Obama’s retort to a heckler made me nostalgic for this lost political art

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/25/obama-retort-heckler-lost-political-art

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Barack Obama is heckled in the White House and it becomes a news story. So it should be. Exchanges between a leader and a heckler are a rare occurrence in the modern political era.

Even during the UK election there was no heckling. Neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband dared to speak in situations where they could lose control. Of course, it is control that is at stake when a heckler intervenes. Suddenly a speaker is swimming in the equivalent of a wild sea. The delivery of a speech becomes nerve-shredding in its unpredictability. Think of what happened to Tony Blair when he was slow-handclapped by the Women’s Institute during a speech, a collective heckle. It was a very big moment. His friend Lord Falconer observed afterwards that the protest permanently broke the spell that Blair had cast over middle England. An outstanding speaker and interviewee, Blair could not cope with the rarity of a seemingly controlled situation veering out of control.

Obama’s response was witty and then robust, confirming his mastery of the public event and highlighting the electoral context in which he now makes his moves. As the dissenter shouted persistently, Obama joked, “Listen, you’re in my house,” as if he was dealing with an inebriated fool in the sitting room of a suburban home. It was a smart self-deprecating retort that got the rest of the audience on his side.

The fear of losing control is recent. Harold Wilson, not known as a great orator, was a genius at responding to hecklers

Then Obama broke a rule of politics. Elected politicians always have to be polite to voters, even hecklers, while voters can be as impolite as they want to politicians. But the president summoned his aides to remove the heckler from the room. Normally a leader waits for security people to move in, but Obama was not going to affect patience. I doubt he would have been quite so direct if he had another election to fight. Gordon Brown had to apologise to Gillian Duffy when he was captured on microphone describing her as a bigot after she had complained to him about immigration, a semi-heckle on the streets of Rochdale in the 2010 election. If he had not meekly apologised for being rude to a voter, the media would have slaughtered him even more. Obama is liberated from the constraints of electoral politics and can get tough with voters that annoy him. He also has the wit to deal with hecklers, unlike modern UK leaders who have little experience of the spontaneous exchange.

The fear of losing control is recent. Harold Wilson, not known as a great orator, was a genius at responding to hecklers. During a speech in the October 1974 election, when he was prime minister, a heckler started shouting and then threw an egg at him. With the messy liquid spreading across his suit Wilson declared, “During the 1970 election, after six years of a Labour government, someone threw an egg at me. Six months ago, during the February election campaign after three and half years of a Conservative government no one threw an egg. Now the gentleman being escorted from the hall has done so… Which goes to show you can only afford to throw eggs under a Labour government”. The crowd went wild with applause.

Now in the UK, for those of us who yearn for the edginess of a performer and a live audience, stand-up comedy is a better option. I perform a stand-up show partly because each audience is thrillingly different and the atmosphere is always unpredictable. I was first heckled at the Soho theatre a few years ago, when a furious dissenter shouted repeatedly that I was “up the arse of politicians”. I made the mistake of being polite to him when I should have used Obama/Harold Wilson style wit. But I did get an email the following day from the heckler apologising profusely, revealing he had drunk three bottles of wine and inviting me to his chambers for lunch.

I love live performing but the stakes are nowhere near as high as for those seeking election. Even so the best leaders could enhance their reputations by exposing themselves to hecklers and responding quickly with wit. Humour is a powerful political weapon – the most underused in modern UK politics.

• Steve Richards performs Rock’n’Roll Politics at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh festival from 18 August