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Fictional Elections: The Amazing Mrs Pritchard with Professor Steve Fielding
14 Plays2 days ago
In this After Dark special, host Joshua Paisley speaks with Professor Steven Fielding, a political historian at the University of Nottingham, about the 2006 BBC drama The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Written by Sally Wainwright (who would go on to create Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack), the six-part series imagined what would happen if an ordinary Yorkshire superstore manager won a landslide election and became Prime Minister—on a platform of moving Parliament to Bradford and asking the people what should go in the Queen's Speech.
The series aired in October 2006, just after Labour's 2005 victory on only 35% of the vote—when more people didn't vote at all than voted for Tony Blair. Professor Fielding explains how Ross Pritchard embodied the frustrations of that moment: the sense that left and right no longer meant anything, that Westminster was a bubble of middle-aged men speaking gobbledygook, and that politics could be simple if only someone honest would take charge. She promises never to lie, wins 54% of the vote, and forms a cabinet of women from all parties who somehow get along perfectly—a "benign feminist populist" who declares car-free Wednesdays and lets the people write government policy.
But as Fielding reveals, UKIP saw something else in Mrs Pritchard. They set up a fake BBC page claiming "we are the real Ros Pritchard"—recognising that her populism, however well-meaning, tapped into the same frustrations that would fuel Brexit, austerity anger, and Nigel Farage's rise. While The Thick of It offered no solutions beyond satire, at least Wainwright tried to imagine answers—even if they were naïve. The series ended on a cliffhanger about her husband's money laundering scandal, never to get its second season.
From Westminster bubbles to the danger of authenticity in an age of manufactured politicians, this episode asks whether we'd actually want the honest outsider we claim to crave—or whether Mrs Pritchard really was a feminist Donald Trump.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'After Dark' Series
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, my name is Joshua Paisley and welcome back to the Observation podcast series, After Dark. This is where we pick a fictional election from a TV series, novel or movie and try to flesh it out.
Cultural Context of October 2006
00:00:21
Speaker
October 2006 was a fascinating time to be alive. An age before the iPhone, when Chelsea could call themselves Premier League champions and the song, I Don't Feel Like Dancing by the Scissor Sisters sat at number one.
00:00:35
Speaker
Times really have changed. On our television screens, we watched The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, a six-part BBC drama that imagined what might happen if an ordinary woman, Ross Pritchard from Yorkshire, suddenly became Prime Minister.
Guest Introduction: Stephen Fielding
00:00:50
Speaker
In this episode, we'll be unpacking the rise, rule and maybe be resignation of Ross. Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming onto the podcast Stephen Fielding, a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham and the author of the book A State of Play.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hello, Stephen. How are you getting on? Hello. i'm I'm fine, thank you. So, Stephen, could you tell our listeners about how you first came across the series, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard? Well, i i happened to be writing that book, that very book that you that you mentioned. um i i decided that i couldn't I couldn't be bothered writing any more about the Labour Party. i'd I'd reached the end of my tether. I couldn't say anything more useful, if it ever said anything useful, about the Labour Party. I decided to take a slightly changed direction. And I always had an interest in in in politics as it's depicted on the screen, in
Comparing Political Series: Mrs. Pritchard vs. The Thick of It
00:01:42
Speaker
comedies. This this was a time of the thick of it, you know, as well.
00:01:45
Speaker
So I decided to have a look at how politics had been, you know, looked at, um depicted by dramatists from Dickens, as it turned out, up to the thick of it. And The Amazing Mrs Pritchard just happened to be on it and while I was doing this research. So I became particularly interested in what Sally Wainwright, the the writer who has gone on to write all kinds of really big things for the BBC, she's always writing things for the BBC,
00:02:13
Speaker
um and see just see how how she dealt with the the issue of politics. I mean, I was going to get into this later, and we were going to do the synopsis right now, but actually you touched on a point which we can focus on now, which is comparing The Amazing Mrs Pritchard to at the same time you've got In the Thick of It coming out. And so where do you place The Amazing Pritchard in that kind of pantheon of British politics series?
00:02:39
Speaker
Well, the more actually, the more I got to look at the thick of it, as opposed to just watching it and and laughing at it and and enjoying it, and the more I started to look at and think about what he was really saying about politics. Yeah.
