Does Scotland have a problem with political satire?

Satire is the art of using humour, irony or sarcasm to examine a subject with the purpose of exposing absurdity or hypocrisy.

Of course, what’s considered to be funny or offensive is an entirely subjective experience. For me, the most successful political satire is that which lampoons and exposes the farce or sanctimony of a political idea or behaviour – which isn’t the same thing as shallow or gratuitous mockery.

Shining a light on the farce of an idea or the contradictions in a politician’s policies or stances is an essential part of our democratic process. One might contend political satire helps to speak truth to power.

The phrase “speak truth to power” was used in the 1950s by the Quakers as an alternative political strategy to violence in challenging authoritarian regimes.

Some years earlier, the lawyer and anti-colonialist Mahatma Gandhi used the principle to develop his non-violent “satyagraha” or truth force in seeking India’s independence from the UK. This approach would go on to influence Dr Martin Luther King Jr in the USA and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. 

The concept itself dates back to fifth century BC Greece where “parrhesia” was the practice of speaking freely and candidly about anything as a fundamental element of democracy. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.

BBC Radio Scotland had launched its new satirical show, Noising Up, and posted satirical cartoons of Scottish politicians on social media. One included Limo Lorna – the Scottish Greens co-leader, Lorna Slater MSP. I should add that all Scottish political parties were lampooned. The Ms Slater caricature described herself as “the minister for green skills, circular economy, biodiversity, short-haul flights and maple syrup”. Outrage ensued with SNP ministers branding the cartoon as “dreadful” and “unnecessarily nasty”. The cartoons were hastily withdrawn from social media by BBC Scotland.

What does this tell us? Perhaps some folk have forgotten their Robert Burns? As our national poet wisely cautioned us in To a Louse: “Oh, would some Power the gift give us. To see ourselves as others see us!”

Are our politicians too thin-skinned and vain to cope with a little bit of political satire? I ask that as it doesn’t seem to me that there’s much in the way of political satire going on in Scotland – the odd cartoon and sketch but that’s about it.

Is it fine to laugh at Westminster politicians but less so when it comes to those at home? This does seem odd, not least as we’re coming up to having had the Scottish Parliament for almost a quarter of a century. Yet we can’t handle a wee bit of satire?

The history of political satire is fascinating. Back in ancient Greece, the father of comedy Aristophanes wrote 40 plays where he mercilessly caricatured the powerful, hypocritical and vainglorious.

No one was beyond the reach of Aristophanes’s reed pen including warmongers and profiteers. His ability to ridicule and expose absurdity was acknowledged by his contemporaries, including philosophers Plato and Socrates.

Eighteenth century England had a proud tradition of political satire through cartoons. James Gillray has been described as the “father of the modern political cartoon”. Gillray would expose the hypocrisy and ill deeds of the prince regent, later to become King George IV.

His 1792 cartoon, A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion, depicted the royal as a greedy, debt ridden, bloated narcissist. The candour and biting wit of such works would probably cause an outrage in 2023. On television, there’s a solid track record of UK political satire. In the 1960s That Was The Week That Was broke new ground in television by combining comedy with current affairs and politics. From 1969 to 1974, Monty Python’s Flying Circus ridiculed various authority figures and institutions without fear or favour.

In 1984, Spitting Image exploded onto our television screens and took no prisoners as it turned UK politicians into extraordinary puppets. Margaret Thatcher was presented as a tyrannical Prime Minister who called her Cabinet colleagues “the vegetables”.

Prime Minister John Major was depicted as a grey man who spent his life pushing peas around on a plate. The late Queen Mother was presented as a jolly gin-swigging lady with a strong Brummie accent.

Then Liberal Party leader David Steel was famously portrayed as a falsetto-voiced tiny person who lived in the pocket of the SDP’s David Owen. The show ran until its cancellation in 1995 – some suggested it ended when politicians became too dull for satire.

It was rebooted in 2020, but arguably as a pale shadow of the original show. Without doubt, Spitting Image was a thousand times more cutting and critical of politicians than the BBC Radio Scotland cartoons. Perhaps Scottish politics just isn’t mature or confident enough for political satire?