26 February 1998 Edition
Television: Careerists and crooks
by Sean O Donaile.
Mosley (Channel 4 Thurs)
Fraud in Lambeth (Channel 4 Tues)
The Mark Thomas Comedy Project (BBC 2- Weds)
Star Trek;The Next Generation (Sky One)
What a wonderful world of colours we have here in Ireland - there's the Orangemen with the flowerpots on their heads, the Blueshirts with the red necks and truncheons; the Reds under the bed; the purple and gold of Vinegar Hill and our own green ribbon.
Oswald Mosley the founder of the British Blackshirts wouldn't be found with any of the above but you can follow his fortunes on Mosley, Channel 4 on Thursday nights.
The series began with young Mosley uttering his frustration at the end of World War 1: ``the only victors of this war are those who perpetrated it..''
Strangely, his solution to this was to join the Tory Party and take his seat in the House of Commons and eke out a career in the grubby political arena.
Episode One concluded with Mosley uncharacteristically criticising Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland.
His republican credentials however didn't endure as careerism took over and he easily moved from the Tory Party to the Labour Party before finding himself in the fascists.
In the aftermath of their 1924 election victory, Mosley decided to become a millionaire socialist, as he admired ``the fortitude of the working man''.
Labour activists were readily bought over with cricket and tea parties on the lawns of his mansion.
Upon meeting a striking railworker his wife excitedly exclaims ``we have a lot in common , my Daddy owns a railway!''.
With The Labour Party readily accepting patronising careerists like Mosley, it's little wonder the course they've taken of late.
Mosley threw himself into ``the cause of the working man'' and those few who accused him of ``using the working man for personal gain'' were readily dealt with by his bouncers at public meetings.
Meanwhile the bauld Oswald led the strikers, attacked his former colleagues in the Tory Party, and advocated far reaching change in society.
Like any British MP worth his salt Mosley was a philanderer and this proved his undoing as a spurned lover distributed photos of Mosley in Sammy Wilson mode to giggling Tory backbenchers.
The ambitious Mosley would readily fit in easily into most of today's political parties and one suspects his overriding reason for leading the Blackshirts was to satisfy his huge personal ego.
If alive today Mosley would undoubtedly have created a niche for himself in New Labour who are busily engaged in putting an end to ``Local Government Fraud'' as featured in ``Cutting Edge'' on Tuesday last.
Defrauding the State is a bit of a six-marker as there are many north and south of the Border who justifiably do so in order to eke out a living in the age of the Celtic Tiger which doesn't roar in the way of at least 50% of our population.
Lambeth Council however is up to its uxters in debt, and money lost to fraudsters is money lost to those genuinely in need.
One of their principal targets is the greasy landlord ``as he fumbles in his greasy till adding the ha'pence to the pence''.
Led by Mr Carroll the ``investigators'' raid one such premises where only four of the stated sixteen claiming housing benefit actually exist, with the greasy landlord pocketing the balance with the assistance of Mr Lewis, the chainsmoking asthmatic caretaker, who takes most of the rap.
The intrepid investigators seem to take their job a little too seriously, with nine of their team spending an entire day putting a newsagent under surveillance, as they try to decipher whether council binmen add to their paltry wage by disposing of waste for the hard-pressed vendor.
After informing poor Mr Khan that his wheelie bin is stolen they take it home in their Nissan Micra as evidence!
Most of the time the investigators seem to be bored out of their trees and while rightly targeting landlords, they seem to waste their energies targetting small fry.
Not so the righteous Lord Leigh and his fellow upper class fraudsters at Stoneleigh Abbey, who benefited personally to the tune of £7 million from the National Lottery.
The Mark Thomas Comedy Project is both incisive and entertaining and the exposure of the above fraud is lower down the list of New Labour's priorities.
It's reassuring to find a fellow ``scratch your arse leftie, who wouldn't do a day's work if they were paid, whinging about the rich'', but it's even better when they catch them.
Not so funny Bob Monkhouse informed us that the £7.37 million was ``to benefit the public'' and that Lord Leigh's vast estate would be ``accessible to all''.
Unfortunately only five rooms are accessible and for 12 days of the year, as Lord Leigh finds ``people in tracksuits `` distasteful.
The remainder is being revamped for private flats and the vast bulk is being spent on clearing the Lord's debts and fixing his roof.
Meanwhile the local hospice is in danger of closing, due to lack of funds.
Methinks Mr Thomas should be employed by Lambeth Council.
If you're really sad then ``Star Trek; The Next Generation'' is for you.
You can see men and women in embarrassingly tight 1970's tracksuits floating around in plastic saucers zapping each other.
There's a man with a Mars bar on his forehead, another with a hairband over his eyes and lots of other strange looking folk uttering classic lines such as, ``...there's an elevereum transforeum in your trousers ..'' and ``..there's a magnetic atmosphereogram in your soup, Captain''!
Other Sky classics include ``The World's Weirdest TV'', ``Prisoners Out of Control' and 4 hours of Murphy Brown'' and ``The Little House On The Prairie'.
What with Murdoch recently being knighted by the Pope, Sky TV might buy the television rights for The Angelus!
The moral of the story is, if you don't want to end up with a Mars bar on your head or looking like a Martian, steer clear of Murdoch's Empire.