00:02:53
Speaker
Basically, it's really lazy. It's ah it's it's satire. It's taking the mickey. It does it very well um of the present of of what was then the present situation between laborer new Labour and then the changing nature of the Conservative Party under under David Cameron, came a bit later after Mrs Pritchard. But it offered no solutions. it was just The only solution was just to laugh at them. right i I couldn't find any actual solutions. It's a comedy. Maybe that's asking too much.
00:03:21
Speaker
But the one thing about... about Mrs Pritchard, and we might, and we'll talk about the solutions maybe, well, we definitely will. um the The solutions might might be naive, very simplistic or whatever, but essentially it was addressing a similar problem, a kind of disenchantment with how politics was was was being
Disillusionment with Political Choices
00:03:41
Speaker
conducted. But at least the writer Sally Wainwright, as opposed to Amano Iannucci,
00:03:46
Speaker
was coming up with what she thought were some kinds of solutions to to the problem that both of them were identifying. And what is that solution that youve that they identified?
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, at this point, we get into a little bit the synopsis. um I don't know how serious Sally Waring Rock was in the particularities of the solution, but in The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, the solution was. um I mean, Roz Pritchard is is a superstore manager, and and it's eight weeks. The series starts eight weeks before the twoth the actual 2005 general election.
00:04:24
Speaker
And um she is she despairs of the choice that's put to the country, the real choice that just a year before, because the series comes out in 2006, the year before that the country was faced, i e Tony Blair. And it's stated explicitly, well, he lied to us.
00:04:42
Speaker
well, at least over Iraq, but he lied to us, so do you want to vote for him? Or the Tory bloke, Michael Howard at that point, he was a sort of stopgap Tory leader.
00:04:54
Speaker
And the point was that the viewers watching it would have thought, no, I don't want to vote for either of them, because they didn't. In 2005, turnout was just over 60%, which the second lowest turnout the world.
00:05:09
Speaker
which is the second lowest turnout um in the in the modern democratic era. And Labour got, um as a as a percentage share, it got something like 35%, which was of the votes cast.
00:05:24
Speaker
But actually, in terms of numbers, more people didn't vote at all than vote for Labour.
Themes of Female Leadership and Political Disenchantment
00:05:30
Speaker
So, so Mrs Pritchard is one of, you know, one of these It's interesting you say that about the vote share. Yes. That felt as if at the start of the second episode, when she is the Prime Minister, it makes a very stark point about 54% of the vote share voted for Mrs Pritchard.
00:05:47
Speaker
So is that a debate that's going on at that time about the electoral system and maybe changes that need to be made? Well, I don't think there was ah big a big push for the for changing the electoral system, but there was some kind of frustration um with the choice between Labour.
00:06:04
Speaker
I mean, 2005 is a kind of post-Thatcher period. Labour under Tony Blair had accepted most, not all, but most of the Thatcher settlement. And by 2005, the Conservatives had come along with, you know, they'd they basically accepted a lot of the things that Labour was doing in government.
00:06:22
Speaker
So there was a question of how different are these two political parties? You know, what is the nature of the choice? And this was also the time when like leaders of all the parties, including the Liberal Democrats, were saying...
00:06:36
Speaker
you know what, left and right don't mean anything anymore. you know We're all pragmatists, ideology means nothing. um Now we just want to focus on the problems as they really are. So left and right, as far as that the elite debate was concerned, meaningless.
00:06:51
Speaker
So I think quite a few people um were were wondering what is the kind of choice that we've got now? And as i as i say, 2005, by 2005, New Labour had lost quite a lot of support, partly, or some say maybe largely over Iraq.
00:07:07
Speaker
Tony Blair was deeply unpopular. But the Conservatives were weren't were much better off, really, given what they'd done before 1997. so So Mrs Pritchard is kind of articulating through Sally Wainwright what she considered to be and what would actually actually did seem to be a lot of people's frustrations and disappointment with the choice they were given.
00:07:30
Speaker
um Now, whether the solutions that um Pritchard, Sally Wainwright comes up with, that's something to to think of. But certainly, I think it was identifying an issue. that that a lot of people um thought to be important. um And there was also at the background this kind of, I think, a bit sort of soft-headed feminism, that the idea that the more women in politics, the better politics will be because women are more sensible, more common sense than men.
00:07:57
Speaker
I mean, at this point in time, about 20% MPs about twenty percent of mps were were women. um But that doubled from 1997. So this is only this is relatively early. It's still a minority. It's much bigger than it used to be, yeah but it's still low. And women didn't really have a very... yeah New Labour was... that That's still very far off, 50%, though.
