Long before the fall of the most brutal, life and soul-destroying regime in the history of the world, the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn suggested that all it would take to bring down the Soviet Union would be to mail all its citizens a booklet containing close-ups of every member of the Politburo. That, he predicted, would have everyone rioting in the streets in no time.
I recalled the Great Man’s remark this week when our TV screens were invaded by current and ex-Labour cabinet ministers either lying through their teeth or shiftily avoiding saying anything at all.
Now, Solzhenitsyn’s theory obviously wouldn’t work here: we see the faces of our Politburo members far too often, and, in any case, we know we’ll be exchanging one lot for another on 6th May. But you really do wonder how we have come to let our lives be ruled by people who look like they do. I don’t mean their faces are ugly; they look pretty much like the rest of us. It’s more to do with how their faces reflect the moral beings within.
That’s when it gets ugly.
A glance at Gordon Brown’s jowly, joyless mug reveals everything you need – or want – to know about his psyche. This is a man in pain, living without hope, animated, one suspects, by nothing more than the terror that, once removed from power, he will be unable to hide from himself the sheer ignorant cack-handedness that has bankrupted this great country and all its major institutions.
When Brown forced out Tony Blair (who must wake up every day laughing - until he remembers who he’s married to) and usurped the office of Prime Minister, he should have turned into a star. But, because he funked the election that might have given his premiership the authority – in effect, the energy – it needed, he condemned himself to a ghastly, meaningless sub-existence as a brown dwarf, i.e. a star which has failed because it is unable to maintain internal nuclear reactions.
If Gordon Brown is a failed star, I suppose that makes Ed Balls a failed planet. The gossip today is that the cost of “Lord” Mandelson keeping Labour’s brown dwarf going for another few months is the ejecton of Ed Balls from the inner circle. Judging these two players purely on the basis of their faces, I’d go with Mandelson every time (figuratively speaking, of course). Leaving aside his politics (please!) there’s something intrinsically amusing about Mandy’s comically devious face: when he starts spouting whoppers, or defending the unspeakable, or tells us that, despite being pitch dark, night is actually day, his face tells us that he’s thoroughly enjoying his pantomime role.
Now consider the face of Mr. Edward Balls. My God! To paraphrase an old Harry Enfield line, he may not have the face of a conservative with a small “c”, but he certainly looks like something beginning with a small “c”. Glowering, sneering, brutal, humourless and thuggish. Ed and Gordy: peas in a pod.
Of course, in private, Balls may be the soul of civilized kindness. Unfortunately for him, he has the kind of face that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Solzhenitsyn’s politburo booklet… along with that of his funk-faced boss.
John Prescott always looked like a slow-witted, violent oaf. In office, he proved himself to be a slow-witted, violent oaf.
I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
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