National Socialists or Irrational Socialists?

It's amusing to see all the faux outrage being aimed at Iain Dale for his post publicising a controversial picture by artist Louis Sidolo.

I'm not convinced it's the best piece of satire I've ever seen, but it conjures up a smile just with the word play "Reign of Terror / Error". Louis Sidolo explains the piece on Dale's blog thusly...

The first piece is called 'Reign of Error' . It is a play on words from the recent book which described Gordon Brown’s leadership at No10 as a ‘Reign Of Terror’. In this piece, he is ‘morphed’ into an image of Hitler! Of course it is provocative, but if you think about it, there are strong similarities: Both started out as chancellors, both bullied their way to the top and seized power without being democratically elected, both tried to rig the electoral process, both prone to flying into uncontrollable rages and both caused huge economic damage to our country etc...

After a twitter exchange with, the normally sensible, Labour MP Tom Harris, I was left in no doubt as to the offence this picture caused. In response to me suggesting that Iain Dale wasn't comparing Brown to Hitler, that the artist was making the Terror/Error word play (something very topical today), Mr Harris said...

@fullabeanz No, he's publicising and linking to (thereby endorsing) an artist who claims there are "strong similarities" between GB and AH

I can understand his point. Sidolo does write "but if you think about it, there are strong similarities". But he goes on to list similarities that are obviously meant satirically but not literally. For example, the office of Chancellor is obviously different in Britain compared with Germany; "both caused huge economic damage" - well Hitler had to lose a world war to achieve this, Brown managed it with just pure economic incompentence; "both prone to flying into uncontolable rages"... well yes, okay, that was probably is literally true. 

No one is suggesting Gordon Brown is a Nazi, hell bent on committing atrocities like the holocaust. There are a few similarities between the two mens' behaviour and circumstances - some real and some coincidental, that provide a little bit of humourous material. The point is, the artist is making a joke. An edgy joke, yes. A provocative joke, yes. But a joke none the less and not a very original joke either. I remember seeing this on Guido's site ages ago...

 

And the picture Iain Dale has on his site hardly compares to this kind of thing from Spitting Image in the 80's...



Suggesting Thatcher's government was similar to the Nazis is more offensive in my opinion, as many on the left did actually believe that. Many of them today believe Tony Blair is a fascist! Surely Stalin is more offensive for a left wing Prime Minister? Stalin killed more people than Hitler, after all!

Yet, no one got enraged when the avuncular Vince Cable (as well some colleagues of Brown's in the Labour party) compared Brown to Stalin.

I suspect the faux outrage has more to do with Iain Dale's influential presence on the internet than anything else. It also presents an opportunity for those who would like to see his attempts to be selected as a PPC for the Tories scuppered. "An this man wants to be an MP" is a quote I've seen a few times on Twitter (not from Tom Harris BTW, but other Labour activist, certainly). If not this, then I suppose this is an election year and blog post presents Labour with an opportunity to paint the the Tories as "nasty" once again.

Shame.