00:08:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah. absolutely Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. so So there was scope for people to think the more women that are in politics, the better it will be. I don't know that there are some political scientists that suggest in some instances it does, it does in fact, improve politics.
00:08:37
Speaker
But generally speaking, like it was a view amongst some people. um And Ross Pritchard was embodying it.
Diverse Political Representation in Mrs. Pritchard
00:08:43
Speaker
um Ross Pritchard... ends up running a party that is largely, if not quite exclusively, led by women.
00:08:53
Speaker
Her cabinet that she forms, I think I've seen... I think when I watched it, saw one male face. that That could have been the civil servant. I mean, it's pride it is... It is basic... And and Sally Wainwright, the writer, she she does...
00:09:06
Speaker
does do dramas which always involve strong women in leading roles. so And it's no surprise. I mean, when I was cause there was actually doing research on this, so so this is real stuff, 60% of the audience was was was women for this for this show.
00:09:24
Speaker
So it's nope so maybe maybe they were seeing something. That's fascinating. that Yeah, they were seeing something that, um that you know, they they they were agreeing, you know more women should be involved politics and there they are watching it in at least a fictionalised form.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah. Stephen, I'd be interested to hear what you think. So when I was watching it, I thought exactly on your point about women and breaking this glass ceiling as a big theme. yeah But I thought it was actually quite pro-Thatcher in a way.
00:09:51
Speaker
And there was lots of takes back to... So Catherine, for example, who is the please the conservative MP who then defects. yeah There's a scene where she talks about Thatcher in very glowing remarks. and I mean, Thatcher is such a...
00:10:05
Speaker
controversial figure, whatever side you think on the political spectrum. Is this representative of 2006? I thought that was just a really interesting theme to go along with. No, it's a short is it's your answer to that. but and Generally speaking, 2006, even the Conservatives were trying to move away from Thatcher in 2006.
00:10:26
Speaker
um it the ah the irony The irony was that most of British politics, in terms of how how public services were run um and how the economy generally was run, was basically Fatsh right. you know She reversed all of the Attlee stuff, so it was all you know private and whatever.
00:10:43
Speaker
but But Thatcher as a politician was toxic, really, um even even within elements of the Conservative Party. But the problem the problem for any writer who wants to big up you know women in politics, she's not the only one, right? So I'm not surprised that that she was being talked of in in positive terms. because yeah And the other point is that Ross Pritchard's party is formed of women who've never been involved in politics before, like herself,
00:11:13
Speaker
And also in her cabinet, she's got this former Tory who becomes a chancellor. She's got a former Liberal Democrat who is the Home Secretary, I think, and a former Labour big, big po and
Decentralization and Representation in Politics
00:11:26
Speaker
she's Foreign Secretary. And they all appear to get on very well. So it's a kind of fantasy coalition politics. There's no real, there's no issues that they they bring from their former parties because they're all women together being sensible.
00:11:38
Speaker
um So I would imagine, I'd be very surprised if Sally Wayne herself had anything very positive to say about Margaret Thatcher from what I can work out from her politics. But she's the only one you can talk about if you want to talk if you want to talk about women recognisably for the most British public in terms of doing something positive.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah. Another key theme running again, running through is this idea of the Westminster bubble. And so Mrs. Pritchard, one of her big policies is let's move Westminster to Bradford. And i mean, firstly, what I wanted to ask you about that is what are the constitutional, how would that even work?
00:12:14
Speaker
I don't think it's any constitutional ah reasons for not doing it. The British Constitution, such as it is, can work anywhere. I don't think it depends where where where it's where it's working.
00:12:25
Speaker
um mean, it's not exactly... mean, Andrew Adonis, who was one of Tony Blair's sort of big advisers, Labour minister in the end, now member of the House of Lords,
00:12:39
Speaker
um He has into suggested, you know, as part of levelling up, um maybe Westminster should move to birmingham or Birmingham or Manchester. He didn't say Bradford, but Birmingham or Manchester as a way. And it's this and it's a similar reasoning that she that that Pritchard brings up.
00:12:55
Speaker
um You know, it'll it'll take things out of of of London, more more than Westminster, but London. It will make make Westminster more, in some ways, bit vague in some in some senses, make it more representative of the country as a whole.