Mosley (Channel 4 Thurs)
Fraud in Lambeth (Channel 4 Tues)
The Mark Thomas Comedy Project (BBC 2- Weds)
Star Trek;The Next Generation (Sky One)
What a wonderful world of colours we have here in Ireland - there's the Orangemen with the flowerpots on their heads, the Blueshirts with the red necks and truncheons; the Reds under the bed; the purple and gold of Vinegar Hill and our own green ribbon.
Oswald Mosley the founder of the British Blackshirts wouldn't be found with any of the above but you can follow his fortunes on Mosley, Channel 4 on Thursday nights.
The series began with young Mosley uttering his frustration at the end of World War 1: ``the only victors of this war are those who perpetrated it..''
Strangely, his solution to this was to join the Tory Party and take his seat in the House of Commons and eke out a career in the grubby political arena.
Episode One concluded with Mosley uncharacteristically criticising Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland.
His republican credentials however didn't endure as careerism took over and he easily moved from the Tory Party to the Labour Party before finding himself in the fascists.
In the aftermath of their 1924 election victory, Mosley decided to become a millionaire socialist, as he admired ``the fortitude of the working man''.
Labour activists were readily bought over with cricket and tea parties on the lawns of his mansion.
Upon meeting a striking railworker his wife excitedly exclaims ``we have a lot in common , my Daddy owns a railway!''.
With The Labour Party readily accepting patronising careerists like Mosley, it's little wonder the course they've taken of late.
Mosley threw himself into ``the cause of the working man'' and those few who accused him of ``using the working man for personal gain'' were readily dealt with by his bouncers at public meetings.
Meanwhile the bauld Oswald led the strikers, attacked his former colleagues in the Tory Party, and advocated far reaching change in society.
Like any British MP worth his salt Mosley was a philanderer and this proved his undoing as a spurned lover distributed photos of Mosley in Sammy Wilson mode to giggling Tory backbenchers.
The ambitious Mosley would readily fit in easily into most of today's political parties and one suspects his overriding reason for leading the Blackshirts was to satisfy his huge personal ego.
If alive today Mosley would undoubtedly have created a niche for himself in New Labour who are busily engaged in putting an end to ``Local Government Fraud'' as featured in ``Cutting Edge'' on Tuesday last.
Defrauding the State is a bit of a six-marker as there are many north and south of the Border who justifiably do so in order to eke out a living in the age of the Celtic Tiger which doesn't roar in the way of at least 50% of our population.
Lambeth Council however is up to its uxters in debt, and money lost to fraudsters is money lost to those genuinely in need.
One of their principal targets is the greasy landlord ``as he fumbles in his greasy till adding the ha'pence to the pence''.
Led by Mr Carroll the ``investigators'' raid one such premises where only four of the stated sixteen claiming housing benefit actually exist, with the greasy landlord pocketing the balance with the assistance of Mr Lewis, the chainsmoking asthmatic caretaker, who takes most of the rap.
The intrepid investigators seem to take their job a little too seriously, with nine of their team spending an entire day putting a newsagent under surveillance, as they try to decipher whether council binmen add to their paltry wage by disposing of waste for the hard-pressed vendor.
After informing poor Mr Khan that his wheelie bin is stolen they take it home in their Nissan Micra as evidence!
Most of the time the investigators seem to be bored out of their trees and while rightly targeting landlords, they seem to waste their energies targetting small fry.
Not so the righteous Lord Leigh and his fellow upper class fraudsters at Stoneleigh Abbey, who benefited personally to the tune of £7 million from the National Lottery.
The Mark Thomas Comedy Project is both incisive and entertaining and the exposure of the above fraud is lower down the list of New Labour's priorities.
It's reassuring to find a fellow ``scratch your arse leftie, who wouldn't do a day's work if they were paid, whinging about the rich'', but it's even better when they catch them.
Not so funny Bob Monkhouse informed us that the £7.37 million was ``to benefit the public'' and that Lord Leigh's vast estate would be ``accessible to all''.
Unfortunately only five rooms are accessible and for 12 days of the year, as Lord Leigh finds ``people in tracksuits `` distasteful.
The remainder is being revamped for private flats and the vast bulk is being spent on clearing the Lord's debts and fixing his roof.
Meanwhile the local hospice is in danger of closing, due to lack of funds.
Methinks Mr Thomas should be employed by Lambeth Council.
If you're really sad then ``Star Trek; The Next Generation'' is for you.
You can see men and women in embarrassingly tight 1970's tracksuits floating around in plastic saucers zapping each other.
There's a man with a Mars bar on his forehead, another with a hairband over his eyes and lots of other strange looking folk uttering classic lines such as, ``...there's an elevereum transforeum in your trousers ..'' and ``..there's a magnetic atmosphereogram in your soup, Captain''!
Other Sky classics include ``The World's Weirdest TV'', ``Prisoners Out of Control' and 4 hours of Murphy Brown'' and ``The Little House On The Prairie'.
What with Murdoch recently being knighted by the Pope, Sky TV might buy the television rights for The Angelus!
The moral of the story is, if you don't want to end up with a Mars bar on your head or looking like a Martian, steer clear of Murdoch's Empire.