To walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict.
No, the above quote isn’t from the annals of premium Blair bullshittery but spoken by the fictional character Simon Foster in Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop.
Foster (Tom Hollander) is bumbling and blundering MP, who believes that ‘war is unforseeable’. Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi) responds in his usual unequivocal straight-to-the point sweary way.
You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews.
In The Loop has some wonderful class A one-liners spouted by the thinly veiled Alistair Campbell character, Malcolm Tucker. And Capaldi portrays the pent up anger, facially…the throbbing vein and pop-eye look..ticking human time bomb about to go postal at any moment, control freakery scarily well…. and creative inventive swearing…
And some are rather prescient (ingenious time for the film to be released….). In one scene, Simon Foster is lying on his bed in an anonymous looking hotel room lamenting to his adviser, Toby, that he has nowhere to go and that he would like to watch a porn movie but as ‘I’ll have to record it in the Register of Members Interests!’…
Indeed.. I wonder if mister Jacqui Smith will watching this film twice….
Anyway, Foster and his hapless aid, Toby go off to Washington to meet counterparts and find themselves caught up in the various political factions (‘doves’ and ‘hawks’), accidently leaking information to the American media, while Toby indulges in what is later described as ‘anti-war shag’ with Liza, an intern. Liza has written a document which is contrued as anti-war (made cons than pros for war). All this happening while Simon Foster is trying hard to keep is mouth shut! There also a sub-plot revolving around one of Foster’s constituency members and his wall……. Oh, and something about a dodgy dossier….
The film exposes mishaps, rank stupidity, spin, lies, bumbling servile MPs led by a Director of Spin. Satire at its best and very very funny. And as they say life imitating art. NL wonkers too stupid and spineless , though cynically allow themselves to kept on a short lease and told what to say. The writers of In The Loop get NL Speak down to a fine art.
The characters especially Simon Foster can’t say what is truly on his mind instead he comes out with pointless guff.
And now with hyper-spin spinning out of control for NL with its tawdry and sordid ideas for the use of blogging. Government sponsored trollery. Mind you plenty more material coming next year for the satirists with the expected return of the Tories…