00:13:10
Speaker
So, um i mean, i mean it it actually dominates quite a lot of the series, her decision to move, wanting to move to Bradford, which is opposed by that in in the Lords, but then eventually it's going to go through and work's already going on before the series ends. so You know, it's it does seem to me to be a slight diversion, and particularly these days. I mean, you you mentioned right at the start about how 2006 was a very different time. I mean, I was watching it. I've watched it i' watched it when it came out and then subsequently when I was doing my book as well.
00:13:43
Speaker
um And it looks very familiar. But it's a very different country. It's ah it's a country before the financial crash. It's a country before austerity. It's a country before Brexit.
00:13:56
Speaker
It's a country in which growth... Growth's an issue. want to have more of it. That would be nice. But it's not like, can we ever grow again? you know Growth is a kind of fatal um issue that governments can do nothing about.
00:14:10
Speaker
There's more optimism. There's more possibility that things can happen. So in that context, I suppose moving Parliament doesn't yeah didn't sound that crazy. But today, it would just be, we've got so many problems. you know let's let's Let's address the ones that we really need to address first.
00:14:27
Speaker
it wasn't simply It wasn't simply about moving Parliament to Bradford. It was also... There was all this devolution stuff, bringing decisions. Because one of the one of the serious things um that Ross Pritchard talked about was that... And, you know, the whole idea of a bubble...
00:14:42
Speaker
is was was that decision-making... First of all, she said politics isn't rocket science, although she finds out it's a bit more difficult than she thought, that it's it's just these men talking gobbledygook to make it sound difficult and to make us poor poor people, mostly women, think we can't do anything about it. um
Critique of Centralized Politics
00:15:02
Speaker
There was a ah serious thing, and it was we want to bring decision-making...
00:15:06
Speaker
down to where people really are, which is ah an agenda which is often talked about, even by this government, but very little is actually seriously done about it.
00:15:17
Speaker
and And the reasoning, at least in the series, which she's brought out, and I'm sure that you know people who... talk about this issue more seriously is that it will make people more engaged in politics if you bring things down to local decision making they'll think that well i i can participate in this so so moving to bradford was really meant to be part of a piece of of that kind of devolution agenda which is a serious one and like i say it's talked about but very little is done about it yeah but i guess that's
00:15:48
Speaker
Looking back now, I wasn't of any age to watch that series at the time, and I don't know what the political census was at that time. But from my time studying politics, Labour in the nineteen seventy late produced massive devolution.
00:16:05
Speaker
And so where does that criticism come across? Is that to do with Iraq and foreign policy with the US? Where does that Westminster bubble all kind of originate in those early two thousand s from? Well, I mean, Labour did devolve, but it was like as minimalistic as it possibly could. I mean, things have moved on since, um since since the the original devolution debate, you know, Scotland and Wales and London.
00:16:27
Speaker
I mean, and now we've got mayors, but the extent to which that really manifests its real, real devolution is is certainly moot. I mean... ah So I think there was still a frustration that Britain was still very centralised, run by Westminster, of a few Middle-aged men in Westminster in London, and they ran it in their own way.
00:16:49
Speaker
what what would but One thing up I discovered, because when it was when it was on, um i mean, this was this wasn't an era before... the before the internet if The internet existed in 2006 and the BBC did quite a bit of promotional stuff for Mrs Pritchard. done it and it had um you know if So if you're interested and you did mrs you know Amazing Mrs Pritchard, you'd you'd you'd get these different links.
Populism and Mrs. Pritchard's Influence
00:17:15
Speaker
And there was one link that was almost like the BBC link, but wasn't quite.
00:17:20
Speaker
So you could have quite easily been looking for Mrs Pritchard and then you clicked onto this link, but then gone to a very different kind of page. The page was run by UKIP.
00:17:32
Speaker
And the page basically said, we are the real Ross Pritchard. If you feel like she does about politics, you can join UKIP. Which was very clever. i mean, doesn't it's not up there anymore. They took it down whenever. yeah but you can But she was tapping into something. And i very much doubt that Sally Wainwright, and you can tell from the content of the of the series as well, she didn't mean to to be an endorsement for UKIP and the kind of right-wing populism that it's embodied, um which has now gone on from strength to strength.
00:18:07
Speaker
But it was populist. It was it was kind of feminist... censurists You know, I don't know how you would describe it, but it was definitely populist. Yeah. Well, i think that's actually addressed in the series as well, because there's a point where they say there is no policies and they're in parliament.
