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3 hours ago
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The concept of a pun was stretched almost to breaking point a few days ago when a newspaper, on a report that the prime minister had been ushered to the front of a long line of people waiting for a toboggan ride, put the headline: “Sir Queue Jumper!” It’s really only the “Sir” that lets us know a pun is even being attempted. But, since the current prime minister is also a knight, it seems that “Sir Queue Jumper” is a humorous play on the phrase “Sir Keir Starmer”.
The urgent question we need to ask ourselves is: will this do? The newspaper wishes to say that he’s a queue jumper and hasn’t, for some reason, gone with the phrase “Keir Starmer is a queue jumper”. Perhaps the editorial team thinks it would be better to convey that message with a joke. But does “Sir Queue Jumper” count as a joke? I know “Keir” is an unusual name, but nowhere near as unusual as “Queue”. Perhaps there’s someone somewhere in the world called “Queue” but, if so, it’s likely to be a result of administrative error rather than any parent wishing to associate their beloved newborn with the concept of waiting around. It is not, I would say, an actual name. So its overlap with “Keir” is limited to the fact that both “Keir” and “Queue” are words.
The comic take on the prime minister’s surname has gone marginally better since “Starmer” and “Jumper” both end with “er”, but is that enough? And what depths of nonsense does permitting a pun like this leave our society vulnerable to? Would it be OK, for example, to refer to Donald Trump as “Mr Arsehole-elect”? And then, after his inauguration, simply “Mr Arsehole” – the “Mr” from the phrase “Mr President” being the only clue as to who is being described?
Is it sufficiently amusing to call Kemi Badenoch the “leader of the bunch of twats” instead of “leader of the opposition”? It would be clear: the phrase “leader of the” puts everyone on the same page and then “bunch of twats” might count as a pun on the word “opposition”. Is that funny? Would “twatisition” be better? “Oppotwation”? “Opposishtwat”?
Would “Total Losers” work as a pun on “Liberal Democrats”? It needs a hook, but perhaps a “the” at the front and a “party” at the end is enough, so we have: the Total Loser party instead of the Liberal Democrat party. Is that good? Personally, I think not, but it isn’t significantly worse than “Sir Queue Jumper”. I mean, he’s not even wearing a jumper in the photos. If this is AI, we have nothing to fear. And if this is humans, for God’s sake let’s start using AI.
Of course, the main aim of the report was not to entertain its readers, but to contribute to a sense of the prime minister’s haplessness. On the face of it, it’s actually saying the opposite: that he’s hugely arrogant and entitled, marching to the front of a queue because he’s so full of his own importance. That’s the ostensible criticism, but it doesn’t land because he is very important and the queue was three hours long and you can’t have the head of government of a G7 economy hanging around on a Madeiran hillside for that length of time: he’s too busy and it’s not safe. Any world leader of anything approaching his status would be ushered to the front of the queue.
But we can tell that Starmer feels guilty about it. Ever since his flappy response to the relentless reporting of those irrelevant freebies back in the summer, there’s been a sense that he’s vulnerable to accusations of behaving like a big shot. Ironically, if he did behave like a big shot, as Thatcher, Blair, Cameron and Johnson all did, no one would bother to criticise. But he seems cowed by a milieu in which politicians are despised, and he will have exuded that emotion as he was quietly shown to the front hoping no one would notice, which in turn will be what provoked some mean-spirited queuers to shout “get to the back”, and that was enough to make the papers.
I understand why so many people despise politicians these days. The world is in turmoil, facing a blizzard of complex problems, and it feels like the western democracies have failed to produce leaders who can cope. Hence the current sickening slide towards populist parties that can’t solve the problems either but will restate them angrily with tempting scapegoats attached. In Britain, Starmer’s success and haplessness have the same root cause: a catastrophic collapse in public confidence in the previous government. It was loathing for his predecessors more than enthusiasm for him that explains the scale of his victory and he knows it.
Hence his evident impostor syndrome. But the truth is he isn’t an impostor, he’s the lawfully elected and appointed leader of the UK government and a bona fide VIP. “He needn’t think he’s anything special,” was apparently the attitude of some of the people in that queue. But why not? I’d say that’s exactly what he needs to think because he’s a remarkably successful person whose prominence has come from entirely legitimate means and, frankly, a bit more self-confidence might enhance his performance. Maybe he won’t be a great prime minister but he’s definitely a rightfully elected one and, in the overall scheme of things, that’s already pretty impressive.
We may feel that the people who become our leaders are often unworthy of the offices they hold, but we won’t mitigate that structural problem by treating the current incumbents with automatic contempt. The office of prime minister should be respected, as should all lawfully elected leaders. Whether it’s Starmer or Sunak – or even Truss or Trump – while they’re in office, they should be accorded an appropriate status or it’s a world gone mad. They shouldn’t be above the law, but they’ve got at least as much right to a red carpet as a film star. If we don’t treat them like they might deserve their jobs, we’ll never get anyone who does.
