The pretenders

By Conor Pope / @conorpope

Late on Saturday night I got a text excitedly saying that I should write this week’s article about the similarities between the Klitschko brothers and Miliband brothers. Unfortunately I don’t like or know anything about boxing. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who does. Therefore, this will not be about the boxing.

I have, however, been assured that there is much humour to be found in comparisons between the two sets of siblings, so perhaps you can imagine that’s what I’ve written about if you prefer. But then if you don’t like what you’ve imagined I’ve written, you can’t blame me in the comments section. Although I’m sure you will anyway. You fickle, fickle people.

Obviously though, people can like whatever sport they choose. It’s absolutely fine for George Osborne to watch tennis instead of watching the further economic turmoil unfold in Greece, or for David Cameron to like football, if that’s he wants to pretend.

Pretending has been something of a theme this week. Johann Hari was discovered as having done a lot of pretending. Michael Gove tried to pretend that he hadn’t spent most of his time as a journalist on strike. Brendan Barber did a wonderful job of pretending not to be annoyed when I, covered in trade union stickers, asked him who he was as he came off the stage after delivering a speech at London Pride. And Ed Miliband pretended he was a robot, built for the sole purpose of commentating on boxing, by moralistic but ultimately limited inventors:

“These strikes from Klitschko are wrong. David Haye has acted in a reckless and provocative manner and I urge both sides to put aside their gloves, get around the negotiating table and stop it happening again.”

“But Ed, striking each other is largely the point of boxing so surely you, as a robot designed for the sole purpose of commentating on boxing, must recognise this? Without boxing you wouldn’t even exist, it seems odd for you to reject it.”

“These strikes are wrong…” (Repeat until they turn the cameras off.)

When Damon Green, the interviewer, told Miliband’s team that he was writing a blog about the experience, he was apparently told that they were fine with it, as it was “getting the message out”.

Now, I’m no political strategist (shocking, I know), but I can’t help but think that repeating something to the point where it become meaningless, where it is just a stock response to any question, where the words are simply sounds floating in an ether, bubbles of nothing slowly popping in a bath of emptiness, is not “getting the message out”. It’s the equivalent of teaching Father Jack to say “That would be an ecumenical matter”.

The biggest problem is that it made Miliband look so… politiciany. He appeared impervious to reality, like a previously benevolent super-being who’d become disinterested in the human race. Watching it again, it is hard to to believe this is a man who was ever championed as “speaking human”. Maybe he was just pretending.