Disaster movie of the week – The Life of Brian (Cowen)
In the Blair Witch Project a group of annoying students scramble through the Maryland backwoods confronting mystical signs and strange events amid an aura of impending doom.
In the Which Brian Project a group of (to him) annoying journalists scramble behind the Taoiseach through the backwoods of Ireland seeking mystical signs someone is in control of the country as it is buffeted by strange events and a feeling of impending doom.
We used to know which Brian we’d be meet up with in these encounters – the grumpy one – but now we can’t be so sure.
Because Mr Cowen is trying to undergo a public transformation even Gok Wan would be proud of.
Gok is well known for his encouraging catch phrase: “You go, girlfriend!” and you can almost hear Mr Cowen’s handlers whispering: “You go, Taoiseach!” as he sidles up to the press for what is known in the trade as a “doorstep” question and answer session at the event of the day.
Mr Cowen in private is actually a highly engaging, warm and humorous man, but his political tragedy is that as soon as you put a camera and microphone in front of him he is suddenly transformed into something resembling a mumbling undertaker, spitting out speak your weight machine-style business jargon cliches.
But the Which Brian Project is trying to make that a thing of the past – his thought process now as he approaches the previously tension-laden doorsteps seems to be: “Don’t be grumpy, engage, don’t be grumpy, try to smile, don’t be grumpy, they’ll all go away in a minute...”
And to be fair to him he has managed to keep it up for almost two weeks now, which is far longer than his previous attempts to escape from the bunker mentality have lasted.
But it is always unpredictable when politicians leave the safety of the limo for the Real World as Barack Obama found out this week when he ventured into a fast food joint and was greeted by a middle-aged woman who declared: “You’re a hottie! And with a smokin’ little body!” before she hugged him, somewhat intimately, and cackled: “Eat your heart out, Michelle!”
Mr Cowen’s reception in the Real World has never quite been like that, indeed for someone who can be so bombastic in the Dáil, he often comes across as, well, a bit shy, when he encounters the public on his rather rare walkabouts.
The other extreme is the now globally infamous Gordon Brown/Gillian Duffy catastrophe in which the opinionated pensioner cornered the self-destructing then British PM and demanded: “All these East Europeans, Gordon, where are they flocking from?” Instead of replying: “Erm, Eastern Europe, maybe?” Mr Brown denounced her in the safety of the back of his limo blissfully unaware it was being recorded by Sky News. Labour then tried to spin their way out of calamity by insisting he had misheard the word “flocking” and thought she was being offensive. But it was the final spin of the political dice for New Labour who are now old and exhausted and back in opposition.
Which is exactly where FF seem to be heading if the rigidly stable opinion polls are anything to go by.
The Blair Witch Project was a horror film that only really got scary in its last, dying scenes.
The Which Brian Project has been more of a disaster movie so far, but may yet have the same spectacularly dramatic and doom-laden ending.
