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| Is this how parliament ends – not with a bang but a row about a whisper? | Is this how parliament ends – not with a bang but a row about a whisper? |
| (30 days later) | |
| It is a superbly theatrical tableau of passion. As MPs harangue the Speaker during this week’s row in the House of Commons over what Jeremy Corbyn did or didn’t say about Theresa May, their gestures and facial expressions are so eloquent and contrived it is hard to believe the picture wasn’t elaborately staged by some great history painter. That is because everyone in this photograph is fluent in a language of gesture and facial expression that goes back to ancient Roman oratory, and was used by artists including Titian, Caravaggio and David to communicate heightened drama. | It is a superbly theatrical tableau of passion. As MPs harangue the Speaker during this week’s row in the House of Commons over what Jeremy Corbyn did or didn’t say about Theresa May, their gestures and facial expressions are so eloquent and contrived it is hard to believe the picture wasn’t elaborately staged by some great history painter. That is because everyone in this photograph is fluent in a language of gesture and facial expression that goes back to ancient Roman oratory, and was used by artists including Titian, Caravaggio and David to communicate heightened drama. |
| Jeremy Corbyn to MPs: I did not call Theresa May a 'stupid woman' | Jeremy Corbyn to MPs: I did not call Theresa May a 'stupid woman' |
| Let’s start with the hands. They are displayed with a studied and effective eloquence. At the far left a cupped palm facing upwards emerges from a jacket sleeve much as it might have done, 2,000 years ago, from a Roman senator’s toga. Meanwhile two hands in the middle of the scene are presented in a formal act of supplication. John Bercow himself uses his hands to suggest both strength and consideration of the plea: he makes a fist towards the crowd while at the same time holding out the fingers of his left hand as if counting off points in an argument. | Let’s start with the hands. They are displayed with a studied and effective eloquence. At the far left a cupped palm facing upwards emerges from a jacket sleeve much as it might have done, 2,000 years ago, from a Roman senator’s toga. Meanwhile two hands in the middle of the scene are presented in a formal act of supplication. John Bercow himself uses his hands to suggest both strength and consideration of the plea: he makes a fist towards the crowd while at the same time holding out the fingers of his left hand as if counting off points in an argument. |
| The faces are equally on-message. We see, from left to right, a head hung pessimistically as if to say there’s no point in asking for justice: an incredulous near-smile; a half-ironic look of solicitation and a world-weary smirk. One mouth hangs open in dumbstruck wonder. | The faces are equally on-message. We see, from left to right, a head hung pessimistically as if to say there’s no point in asking for justice: an incredulous near-smile; a half-ironic look of solicitation and a world-weary smirk. One mouth hangs open in dumbstruck wonder. |
| So this is what they call a great parliamentary moment. The reason this frozen tableau of high feeling looks like a figurative painting is that these MPs are practiced rhetoricians. Or to put it another way, bloody good actors. For anyone taking a purely partisan line, that might be case closed. Here are Tory MPs caught using the classical rhetorical debating style they learned at public school to create a contrived fracas. | So this is what they call a great parliamentary moment. The reason this frozen tableau of high feeling looks like a figurative painting is that these MPs are practiced rhetoricians. Or to put it another way, bloody good actors. For anyone taking a purely partisan line, that might be case closed. Here are Tory MPs caught using the classical rhetorical debating style they learned at public school to create a contrived fracas. |
| But it’s stranger than that, and worse than that. What we see here is a 400-year history of parliamentary democracy trying to ignore the brick wall it’s heading for. Terrified by the impotence conferred on it by an EU referendum that’s smashed the very idea of representative government and replaced it with the blunt rule of plebiscite, the House of Commons retreats in this scene into its own forms, rituals, atmosphere. Look at the wood, the leather. These stagey perfomers are not just trying to catch Corbyn out. They are trying to pretend the Commons is still the stage where British history is made. Think of the legendary moments of parliamentary drama that fill history books and films, from Charles I bringing troops into the House to try and arrest his critics to Pitt the Elder’s seizure in the chamber to Arthur Greenwood speaking for England in 1939. Is this where it all ends – not with a bang but with an argument about a whisper? | But it’s stranger than that, and worse than that. What we see here is a 400-year history of parliamentary democracy trying to ignore the brick wall it’s heading for. Terrified by the impotence conferred on it by an EU referendum that’s smashed the very idea of representative government and replaced it with the blunt rule of plebiscite, the House of Commons retreats in this scene into its own forms, rituals, atmosphere. Look at the wood, the leather. These stagey perfomers are not just trying to catch Corbyn out. They are trying to pretend the Commons is still the stage where British history is made. Think of the legendary moments of parliamentary drama that fill history books and films, from Charles I bringing troops into the House to try and arrest his critics to Pitt the Elder’s seizure in the chamber to Arthur Greenwood speaking for England in 1939. Is this where it all ends – not with a bang but with an argument about a whisper? |
| All the sense of history, all the decorous debating skill of parliament are on display – but it’s so trivial and tiny compared with the realities that need to be addressed. Not because a potential misogynist slur against the prime minister doesn’t matter, or is somehow OK if it was uttered by a socialist against a Tory. But because the hour is truly desperate, and with the executive staggering towards a no-deal Brexit, the Commons appears in this photograph to find its own theatricality more interesting than seeking a way out of the nation’s terrifying impasse. | All the sense of history, all the decorous debating skill of parliament are on display – but it’s so trivial and tiny compared with the realities that need to be addressed. Not because a potential misogynist slur against the prime minister doesn’t matter, or is somehow OK if it was uttered by a socialist against a Tory. But because the hour is truly desperate, and with the executive staggering towards a no-deal Brexit, the Commons appears in this photograph to find its own theatricality more interesting than seeking a way out of the nation’s terrifying impasse. |
| This picture shows what we love and hate about parliament – its aura of history. To anyone who’s considered that long history, things are now looking scary. The scale of our crisis, with Brexit theatening to consume the very way we govern ourselves, resembles the kind of breakdown last seen in the 17th-century civil war. If MPs can’t solve this, their fate may be sealed. They will be locked up in their chamber to have their meaningless impassioned arguments while the country move on – to what? A citizen’s assembly, say optimists. But it’s hard to see how the destruction, by plebiscite, of the world’s most enduring representative system is somehow going to result in a new dawn for democracy. This picture shows us MPs fiddling while British democracy burns. | This picture shows what we love and hate about parliament – its aura of history. To anyone who’s considered that long history, things are now looking scary. The scale of our crisis, with Brexit theatening to consume the very way we govern ourselves, resembles the kind of breakdown last seen in the 17th-century civil war. If MPs can’t solve this, their fate may be sealed. They will be locked up in their chamber to have their meaningless impassioned arguments while the country move on – to what? A citizen’s assembly, say optimists. But it’s hard to see how the destruction, by plebiscite, of the world’s most enduring representative system is somehow going to result in a new dawn for democracy. This picture shows us MPs fiddling while British democracy burns. |
| • Jonathan Jones writes on art for the Guardian | • Jonathan Jones writes on art for the Guardian |
| House of Commons | House of Commons |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| John Bercow | John Bercow |
| Brexit | Brexit |
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