00:18:24
Speaker
Have we got a fascist on our hand, basically? And so you would define Ross as a modern day populist if you were pushed. Oh, she no, wouldn't I wouldn't need to be pushed. She was a populist. she she believed She believed that the people the people's will was not being expressed and was being frustrated by a cabal of... And it was, like I could say, it was kind of defined in feminist terms to some extent, of these middle-aged men who were keeping it um of two of two different parties, who were keeping it to themselves.
00:18:53
Speaker
But what they weren't doing is representing the people. Now... Ross Pritchard and her purple alliance, which is quite of a bizarre colour to pick because the colour was Ukip's colour at that time. you know They had all kind of different colours to pick for her party, and yet they went with purple.
00:19:09
Speaker
That's very odd. But anyway, I'm sure that didn't mean any sympathy to Ukip. um But her idea was that the purple her purple alliance would magically embody the people's will. And and that's kind of made apparent when instead of...
00:19:26
Speaker
having a, and well, they had a manifesto. There are all kinds of questions that need to be asked about this process. But um when when the government, when Purple Alliance gets elected, she's prime minister, she decides the queen's speech will be decided by the people. It will be the people's speech.
00:19:40
Speaker
And she has this kind of reference, you know, we'll ask everybody, what do they want? And then we'll put it all into the into the people's speech. I mean, that's an embodiment of of populism. You know, we we won't do it. I mean,
00:19:52
Speaker
the question I mean, I think somebody actually in the series asked, or maybe they didn't, I don't know. um Well, didn't we not have a manifesto? You know, that weren't we elected on certain policies that we were going to put in the Queen's speech? Oh, no, no, no, no. We'll ask the people. And we don't know the process by which, you know, these millions of completely contradictory ideas were then put into the people's speech.
00:20:15
Speaker
But, yeah, she was a huge populist. She just was a kind centrist feminist populist. Yeah. And so how do you think, I mean, now we're by today's terms, well, always times she's a populist. Yeah.
00:20:30
Speaker
How has watching the series now actually changed the way that you perceive it? And if it was going to be created again, would it be quite a dangerous thing to create?
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, I mean, what what you can see in in The Amazing Mr. Pritchard is is not no not consciously by Sully Wainwright, but she's tapping into frustrations and that only got worse, only got bigger with the fiscal crisis, with ah with austerity, and which led to Brexit.
00:21:03
Speaker
Immigration is never mentioned in the series. i didn't If it was, it was like a second. It didn't really feature. um But it's it's it's populism. um And populism in this in in the series is benign. It's benign populism. She's a lovely woman. She ah she will never lie. She's always trying to do the right thing.
00:21:24
Speaker
and And actually, what she's doing is also, when she does show leadership, um it's in terms of...
Populist Themes in Current Politics
00:21:30
Speaker
um she out out of the Out of the blue, she decides that she's frustrated by the lack of um pro but lack of um kind of progress on on climate change. So she just says, well, in ah in in six weeks, nobody in Britain will drive their car.
00:21:50
Speaker
Everyone will stop driving their cars or take public transport. And that will be every Wednesday for the foreseeable future, which is just like, what? And because she shows she shows leadership. And then lot people in Britain do. There's a bit of moaning, but they they do. So it's a kind of bizarre take on things. But at the heart of it, it's populism.
00:22:11
Speaker
And populism, there's all kinds of different kinds of populism. we We now in Britain have got, and around America and in Europe, we've got a very particular kind of populism.
00:22:22
Speaker
um And I just think, but a bit like the thick of it, i the I had got increasingly uneasy with the way in which it was undermining and criticising conventional politicians who often are ridiculous and sometimes do lie to us, but ultimately, I think they're trying to do you know they're trying to do yeah the best they can do in constrained circumstances.
00:22:47
Speaker
And oftentimes, the people who are... constraining them are the great British public. The great British public are not a solution in themselves to our political problems, which is what this series trying to suggest, which is kind of what Nigel Farage suggests he's saying.
00:23:03
Speaker
Although we don't read that's the language he talks, but whether he really means it, I think is definitely questionable. Sorry. So so do do you think Mr. Pritchard maybe, as you say, it shows more realistic view of what it actually is to be a politician than in the thick of it, which is kind of hyper realistic in a way?
00:23:21
Speaker
I don't know about realistic, but at least it shows some attempt to have solutions, right? So, you know, so literally Sally Wainwright posits, you know, people have got no faith in politicians anymore. Maybe one of the things you can do is devolve government in this way and that way, right, to make people more responsible. I mean, fact, there is there's a speech that Ros Pritchard gives when she's talking about... um I'm going to have to read i'll read this. um So she's talking about all these changes in government devolving. And she talks about, you know...
