Monday, February 15, 2010
Vote Dalek, vote Labour
I have to admit that despite being a keen watcher of Dr. Who for most of my life I had not noticed the phenomenon described by Sylvester McCoy in this morning's papers. In fact did anybody notice?
The former Timelord alleges that left-wing scriptwriters were hired by the BBC to pen Doctor Who plots which undermined Thatcher’s Conservative government:
At the time Tory party chairman Norman Tebbit claimed the BBC was in the hands of the “Marxist mafia”.
“The idea of bringing politics into Doctor Who was deliberate, but we had to do it very quietly and certainly didn’t shout about it,” said McCoy in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.
“We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do. At the time Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia.
“Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Those who wanted to see the messages saw them; others, including one producer, didn’t.”
Such storylines included The Doctor encouraging the drones, who worked tirelessly in factories and mines, to down tools and revolt against the rulers – echoing the miners’ strikes of the mid-80s.
Thatcher herself was caricatured as Helen A, whom fans of the show will remember as the wide-eyed tyrannical ruler of a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha.
Sheila Hancock played an extra- terrestrial character who outlawed unhappiness and said, “I like your initiative, your enterprise,” as the police rounded up those who went against the laws.
There are fears that if David Cameron wins the General Election then the his government will start to dismantle and emasculate the BBC. I hope that this is wrong but if the likes of Sylvester McCoy keeps feeding them with this sort of ammunition then anything could happen.
The former Timelord alleges that left-wing scriptwriters were hired by the BBC to pen Doctor Who plots which undermined Thatcher’s Conservative government:
At the time Tory party chairman Norman Tebbit claimed the BBC was in the hands of the “Marxist mafia”.
“The idea of bringing politics into Doctor Who was deliberate, but we had to do it very quietly and certainly didn’t shout about it,” said McCoy in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.
“We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do. At the time Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia.
“Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Those who wanted to see the messages saw them; others, including one producer, didn’t.”
Such storylines included The Doctor encouraging the drones, who worked tirelessly in factories and mines, to down tools and revolt against the rulers – echoing the miners’ strikes of the mid-80s.
Thatcher herself was caricatured as Helen A, whom fans of the show will remember as the wide-eyed tyrannical ruler of a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha.
Sheila Hancock played an extra- terrestrial character who outlawed unhappiness and said, “I like your initiative, your enterprise,” as the police rounded up those who went against the laws.
There are fears that if David Cameron wins the General Election then the his government will start to dismantle and emasculate the BBC. I hope that this is wrong but if the likes of Sylvester McCoy keeps feeding them with this sort of ammunition then anything could happen.
