11/23/2023 0 Comments Straight outta compton la riots scene![]() ![]() So let me make a cinematic suggestion: namely, that our Etonian, Bullingdonian, Oxonian prime minister sets aside a few hours of what remains of the bank holiday weekend to watch Straight Outta Compton. In February he hosted his own special screening of Still Alice, the acclaimed movie portraying a woman afflicted by early-onset dementia, and was openly star-struck when meeting its lead, Julianne Moore. Jon Cruddas selected Fish Tank (2009), set on an east London council estate and so powerfully bleak that Ed Miliband had been unable on a previous occasion to watch the whole thing.īut what about the films that politicians ought to watch? We know that Cameron is open to such suggestions. Sajid Javid was admirably candid in his choice of The Fountainhead, the 1949 movie of Ayn Rand’s eponymous best-seller. Politicians reveal much of themselves when invited to choose a movie – as they have been by the Crossbench Film Society, recently formed in Westminster by journalist and cineaste Pete Hoskin. The wise politician is omnivorous, trawling culture for social messages, from graffiti to multiplex movies. But there is also art, in all its manifestations. Aside from canvassing, constituency surgeries and focus groups, there’s the press, gossip, gut instinct. At such moments one is reminded of what politics is, or really should be, about: in large part, the challenge is to seek access to the feelings, experience and perspectives of others. Researching my book on the coalition, I was powerfully struck by some of the testimonies already collected – not least from teenagers who had never left their borough, let alone their city or their country. But he also knew there was more to this brutal riddle than greed, and violent consumerism, and Nike Astros piled in trolleys. Naturally, his first response had been to deplore the criminality, promising that the courts would stay open round the clock. In more than 20 years of acquaintance, I don’t think I have ever seen him look more perplexed or burdened. So what chance his self-styled “heir”, David Cameron? In 2011, after the riots, I accompanied the prime minister to inspect the ashes and smouldering ruins in Salford. Meanwhile, the problem of disconnection so perfectly captured in Hague’s sweaty rictus 18 years ago has become a global crisis, aptly described by Tony Blair in yesterday’s Observer: “It is a vast wave of feeling against the unfairness of globalisation, against elites, against the humdrum navigation of decision-making in an imperfect world.” In a telling admission of his own limits, Blair conceded that he does not fully understand what is going on. ![]()
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