00:23:57
Speaker
the reason why you, the British public, are alienated from politics is because you don't have any choice, right? And she's saying, I'm now your choice. you know I'm now going to give you the ability to get your choices through me out there in terms of policy.
Public Responsibility and Engagement Solutions
00:24:11
Speaker
But then she says, you have got you've got a responsibility, you, the British public, to participate in this new adventure of politics, you know that you've got to get involved as well.
00:24:24
Speaker
and And that's kind of like... I mean, I did things on the Labour government of 1945, and that was that was their line. You know, we're going to do all these things, you know, nationalise this and create a new welfare state. But we hope and expect that everyone's now going to get involved in politics, participate. There was this real hope amongst progressives. There'd be lots of people participating. Didn't happen.
00:24:47
Speaker
Didn't happen. Didn't happen. So, i mean, it's kind of an interesting text that is completely fictional, in some cases very silly, but there are some serious ideas. Now, the thick of it, to go back to the comparison, has no serious ideas at all.
00:25:01
Speaker
it's just It's just Armano Iannucci and his very clever script writers and there some wonderful swearing, great inventive swearing in it, um just blown a big raspberry at at the present situation as it was.
00:25:17
Speaker
That's not helpful. o At least Mrs Pritchard was trying to be helpful. And so how do you think Ross would have done in politics today? Do you think she would have been more suited today than she would have been maybe in 2005?
00:25:34
Speaker
Well, people well that that that discontent and dis disenchantment, alienation from conventional politics has only got worse, has only increased. and And you know we know who is the biggest single beneficiary of that, um Nigel Farage.
00:25:52
Speaker
Jeremy Corbyn tried it. and The Green Party's trying to do it. um Now, she she... I mean, and here what her her actual politics were um hard to pin down, um but i would have thought she was kind of like a Liberal Democrat, really, of if that that meant any that means anything. um But I don't know. i mean, che she wouldn't...
00:26:18
Speaker
Because the series actually shows how frustrating she is to the more conventional former Labour, Liberal and Conservative politicians, that she doesn't take collective responsibility seriously. She just goes off on on one and declares this free Wednesday, free car Wednesday.
00:26:34
Speaker
And, you know, you can't do that. I mean, that you just destroy your party like that. you can't You can't just put your manifesto to one side and then ask people, but well, what do you want? You know, we've had an election, but what do you want? Put it into Queen's speech.
00:26:47
Speaker
She hasn't got any sense of... i mean She's a bit like Donald Trump. She's a kind of feminist, well-meaning Donald Trump. She just does what she wants. And on that basis, maybe she'd do well in American politics um if she was a man, because I don't think they're ready for a female president just yet. But in britains British politics, where at least party politics were more is more like codified, I don't think she'd last she'd last two minutes.
Resilience of UK Politics to Populism
00:27:14
Speaker
And so getting back to that difference between the US and the UK, do you think the UK system allows for a more resilient government towards populism than somewhere such as America?
00:27:26
Speaker
Well, we will find out at the next election, won't we? um Given that populism... i mean, the thing is, populism has always been there in British politics. There's always been this idea that, you know, Thatcher was a little bit of a populist. They they they kind of genuflect and talk about, you know, the people, this and whatever. And Tony Blair did the same kind of thing. But a serious, a serious populist...
00:27:49
Speaker
um government. Well, um we'll find out, won't we, um if Nigel Farage gets gets his hands on government. um And don't know. I mean, most many, many people would said the American system, which again, many Americans had more overtly populist kind of um movements than than we than we in Britain have had.
00:28:12
Speaker
um and But nonetheless, they had a a supposedly robust constitution, which was meant to be all about process, this and all that and washed away, um seemingly, for the moment.
00:28:23
Speaker
So i I wouldn't like to say that the British system is more robust, because lots of robust systems have gone by the board um and... i wouldn't i wouldn't um At this moment in time, how British politics is with reform, what, 10% possibly ahead of the Labour Party? um i really i really wouldn't like to say. Yeah.
00:28:46
Speaker
And so what going back to Ross as an individual, what kind of, obviously we're in an age of social media and constant 24-hour news. Yes.
Authenticity in Political Portrayals
00:28:55
Speaker
What attributes do you think Ross would need to learn or maybe unlearn to but to survive in politics today?
