Life

Mary Kelly: The British government is now being run by Dr Strangelove

To lose one senior mandarin is careless, to lose six is veering towards an idea of government that Stalin would recognise

Downing Street senior adviser Dominic Cummings, left, and Peter Sellers in the title role of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire Dr Strangelove  
Downing Street senior adviser Dominic Cummings, left, and Peter Sellers in the title role of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire Dr Strangelove   Downing Street senior adviser Dominic Cummings, left, and Peter Sellers in the title role of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire Dr Strangelove  

SECRETARY of State Brandon Lewis clearly doesn’t understand how things work in the Boris Johnson administration. He was asked a direct question in the House of Commons, and he told the truth. Yes, the British government was breaking international law, but only a little bit, which is, of course, like being a little bit pregnant.

So the Withdrawal Agreement that Johnson negotiated last October and crowed about being great is actually so far from “oven ready” it’s still running round the chicken coop squawking loudly. "Who is going to trust Britain again?" the Dancing Queen, Theresa May, asked with barely contained rage. Answer: Nobody. As one smart headline writer said; “Britannia waives the rules.”

It was all too much for the top legal civil servant Sir Jonathan Jones who promptly resigned. To lose one senior mandarin is careless, to lose six is veering towards an idea of government that Stalin would recognise.

Dominic Cummings has made it clear he detests the civil service as they get in the way of his megalomania with their damned rules and laws. This is the man who has apparently transformed Number 10 into “mission control”. The British government is now being run by Dr Strangelove.

* * *

I WATCHED RTÉ’s documentary on Martin McGuinness last week and was bemused to hear Baroness Paisley say he and her late husband delighted in the 'Chuckle Brothers' nickname because there was “joy in their hearts” to think that the past was past and a new future had to be built.

Her son, Ian Óg, clearly didn’t feel the joy. He once demanded that we remove those words from the introduction to an item on BBC Hearts and Minds about the pair heading off to the US on a jobs mission.

Because while the rest of us rather enjoyed the surreal sight of the leader of unionism and a former IRA commander take such obvious delight in each other’s company, others didn’t.

A DUP politician had been taking part in a pre-recorded discussion on the programme when Noel Thompson recorded the link. “You can’t call them the Chuckle Brothers,” the party’s press officer insisted. “You’ll have to re-record that.”

I demurred and reminded him that I was the producer, not him. There was a stand-off outside the studio. I said I wasn’t changing it, the press officer said he would go “above my head”. Paisley junior was summoned on the phone and above my head he went.

In vain, I protested to senior management that the term was common currency. I was told the nickname was a term of abuse, coined by the Ulster Unionists and it was not the BBC’s place to use it. After all, as 'Junior' pointed out, the six o'clock news wouldn’t call Tony Blair Bambi, would they? The six wouldn’t, but Newsnight might, I countered. To no avail. He won. I lost.

And what a horlicks it was to change it. That particular programme had been recorded, the set had been disassembled for Newsline to use the studio, and the director and presenter had gone home.

Everyone was recalled, the set was quickly put together after Newsline went off air and we had to record a rewritten introduction, omitting the Chuckle Brothers, and get it inserted into the recorded programme, with minutes to spare.

I didn’t feel much joy in my heart that night.

* * *

GOING to the pictures of a Friday night was something I really missed during the Covid lockdown, so I was thrilled when the cinemas were opened again.

The closure of the Dublin Road Moviehouse is a sad loss but getting tickets to Cityside was relatively straightforward. You book in advance, select your seats and show the details on your phone when you arrive... after sanitising and having your temperature taken.

Social distancing was not an issue as the cinemas are still half empty.

The Queen's Film Theatre website proved a greater challenge. Navigating it was like trying to understand what was actually going on in the blockbuster Tenet. Going backwards and forwards in time was a breeze compared to choosing seats which are said to be available on the site, but prove not to be.

After a frustrating hour, we managed to get the only apparently free seats about three inches from the screen in the front row. When we arrived, there were only 10 other people in the cinema. We remonstrated with the staff, who sympathised and said they’d had a lot of complaints and were “taking it up” with the website designers.

The problem was that they had to keep three seats free on each side and in front of the one you buy to ensure social distancing. But they show up as still available on the website.

Surely some of the IT experts at QUB next door could come to their aid?