Would the real Matt Hancock please sit down?

‘Politics,’ as the old quip has it, ‘is showbusiness for ugly people.’ That quote was minted in the good old days when there was, at least implicitly, some clear blue water between the two things: it intended to draw an arch point of comparison between two quite different spheres of activity. Politics was momentous, solemn, and consequential; showbusiness was vain, silly and inconsequential. The quip points to a sneaking sense that, secretly, those in the former realm were actuated by less high-minded concerns.  

These days, there is less and less sense, either among the general public or the practitioners of either art, that any such distinction exists. Both are now simply vehicles to attain the infinitely fungible currency of fame. That’s a slippage too far. Just because the modern media environment makes qualities valuable in showbiz – star-power, name recognition and charisma – valuable too in electoral politics, it doesn’t follow that the two activities are the same, that it’s all just a laugh and a giggle.