Quite Wrong!

It was quite disconcerting yesterday to be sitting opposite this poster on the Jubilee Line. Being stared at by Michael Gove in full condescending mode, dressed in a waistcoast and shirt sleeves, which is perhaps to indicate informality and “getting down to business”, but actually just makes him look like a bleached out version of Jarwahalal Nehru (but without the rose) while Madeline Grant (the Daily Telegraph’s Parliamentary Sketch writer) rolls her eyes; its hard to know what at, herself, Gove, or all those silly people out there who don’t think quite like she does.

The new Spectator podcast is getting a lot of advertising, full length posters on the platforms and these little ones staring down from a height in the cars. Its title is a weak pun. Quite right. As in quite RIGHT. So, its right wing, with the presumption that this also makes it “right”, as in “not wrong”; allowing the homynim to do a lot of heavy lifting. But also that its QUITE right. Nothing TOO right. Nothing vulgar. No street thugs, but maybe just a bit of gentle encouragement for them with a lot of plausible deniability. Just “common sense”, nothing that will threaten the presumptions of comfortably off people. And nothing to scare the horses, especially as these are by and for people who ride them more than most and can afford to be Spectators from a position of impunity and financially well padded social safety.

It struck me that it was missing a strapline. Underneath The new podcast for politics, culture and common senseQuite right! – With Michael Gove and Madeline Grant, the words because at times like this you wouldn’t want to listen to actual experts, would you? would more accurately identify what this thing is for.

And the odd little yellow ribbon with OUT NOW on it should end with an exclamation mark and be in an arrow pointing at the presenters.