It didn’t feel like it, but last week was one of the most significant in the short history of the coalition government.
On Monday the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)announced that Britain would slide back into recession during 2012. The following day George Osborne had the unenviable task of informing the House that he was likely to fail in his goal of eradicating the deficit by the end of this parliament. If that wasn’t enough, Wednesday saw some of the worst public sector strikes in 30 years (according to the TUC, at least).
And yet by Thursday morning what were we all taking about? Jeremy Clarkson.
With the ensuing furore that somewhat incomprehensibly captured the public’s imagination, the government has managed to dodge a particularly well-aimed bullet. While Clarkson made the headlines of several national newspapers for three days running, there were comparatively few prominent stories concerning the economy or public sector pensions.
In all honesty, this should be seen as a spectacular own goal by the coalition’s detractors. The trade unions immediately went for the jugular and called for the Top Gear presenter to resign; Ed Miliband then waded into the row and called the comments ‘disgraceful and disgusting’. By reacting with such fury, the left gave the press the ammunition it needed to push the Clarkson non-story to the front pages in place of what would have been some very bad headlines for the government.
The more mischievous among us have used Clarkson’s close friendship with David Cameron to hint at some sort of orchestration behind the events of the last few days; Guido Fawkes quite rightly says ‘Dave couldn’t have planned it any better’. If only the prime minister were that Machiavellian, now that would be a story.
Conspiracy theories aside, the unions and the Labour Party have shot themselves in their collective foot. After last week we should be feeling pretty annoyed with our government; it doesn’t get much worse for a prime minister or Chancellor than perilous economic figures followed by mass strikes. That the likes of Miliband and Dave Prentis allowed our ire to be directed at a television presenter says much about their leadership capabilities.
Hopefully this week the whole business will be forgotten and we can talk about some deep political issues instead.
As soon as we get bored of the pandas, of course.
Alexander Wickham is a freelance journalist who writes for the Adam Smith Institute, the Commentator and the New Internationalist, amongst others. He tweets at @Wickham_A
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