. He is the American John Prescott. All he needs to do now to make the comparison complete is touch down in Washington after his next foreign visit and declare: “It’s great to be back on terra cotta.”