Satirists play the merry devil with Blair
New drama, new danger. Tony Blair and other key figures in the Labour party are steeling themselves for another devilish dose of fame: being satirised on television in the middle of the party conference season.
A "political comedy" being filmed for the BBC threatens to puncture the new Labour image more merci-lessly than an advertisement by Maurice Saatchi. Titled Crossing the Floor, it tells the story of how the party spin doctors, notorious for their rigid control of new Labour's image, sweep into action over the defection of a Tory home secretary to Labour. It is clearly partly inspired by the defection of Alan Howarth, MP, from Tory to Labour last year.
Written and directed by Guy Jenkin, the author of Drop the Dead Donkey, the comedy about television news, it is the first drama to view Labour with the same scabrous wit that programmes such as House of Cards and The New Statesman visited on the Tories.
It is scheduled for screening the day after the Labour conference ends in Blackpool on October 4.
Will the fictional Blair make a more lasting impact than the real one? Either way, he will probably get more laughs. The drama stars Neil Pearson as a Labour leader called Tom Peel, whom the script describes as "young, charismatic, handsome and only very slightly demented".
Peel's manicured charm is not always appreciated. At one point another character says: "Oh, you mean I should be like Tom, the wonder boy, and permanently walk around with a rictus-like grin in my face as if I've got a pineapple stuffed up my arse."
The vulgarity conjures up the sort of image that will have Blair's spin doctors and supporters squirming in armchairs throughout Islington.
One who seems unlikely to see the funny side is Peter Mandelson, whose hidden hand is widely thought to shape the party's public face. "It's nothing to do with me and I don't want to comment," he said last week before putting the telephone down.
The play portrays a media manipulator whom many viewers will interpret as a composite of Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, Blair's abrasive press secretary. Campbell was unavailable for comment last week about any possible similarities.
The two spin doctors are unlikely to take the lampooning of new Labour lightly. The play also features another familiar character: a Labour party deputy leader who is a rotund man clinging to the old values of workers' rights and power to the people. In the script he is eventually manipulated and broken by the leader's close adviser. John Prescott, Blair's deputy, will doubtless scrutinise the depiction of psychological torture with some interest.
One insider on the set said: "The script shows that while the Blair character is charismatic and conniv-ing, essentially he still retains some semblance of principles. The spin doctor is the truly evil genius who ma-nipulates his leader, the party's deputy and the party's new recruit. He's the only one who comes out of it as a completely unsympathetic toad."
Mandelson and Campbell are adept at tackling damage to the party image. Campbell complained to the BBC last year when his party leader's conference speech was overshadowed on the evening news by the verdict in OJ Simpson's trial.
And last week the party won a ruling from the Independent Television Commission that an ITN News at Ten interview of John Major by Trevor McDonald was "too friendly" to the prime minister.
But fiction is harder to com bat. The drama is only loosely based on Howarth's story; it tells the tale of David Hanratty, a Tory home secretary played by Tom Wilkinson, who crosses the floor of the Commons to join Labour. The party's spin doctors go to work on him, led by Clive Colville, played by Douglas Henshall, whose most notable television appearance was as the bullying NCO in Dennis Potter's drama Lipstick on Your Collar.
They teach the Conservative defector about the "LTT folder" containing the "line to take" on a variety of subjects. He also has to learn what a new Labour man wears - a loose reference to the Barbara Follett make-over of Robin Cook, the shadow foreign secretary; which football teams to watch; even who is the best band: Oasis or Blur. Hanratty is also told to watch Manchester United at least five times a season.
Wilkinson, the actor playing him, said: "The spin doctor character gets rid of Hanratty's Savile Row suits and dresses him in the Italian look, Armani suits and all that. He tells him to get rid of the Rolls-Royce and replace it with a Jaguar. They also teach Hanratty to use a series of buzzwords they have come up with - "new, challenging, vibrant, initiatives" - and he has to learn to use them all in speech.
"At the end, he gives a speech which is the same as the Tony Blair character, and you're not sure whether he means it or whether he has just become a better liar.
"If Labour supporters can laugh, they will like it: but maybe the whole thing will have Outraged of Isling-ton writing in in disgust."
Jenkin, 41, is coy about linking any of the characters to real-life politicians. He said: "People always think I am avoiding the question for legal reasons when I say the characters are assimilations of different politicians.
"But it is actually true because I think the current crop of politicians is so boring that if you just try to par-ody one of them people will get rather bored. I suppose you just try to capture the spirit of the new Labour politician."
Jo Moore, Labour's media spokeswoman, said: "We will closely watch the way broadcasters handle the period up to the general election. Our concern is primarily news and current affairs. But that doesn't preclude concern away from current affairs."
A spokesman for Blair said: "They haven't informed us about it coming out, and the BBC are traditionally very sensitive about things like that. It sounds about as accurate as quite a lot of the BBC coverage."
Spoken like a true spin doctor.
Maurice Chittenden and Sebastian Hamilton - Sunday Times - Sunday August 25, 1996