00:29:02
Speaker
Well, i mean, having said she wouldn't last two minutes, um I mean that's that's definitely how one way that it might go with her. um But I think... I think... um She... This is someone that... When she stood on the steps of Downing Street she about to go in for the first time, she said I will never lie to you. That's her big, I will never lie to you.
00:29:22
Speaker
um I think she was... a genuinely authentic person, right? And when when she said certain things in politics, that's what she meant. It might have been inconvenient. It might have been, well, you know, you should have really cleared that with with the Chancellor, Prime Minister, and all of that kind of stuff.
00:29:39
Speaker
She was genuinely authentic.
Why No Second Season for Mrs. Pritchard?
00:29:41
Speaker
Now, the the problem with social media is... Now, people say they want to have authentic politicians. They don't. They want politicians that seem to be authentic. They what they get politicians you are the who they imagine to be authentic, but are carefully constructed and finessed examples of authenticity.
00:30:01
Speaker
Boris Johnson was not anything like he appeared to be. And yet people thought, good old Boris, I'll vote for him. You know, it was a con job.
00:30:12
Speaker
he he he was he he could He could pretend authenticity. Nigel Farage, another one. Completely. I strongly deny that he's anything like he really appears.
00:30:27
Speaker
It's a crafted persona. Whereas and but that russ Ross Pritchard wouldn't survive because she really was authentic. more widely across the series.
00:30:40
Speaker
why didn't the Why wasn't there a second season? Well, um i mean, because it was it was on an eye verge. It clearly was set up with... for a second series with some with a big decision going to have to be made. Oh, we don't know what it is, then it ends, right? So, I mean, the um yeah the audience was was, well, like I said, the audience was 60% women, which is normally a good thing, you know, if you've got 60% women, that's something that people, you know, commissioners like.
00:31:09
Speaker
um But it only got a maximum of 4 million viewers. and it And I i mean, i I don't know why if that was. Maybe... But my my theory is that because it was on a Wednesday evening at 9.25 and the Champions League was on ITV in direct competition and Manchester United were doing particularly well, I think i think gender may be, you know and I would just suppose that most of those people watching it were were men and all of that,
00:31:38
Speaker
it didn't I just don't think it got a big enough audience um for whatever reason. and and And that doesn't mean it wasn't anything. Isn't that ironic? Well, it is kind of ironic. but the thing But the thing is, right, at the same time, at around about the same time, there was, I think at the BBC at least, an attempt to put on... um Because 2001 was a big shock to the system when participation was like 59.4%. That was a turnout.
00:32:07
Speaker
um As I say, 2005 was a little bit more, but not much more. There was a bit of a push. Well, we've got to do things about politics that make it more, you know, seem more popular, you know, etc, etc. And there were a few series that the BBC put out, or things that might have become series, like there was one called The Deputy.
00:32:26
Speaker
which was a bit like a West Wing. You know, it was a deputy prime minister um who what he was... And this was a pilot that never became a series. He was a good, decent man trying to deal with politics. You know, he didn't dissemble, you know, blah, blah. blah They put out a few, and I think The Amazing Mrs Pritchard was one of them, but they didn't get audiences. I think, yeah yeah that to to an extent, that was because...
00:32:54
Speaker
By this point, and it's a very long-standing traditional trope, that politicians are just evil, duplicitous, lying, nasty.
Challenges in Political Drama Creation
00:33:03
Speaker
You know, this is how... Viewers wanted to see their politicians, you know, like House of Cards, which was a a few years before then, very popular, presenting its prime minister as a kind of Richard III figure.
00:33:18
Speaker
i think those series which try to present politics as being, you know, decent people trying to do a decent job in difficult circumstances, nobody wants to watch that.
00:33:29
Speaker
Nobody wants to watch work. So I think... no And do you think that's that's why... Because actually, in the 2000s, we have a real abundance of those TV series. Yeah. that Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we have that anymore.
00:33:42
Speaker
We don't have these series coming out which have fly on the wall or, in this case, very idealistic views of what we could have in a politician saying, I will not lie to you. is that Is that the reason why? Because people just don't want to watch it. It's become too too much, basically. Yeah.
00:33:57
Speaker
Well, I think when given the opportunity, people don't watch it, but also commissioning editors now just think, well, it's just death. so so So you do get series about politics. you know um Is it The Diplomats, about the American ambassador, and there's all kinds of others, but they're all like hyper...
