I dunno about you, but I love a good laugh. From the innocence of Eric and Ernie, Tommy Cooper and LesDawson, to the social torture of Steptoe and Son, Alf Garnett and The Office. In fact the more painful the humour, the more it strikes a cord. And when it comes to comedy from the darkest places, there's none finer than the legendary Bill Hicks.

He may have died of cancer back in 1994, but he never missed the opportunity of taking a poke at the Bush administration's policy in Iraq (that's George senior) and the futility of pouring military money into Afghanistan, although back then the billion dollar
cheques were made out to Osama Bin Laden.

Some saw him as preacher of the truth, others as merely a foul mouthed irreverent comic, whereas the establishment swung between ignoring him to doing everything in their power to sideline him. He loved a good rant on a conspiracy, and one of his favourites was to say, when an American President is elected, he's taken into a secure room at the White House to meet the heads of the various agencies and major industrialists and shown a film of the Kennedy assassination from an angle never broadcast, and then given his orders. It's the way he tells it that's rib tickling, and only the most tragic conspiracy nut would take it seriously.

Although....

I recently attended a debate at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square hosted by Carole Stone of yougovstone.com, the Financial Times and the USA ambassador to the UK: Robert H. Tuttle. It was a privilege to have been invited, alongside BBC and Independent news heavy hitters, ministers from worldwide Governments, rubbing shoulders with chief executives and men in grey suits with ear pieces, all being beamed out via a global webcast. The topic of the debate was: 'The Influence of Talk Media on Elections and Democracy' and the esteemed panel was chaired by the wittiest man in newsprint: John Lloyd of the FT.

It all started briskly and naturally after about an hour the conversation turned to the relative merits of John McCain (a man who came 894th out of 899 in his year at Naval college and had a habit of crashing his plane before being captured in Vietnam and suffering years of literally crippling torture) and Lawyer Barack Obama (who the usually democratic friendly New Yorker magazine recently portrayed as Bin Laden, along with his wife Michelle dressed as a terrorist).

Panelist, Neal Boortz, libertarian (or Staunch Right Wing American talk show host who is syndicated across 500 stations) made an off the cuff comment about the winner of the next Presidential election. He said:

"Whoever wins, within two or three days they will be taken into a sealed room in the White House and be briefed by the heads of the FBI, CIA and all the major influences on Government policy and told what the real story is." What?!

The 'American Way'

That's the kind of thing that conspiracy geeks like Bill Hicks were derided for in the 90's. Now here's a pillar of the "American Way" saying exactly the same thing to not a single twitch of an eyelid. No sharp intake of breath. No click of a safety catch. Not even from the second of the American panelists, democratic broadcaster, Stephanie Miller. She'd begun her presentation with the call to 'Vote Obama' a statement she repeated at least a dozen times. So despite extolling his virtues and uniqueness as Commander in Chief (regardless of his skin tone) even she failed to question, query or simply quash this admission of undue influence.

Even our own left leaning Yasim Alibhai-Brown, a devout red wine drinking Muslim, didn't show the slightest concern that the sanctity of governance was secondary to special interests. Although she did ask why couldn't Obama, who is accused of being more liberal than he is and perceived as a Muslim (he's a Christian, whose choice of pastor was a major issue when running against Hillary for the party ticket) would be deemed unelectable. This was answered by LBC's Nick Ferarri (who, by the way, looked like he'd just eaten Jon Gaunt) when he said: "would a liberal Muslim be electable as Prime Minister in the UK today?. She replied: "sadly not". Not even the chairman saw this revelation worthy of cross questioning.

I guess in an age where more people vote for X factorthan vote in a general election, and hardly anyone can name the shadow home secretary (well, can you without googling it?) the enormity of politics pales into insignificance next to the buy one get one free offer in the local supermarket. The whole event at the embassy was sponsored by a beer company.

Photo: nataliejwatts.com