We need to look past rhetoric to actual substance

By Caitlin Ward

Gin & Milk
by Dirty Pretty Things

I’m into myself on uncertain terms
I put gin in my milk to kill all the germs
As I pray for the day that life will return
And I pray for myself but I never learn
No I never learn

See I really like you
But I’m nothing like you
I try oh so hard
But don’t get so far
You get my respect
But we don’t connect
We’re in it together
So I’ll love you forever
I love you forever

And so it rains on

CHORUS

No one gives a f--- about the values I would die for
Not the faceless civil servants
The rudimentary crack whore
No one gives two f---s about the values I would kill for
Give them something to die for
Give me something to die for

You won’t really see me
I live in old movies
Cloaked tightly in sin
So they won’t come in
It’s like spying on cities
Through cracks in the floor
Thought I knew what the blag was
But now I’m not sure
What do I know anymore?

CHORUS

No one’s too perturbed
About the things that I would cry for
I’ve been trying all my life
Until there’s nothing left to try for
No one’s too perturbed
About the things that I would live for
Give me something to try for
Give me something to try for

I’ve found myself glued to the Internet the last two weeks during the lead-up and fall out of the UK general election. I’m not usually the type who concerns herself with the internal political machinations of other countries, but it was very exciting. From the beginning it was a close race, and at the time of writing this it’s just, well — confusing. Instead of “minority governments” they have “hung parliaments” and in the minds of the British media, at least, that spells disaster. No political party has a clear victory, so the leaders are scrambling to come up with some sort of coalition that means their party will make it to 10 Downing Street.

A curious feature of the British election that’s by and large been absent from Canadian elections was the attempts on behalf of all the major parties to appeal to the popular press. I don’t just mean The Guardian or the BBC or The Daily Telegraph, but also children’s television shows and tabloids: questions about what the party leaders eat for breakfast became as important as their stance on immigration.

I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it’s an attempt to engage a segment of the population that is pretty apathetic about general elections. On the other hand, it makes the whole thing much more of a popularity contest than it either should be or needs to be. Do I care what Labour leader Gordon Brown’s shoes look like? No. No, I don’t.

However, one especially interesting moment happened when Dermot O’Leary, the host of X-Factor (akin to Canadian or American Idol), sat down with each major party leader for an informal (but televised) chat. Now, think about this: it’s as if Ryan Seacrest interviewed John McCain and Barack Obama in the lead-up to the American presidential election back in 2008.

Bizarre, yes. But it did yield a single moment which has stuck with me. Talking to Conservative leader David Cameron, who has been running on a platform of capital-c Change, O’Leary said, “there was rampant unemployment under Thatcher, and unemployment under Labour. Do you worry that people think, ‘same shit, different suit?’ ”

Well, Cameron was caught up short. Personally, I’m not particularly worried that the Conservatives were made to look a bit stupid on national television, and O’Leary did sum up the feelings of a huge swath of the population. Perhaps a bit more insightful than Ryan Seacrest might’ve been.

The idea of “same shit, different suit” concerns me, though. Throughout my life I’ve heard many people say of political parties, “oh, they’re all the same.” Now, on the surface, this may look to be the case, as their leaders tend to be middle-aged white men in suits. That is definitely a problem — the lack of representation for women and minorities in positions of power can be quite worrisome. However, the fact that party leaders look the same does not make their policies the same. The idea that they are the same is a failure of both intellect and imagination. Frankly, I’m slightly terrified of the British Conservatives forming government. My sister lives in that country, and the Conservatives have demonstrated themselves to dislike immigrants, the poor and the vulnerable. But of course, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg and Brown were in suits, too, so they must feel the same way, right? Pfft.

Running parallel to my intense interest in the UK election was a general tendency to listen to English music. I suppose it stands to reason; I was in an English frame of mind. The song Gin & Milk by Dirty Pretty Things stuck with me, however. It’s a rather desperate and fairly swear-laden song about feeling powerless, thwarted and getting the overall impression no one cares about the things you care about: “No one gives two f---s about the values I would kill for / Give them something to die for / Give me something to die for.”

Listening to the lyrics, it’s easy to initially get caught up in the drama of it all, but taking a few moments to unpack the song demonstrates just how immature it is as any sort of political statement. Singer Carl Barât wails that no one cares about the things he cares about, but there’s a few problems inherent within that statement. First of all, it’s a rather arrogant thing to assume that no one but him has thought about the things he cares about, and it’s very possible limiting your statistical sample to civil servants and crack whores isn’t the best way to get a litmus test on what a nation is thinking.

More problematic, though, is the fact that he doesn’t spend much time expressing what the things he cares about are — nor does he do so in the rest of the songs on the album. It’s all well and good to cry because you’re misunderstood, but if you don’t try to explain yourself to anyone, you’ve got to admit it’s at least 50 per cent your fault. Without any attempt at a manifesto of belief, one must look outside Barât’s words to his actions.

However, based on actions outside song, he cares a bit about road safety, but he’s primarily concerned with drinking a great deal of booze and possibly also taking cocaine.

Well. I’m not 100 per cent confident that blanket hedonism is a value worth dying for.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to belief, be it political action or religious conviction, we have to look past the drama of rhetoric and try to see what’s actually there. Substance must really come before style; Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown might just be guys in suits, but I bet they have a better handle on international policy than Carl Barât does.

Ward is a freelance writer and aspiring documentary filmmaker based in Saskatoon. You can find her short bursts of insight and frustration at http://www.twitter.com/newsetofstrings.