Of Cartoons and Political Obits

Those who remember "Not the Nine O'clock News" may recall a sketch about the fact that when politicians die those who were there opponents, rivals or enemies in life often line up to praise them.

The usual assumption is that either the praise after their death or the criticism after it is hypocritical, though I am not convinced that this is true. Many humans are complex characters and it is quite possible to admire some aspects of an individual and detest others - when praise or criticism are called for it is often possible to select from your genuine opinions something to say which is both sincere and appropriate.

In the "Political Obit" sketch two politicians are hurling insults in a TV broadcast when one of them has a heart attack and dies live on TV. The other switches in mid sentence from insult to apparently sanctimonious praise ...

(Snarling) "This is the kind of politician  -  who -

(thump)

(Sermonising) " - will be greatly missed. A brilliant man in the Commons ... " and so on.

I had not originally thought of this in the context of the tributes to Charles Kennedy because they all seemed to sincere. But my mind has now been dragged back to this memory by some of the comments which have been made and by the contrast between two cartoons, the first being by Steve Bell in the Guardian.

Steve Bell is normally an iconoclast who makes all sorts of things them look ridiculous.

However he appears to have been one of those people well beyond the range of those who agreed with the opinions of the late Charles Kennedy who liked and respected the man.

Of all the moving tributes to Charles Kennedy on his death, this cartoon in the Guardian was one of the most powerful ...

 
 
This is what appeared in the Independent ...

On the face of it those two cartoons are very similar. Yet one of them, without removing the feeling of loss at the premature death of a very talented man, lifts the spirit so that those feelings are in a better place - and the other, for me, does not.

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