PL58 - How to do it?

Keir Starmer’s finger-wagging, wrist-slapping, bum-spanking Online Safety cheesed me off! Though I liked him, the PM was an arrogant and moralising disciplinarian becoming more and more himself amid the troubles of a hard first year. In the New Statesman I wrote “The Online Safety Act Humiliates Us All”:

Fear not, Britain is healing. Now you must risk having your identity being leaked if you want to watch porn. Our economy will lose no more precious dynamism to that wasteful outlet, and we will soon attain the highest sustained growth in the G7. Porn-mad illegal immigrants will reckon they are better off in pervy France. Lastly, of course, once our pent-up ranks inevitably take to robust exercise, our national security will be secured by a new breed of super-fit super-soldiers.

Economic stability, secure borders, and national security – remember those? They were the new government’s quite reasonable “foundations”. Them fastened, Starmer was to pursue a happily honed briefcase of just five missions. The country needed to kickstart growth, future-proof the NHS, smash the class ceiling, make the streets safe and discover abundant clean energy.

It did very well. As well, on a first day, as any of my pieces have done. 700 upvotes and 300 reddit comments, 1200 reposts on X, top of the site all day. It was discussed in The Week magazine.

But when I trusted mentor texted “good work son” I voiced my disquiet. No radio or podcast invites had come. The rewards seemed to be a new follower for every 10,000 or so reads. Would that make a living? Also, there are different successes. Articles like that might mean a couple more people knowing you at Westminster’s Two Chairmen pub. But does it bring you nearer to the desperate kid alone on his bed?

The mentor said I had to land big pieces. And I am working on the the state of the nation megachungus, and I am hopeful it will be before you soon. But I still felt there was more to my melancholy.

My thoughts crystalised later in the week. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, included TikTokers in her media round. It had always been necessary to stand on the cutting edge. Fascism famously spread on the radio. The media of our age were the vertical video and the podcast. History would not promote anachronisms; it would be written by the scrollers. I wrote “The Revolution Will Be TikTokked”:

Why do we say “pardon my French” when we swear? Some say the expression comes from the time when our ruling class spoke French. A lofty Norman, snooty Plantagenet or indeed a shrugging Angevin would lapse into French mid-conversation, then kittenishly apologise for being oh so helplessly de sang bleu. Common islanders would retort with a homegrown profanity – something about hounds’ arses – then mockingly return, “pardon my French”.

Of course you never really know how true such explanations are. But that one tells you something. The lesson is that power must be fluent in the modes of its day. That is why Yvette Cooper cannot simply stop the boats or smash the gangs: she must also break the internet.

So worked up did I get by my own arguments that on Friday, to the horror of the young interns, I shot my first TikTok. I thought I had done all right – and I know that on your first goes there is certain lifetime limescale that can only be flushed out with practice. But when I looked around me, everyone else in the office just looked sad. My performance had given them painful depressions. Thus I have been too afraid to look at the footage ever since.

But I think I have a point. Committing your heart to the written word costs all your allowed preciousness. You can do it, but if you do, you must everywhere else be ruthlessly practical. Don’t fall for the Pynchon-Salinger-Joyce masturbation. Be Roth, be Jagger, be Dickens. There is so much opportunity out there.

It is a good time to strategise. Parliament is in recess. The NS has a three week break between magazines. I’ve already had some fantastic pitches from you. Please keep those coming. And please, if you have any knowledge of podcasts or vertical video, talk to me. But I also hope you’re taking it easy in the sun and enjoying yourselves. Thank you so so so much for 300 subscribers. Please share and support Peaceable Land.