How ‘mad as hell’ Piers Morgan has become UK’s Howard Beale - Anthony Clavane

Virtual pub quizzes are all the rage at the moment. The term has become a breakout search on Google. During the lockdown, gathering together online with friends and family to test our random general knowledge is one of the most popular ways of passing the time.

Yes, we Brits know how to live.

I’m not normally a quizzy kind of guy. In fact, before the lockdown I went out of my way to avoid them. Especially in pubs where, like intrusive muzak and pickled eggs, they were clearly an unacceptable part of an otherwise top evening.

But I have been sucked into them, enjoying the trivia, the competitiveness and the chance to show off my outstanding knowledge of football teams’ nicknames. I can wax lyrical on who the “Biscuitmen” were – up until the 1980s, of course – in which Dickens novel Mr Micawber appears and which two of Henry VIII’s wives got the chop.

But I was stumped, a couple of weeks ago, when someone asked the question about the Culture Secretary. Or, to give it its full title, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

That all changed earlier this week when Piers Morgan, as is his wont, tore into the hapless minister during an explosive interview on Good Morning Britain. Hardly a morning goes by, these days, without Morgan tearing into a hapless minister on the show.

It has become something of a national sport.

Like Helen Whately, and other hapless ministers Boris selects to be the latest sacrificial lambs for the ritual grilling, Oliver Dowden – for it is he got into a spat with the former Daily Mirror editor about the number of coronavirus deaths and the government’s allegedly selective use of scientific data.

Piers divides people. To some, he is a smug, name-dropping, arrogant buffoon who bullies hapless ministers. To others, he is, on this issue at least, the voice of reason, a champion of transparency and a presenter who robustly holds the powerful to account.

I tend towards the latter view. True, in the past I’ve found his goading of liberals, his sycophancy towards Donald Trump and his all-round oafishness to be the breakfast TV equivalent of pickled eggs in pubs.

But he has emerged as Britain’s answer to Howard Beale. You might recall that, in the 1975 film Network, Beale – played by Peter Finch- memorably raged: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.

Dowden not only survived the grilling, but should actually be thankful that Morgan raised his profile. For now we now know the answer to the mystery: who is the current Culture Secretary?

True, he has not been long in the job. But how many other Culture Secretaries can you name? Which is the real point of this column.

Since John Major created the role in 1992 – appointing David Mellor who dubbed himself the “Minister of Fun” – they have come and gone with tedious regularity. There have been exceptions, like Tessa Jowell under Labour and Ed Vaizey for the Tories, but this particular revolving door has turned faster than any other in government.

The politicians who run culture tend, on average, to only serve a year. Which tells you everything you need to know about the value this government, and previous ones, places on the arts.

What’s the point of, just as you master your brief, being moved on? Some use it as a stepping stone to higher things – like Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt. Others disappear into obscurity. Maria Miller anyone?

This revolving door approach is even more shameful at a moment when culture is reinforcing its importance to a distressed, and often bored, nation.

Whether it be Angela Rippon’s online ballet classes for the over-55s, Gareth Malone’s Great British Home Chorus or the National Theatre Live programme, the arts remind us that staying creative is a vital part of being human.

Just like taking part in a pub quiz, it helps you stay sane.

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