One of the revelations in Ben Riley-Smith’s book on the Tory party, The Right to Rule, was that Liz Truss loves karaoke, and that one of her favourite songs is Common People. The idea of Truss singing that song as a Conservative party minister makes me think that Pulp should have made the song much less ambiguous.
I’ve been thinking a lot about some blog posts by Paul Watson about whether art can be revolutionary. Initially, he was inspired by Star Wars tie-in Andor and how some genuinely radical stories seemed to be emerging from huge corporations, but he’s also been looking at how easily these stories are recuperated.
When Rishi Sunk became Prime Minister, the newspapers made much of him being a Star Wars fan. The BBC described him as The Star Wars fan turned political force. He apparently has a collection of lightsabres and tweeted a picture of himself at the cinema with Savid Javid to watch The Rise of Skywalker, describing Javid as his ‘Jedi Master’.
Star Wars is all about revolutions against oppressive government. The Tory government is hardly the Galactic Empire, but I wonder how Sunak can watch Star Wars and then participate in a government that argued against providing meals for poor children, or that has been responsible for a huge rise in poverty. Star Wars might be a simplistic, Manichaean universe, but that should make its politics only more obvious – and which side Sunak is closer to.
So what does Rishi Sunak think about when he is watching Star Wars?
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