bremner’s hoax is no joke

Rory Bremner’s hoaxing of Margaret Beckett will strike some as clever and funny. By impersonating Gordon Brown, Bremner was able to trick Beckett into discussing the relative merits of her cabinet colleagues in a way she would never have done publicly. Channel 4 won’t be airing the tape on Bremner’s show due to Ofcom rules about ‘wind-up calls’, but he hopes to put it on the internet, claiming he is spreading not cynicism about politicians, but scepticism.

Aside from wondering what the call tells us about Beckett, other than the fact that Brown is an ally and friend with whom she is

frank, isn’t the whole notion of the hoax bogus? In private life hoaxes usually constitute a rather cruel form of practical joke, yet applied to the famous they apparently add up to cutting-edge satire.

A decade ago, the spoof news show Brass Eye hoaxed various celebrities into condemning ‘cake’, an invented drug, to universal hilarity. The celebs were a touch credulous perhaps, but they were no doubt acting out of the best intentions, albeit with a very human flaw: the desire for a little self-advancement.

In the years since, suspicion seems to have become our default setting.