Douglas Murray
the red carpet, the aficionados among us knew we had an evening of politics ahead.
The moment that the award for “outstanding British film” went to Ken Loach was when we knew we could settle down with our popcorn for some properly crazed chatter.
For Comrade Ken is a man so far to the political Left that everybody else is Genghis Khan to him. There has never been a far-Left wing cause he has not called his. When George Galloway’s Respect Party needed members for its national council, Comrade Loach stepped forward.
When Julian Assange wanted bail money Comrade Loach was one of the rich contacts who just happened to have £20,000 to hand. On Sunday he chose to use his platform to berate the “brutality” of the Government.
It is fascinating what slips out at times like this. To pretend that the Government is “brutalising” the British people is so unhinged that even the actors who applauded his comments ought to have blushed beneath their make-up.
Anybody actually interested in “brutality” could have seen it being practised in any of the Left-wing socialist dictatorships Comrade Ken and his school of politics spent the 20th century covering for. They gave the world millions of victims of brutality. But these people
WHERE to even begin? First of all, if I were an actor I wouldn’t get too worked up about the threat of a coming revolution. Loach has been predicting the uprising of the masses for most of his adult life. But in a season where a lot of people seem worried about “democracy” how strange it is for a film director to claim that all our politicians are in fact merely spokespeople for “big corporations”.
At present Loach’s words would be my nominee for looniest speech of the season but it is far too early to call. Not least because the awards season has yet to reach its grand finale. Traditionally it is at the Oscars, due the Sunday after next, that the sport of celebrity sermonising reaches its peak.
This year we can expect wallto-wall condemnations of Trump. Of course the only remotely “brave” thing would be for anyone in the acting industry to say anything generous about Trump or Theresa May. But they never can do it.
Personally I have come to slightly pity celebrities. Not for their wealth or their platforms but for the fact that in the back of their minds I think they may be realising that the world is not merely ignoring them or laughing at them, it is moving in the other direction precisely because of people like them and the arrogant, ignorant sermons they keep issuing to the rest of us.
In which case, preach away.
‘The Baftas meant an evening of politics’
may they