00:34:15
Speaker
you know, melodramatic, you know, evil. And they're not real. They're not real in in any in any kind of substantive sense. so yeah did and I guess succession falls into that.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yes. Into that kind of field. Yeah, absolutely. about power. Yeah, the way that power is. And, yeah know you know, I think you've got to be a really, you can be really bad dramatist and have villains, you know, nasty kind of pantomime villains doing nasty things. And there's lots of plot twists.
00:34:41
Speaker
You don't have to be very good to do that. um But you really do need to be a very good dramatist. if you're going to make decent people, you know, trying to do the right thing in difficult circumstances, in the wrong hands, that's really that really is boring, right? You need to be really good at that to make that interesting.
00:34:59
Speaker
And that's also the case with actual politicians,
Speculative Ending for Mrs. Pritchard
00:35:01
Speaker
you know. yeah the the one The ones that get the attention, that yeah they the sort made-up, authentic ones, um they get all the attention. And then they're doll the dull ones, I mean, I'm not going to say Keir Starmer, but I'll say Keir Starmer, the dull ones, you can't really talk themselves out of brown paper bag.
00:35:20
Speaker
but try But in my view, trying to do, you know, the decent thing, other people might disagree. I mean, everybody hates him.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah. but Okay. Before we end the podcast, I think we've got to tell the audience some kind of idea of how this series ends, because it is, it's amazing that there isn't a second season that at least gives some kind of right um just yeah some kind of light to the ending.
00:35:48
Speaker
So after, so it's Ian, the husband of Ross. There's a scandal about his money laundering 15 years ago. Yes. Yeah. You want me to take that off? That's a harsh assessment, Stephen, but but maybe others. In the first in the first m episode, he can't even work the video. i mean, this man is pathetic, right? And he's in just an embarrassment to his wife. yeah As soon as she becomes leader of this political organisation, then the son exposes that he pinched um a co-worker's bottom at Christmas party some years before, right? So he's a bit of a silly... Well, was going to say he's a bit a silly arse, no pun intended. Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
So, yeah yeah, there is there is this underlying underlying, and it's a very soap opera-y thing that he was involved not i mean involved in some money laundering exercise, or his firm was involved in some money laundering exercise. he wasn't He didn't initiate it. He didn't want to do it, you know, all of this, but they still got £10,000 for doing it.
00:36:45
Speaker
um and And he kept it secret from his wife. who was prime minister, and all these people got to know, but they couldn't tell her because if then she knew, she'd probably have to resign or she'd feel she'd have to resign.
00:36:56
Speaker
And so it just ends up, yeah the the last scene is him going into her office. She's going to talk to the nation, and we don't know yeah whether she's going to just dump him, resign, or do something else.
00:37:11
Speaker
um And like I say, that that was clearly set on pull it up for a second series, which for whatever reason never happened. What do you think she did, Stephen?
00:37:24
Speaker
She'd have resigned. she' have she Ultimately, she would have forgiven him, yeah idiot though he was, the go back to Eaton's will, and she'd go back to her supermarket.
00:37:35
Speaker
But she would have made a big mark. Because all the way through the series, it's it's saying that she's still the most popular prime minister ever. you know People are going along with her agenda. you know She'd made her mark.
00:37:47
Speaker
And now she could go like, ah who was that Roman that went that that Boris Johnson cited when he when he
Conclusion and Podcast Information
00:37:54
Speaker
resigned? Anyway, anyway, work go back to her farm. Oh,
00:37:57
Speaker
well ah know i hope Sorry? Yeah. Cincinnati or somewhere. It was Cincinnati anyway. that you know he gave up He gave up leadership of Rome to go back to his father. Cincinnati, yes.
00:38:08
Speaker
um So she'd do a Cincinnati, I think. If that was going to be consistent with her, yes. But for a second series, maybe. Definitely not. There we go. I think that's all we've got time for though, Stephen. Thank you very much.
00:38:23
Speaker
Wherever and however you are tuning in for this episode of the After Dark series, thank you for listening to today's episode. If you found yourself interested in our discussion and want to hear more, stay tuned for more episodes.
00:38:36
Speaker
We're available on YouTube and all your streaming apps at Observations Podcast. Thank you.
00:38:51
Speaker
The Observations podcast is being brought to you by Democracy Volunteers, the UK's leading election observation group. Democracy Volunteers is non-partisan and does not necessarily share the opinions of participants in the podcast. It brings the podcast to you to improve knowledge of elections, both national and international.