Peter Brookes, Times Cartoonist
Alan Cresswell
Admin, 8th Day Host
in Hell
Can you imagine the uproar if a Palestinian cartoonist drew a picture showing Israeli politicians being hanged?
Or, someone made a cartoon mocking a political position of welcoming refugees by showing Jo Cox getting killed?
We're all aware of threats to politicians, that some have been attacked and even killed. We've had Parliamentary debates curtailed because they might get people angry and endanger the lives of MPs.
In the light of all of that, what made Peter Brookes think it would be fun to draw a cartoon showing four Scottish politicians being hanged? What was his editor on, letting it pass and get printed and included on the online version of the paper? Why aren't both of them the subject of police investigation? Why has the only condemnation of this been almost entirely from social media users in Scotland? Why isn't this being universally condemned by all the decent, law abiding defenders of democracy in other media outlets? Did all the readers of the Times yesterday really look at that and think "that's funny and clever" without worrying about the message?
Or, someone made a cartoon mocking a political position of welcoming refugees by showing Jo Cox getting killed?
We're all aware of threats to politicians, that some have been attacked and even killed. We've had Parliamentary debates curtailed because they might get people angry and endanger the lives of MPs.
In the light of all of that, what made Peter Brookes think it would be fun to draw a cartoon showing four Scottish politicians being hanged? What was his editor on, letting it pass and get printed and included on the online version of the paper? Why aren't both of them the subject of police investigation? Why has the only condemnation of this been almost entirely from social media users in Scotland? Why isn't this being universally condemned by all the decent, law abiding defenders of democracy in other media outlets? Did all the readers of the Times yesterday really look at that and think "that's funny and clever" without worrying about the message?
Comments
Link in spoiler tags deleted
Neither funny, nor clever.
I think linking to the thing we're complaining about (even in spoiler tags) is against the spirit of the complaints.
Dafyd Hell Host
Does it make a difference that the object around their necks is clearly not a noose, but rather is the SNP logo?
I'd have thought better of you @Martin54 ...
Well, it might, but the cartoon is still tasteless and unfunny. So are many political cartoons, of course, depending on one's POV, yet this one seems to cross some sort of line.
YMMV.
Well there you go. I'm sure I'm the only one on the saintly SoF who did. I've laughed at all manner of things I'm appalled at. This wasn't one of them : ) In other words, to add insult to injury, I'm still not appalled by it. It's funny because it's in bad taste. Black humour.
After the 1997 Canadian election, in which Jean Chretien's Liberals annihilated the opposition, a newspaper ran a cartoon of Chretien as the last man standing in a barroom brawl, rolling his sleeves back down, with the other party leaders lying on the floor, one with a knife in her back. I didn't think it was particularly outrageous.
That said, if the cartoon reiterates categories of social oppression, that's a different story. I also once saw a cartoon of an openly gay local politician, portrayed in a stereotypically effeminate manner, getting metaphorically bashed on the head by a beefy political opponent(the issue was not related to glbqt), with the cartoonist clearly siding with the basher. To say the least, I did not approve.
However I'm not sure politicians who get themselves into trouble really fits that description.
I'm not sure that's really the message of the cartoon.
There are many jokes about the French Revolution, I don't think anyone seriously thinks that this encourages the murdering of politicians.
Isn't that simply a special case of "all political careers end in failure"? Is it really more "oblivion" for Humza Yusuf and Nicola Sturgeon than it is for Liz Truss or Boris Johnson or Theresa May?
That was my take.
I did not find it particularly funny but my read on it was the SNP symbol forming the noose was the point. You could read it as follows; "The SNP has ended up destroying it's previous three leaders, so here comes the 4th to put their neck on the line..."
When I saw it, I didn't think lynching. But if lynching is what it looks like, then of course, it's deeply offensive.
I have no firm view on this one, either way. Open to persuasion.
AFZ
Would you say that Scots have any recent history of being a "punching down" group, in the way that brown migrants and trans youth are?
Well, I suppose a closer parallel to the Times cartoon would be if a contemporary French politician were to experience a major drop in popularity, and a cartoonist draws him as being led to the guillotine.
Personally, I wouldn't view that as particularly offensive.
Is the joke supposed to be offensive to the French because they are offended by jokes about violence in their own history? OR because they consider the guillotining of people during the Revolution to be an act of persecution against the downtrodden?
To me, it's clearly a depiction of "the SNP (metaphorically) kills its leaders". Salmond, Sturgeon, and Yousaf are depicted hanging in a row, strung up by SNP logos, and Swinney is in the process of inserting his head into the "noose".
I don't see it as "clearly a lynching" at all. I'd say it was very clearly not a lynching.
And I return to the point that we have had a lot of MPs being subject to death threats, attacked, and murdered in the recent past, and this “joke” is a problem in that context.
The most recent murder was of David Amess, who was stabbed to death in 2021, but all MPs have seen a major rise in death threats and abuse in the last few years.
But that applies to pretty much any leader of any political party
Sadly not for Johnson or Truss.
A zombie existence playing fluffer for the US far right is not incompatible with political oblivion.
The similarities to Truss and Johnson in this regard, that both of them have also not slipped into political oblivion, are quite evident. Johnson seems to be more like Sturgeon in that the media might seek him out but he's not saying much about current issues in the Conservative Party or UK Government. Truss seems more like Salmond, doing the rounds of political TV shows and conventions still promoting her political ideas and commenting on political issues.
Has anyone seen political cartoons suggesting that Truss, Johnson and Sunak are being executed/lynched/committing suicide? Or otherwise advocating violence against them?
There's another one of Liz Truss boiling in a saucepan
Both are from national newspapers.
So yes.
FWIW if I saw a cartoon of Macron (for example*) being led off to the guillotine I wouldn't consider it all that offensive. In bad taste, probably.
*If it was going to happen to anyone, it would totally be the President of the Republic, who has a rather monarchical attitude to government.
I now see the point (I think), though it's still in rather poor taste.
Okay, so maybe the French, qua the French, weren't the best group to use for your example?
Pretty sure July 14th isn't meant to commemorate the settlement of disputes via peaceful consensus.
One of the big differences is that French political cartoonists drawing cartoons of senior contemporary French politicians are punching up. It's not so obvious which way people are punching when an English cartoonist draws cartoons of Scottish politicians.
For all that a lot of Scots feel used and abused by Westminster, it's hard for me to see the relationship between an (English) cartoonist and a former First Minister of Scotland as being markedly different to the relationship between a French cartoonist and senior French politicians.
I'd expect the cartoonist in question to be happy to draw a similar sort of cartoon featuring Westminster politicians, or French ones, or American ones if the occasion presented itself.
I agree that there are issues regarding the newspaper (London Times), it's ownership (Murdock), political affiliation (Tory), general ambivilance to all things outside of London, hatred of devolution, etc and so on.
But I can imagine this cartoon appearing in Private Eye. I can even imagine a version appearing in a Scottish publication.
In 1812 the prime minster was killed by an insane man in pursuit of a personal obsession. Then all the MPs murdered between 1882 and 1990 (and almost all attacks on MPs) were in the cause of Irish independence or a united Ireland. These were people acting as part of an organised paramilitary units.
But since then it has tended to be radicalised lone actors (stochastic terrorism as it’s sometimes called) attacking, threatening and occasionally killing MPs. I believe it these people who are more likely to be impacted by violent language and imagery in mass media discourse - and that is why I think cartoons like this are a problem.
I would add that the rising threat of far right terrorism, is more of a risk to parties to the left of the Tories, and female and ethnic minority individuals in positions of leadership.