Channel 4 is dealing with the post Christmas blues in a really weird way. After the shock mongering of Dr Von Hagens’ Autopsy business, the frightening finger-wagging of Supernanny and the Aryan nightmare of 10 Years Younger, Channel 4 played it’s joker.

That joker was Tony Blair – ROCK STAR!

Tony Blair – Rock Star kicked off to the strains of Get it On by T-Rex AKA Marc
Bolan AKA middle class posh type pretending to be a proper rock star…
setting a tone, perhaps? It showed an unusual looking chap smearing
butter in his hair and, yes, this was a look-alike of Tony Blair (Stuff), in
his mirror, being all rebellious. Cooooool maaaaaaan! As ever with this
kind of thing, there was no word from the man himself, as he’s a bit busy
saving the western world from ne’er-do-wells. So to make up for this, Tony Blair – Rock Star featured a bunch of Tony’s old chums from school.

The ‘cats’ that dribbled on about their old mucker referred to a young
Blair as ‘cool’ and ‘hip’. And you could feel the sniper just off camera
virtually forcing them to utter these 60s buzzwords. Those people were
so uncomfortable saying ‘cool’ that it was reminiscent of a cat trying
to get a wishbone out of its throat. The also worrying factor is that
these people were once ‘counter culture rebels’. Now, they’re just staid old men and
women in freshly pressed casual suits and middle management voices. In
fact, they should have all been attending a Pimms convention.

The young pup playing a still-green Blair was a curious fellow. Indeed,
he bore a striking resemblance to our PM, and could carry his voice off
reasonably well. Herein lies the problem. A man doing an impression of
what Blair is like now, but dressing up in 1972 clothes. It doesn’t
add up. Obviously, Tony wasn’t about to give the programme makers
access to his archives of photographs from this period of his life, but
that didn’t stop them. No. Just use our look-alike and shoot him in
Super8 style footage. No-one will tell the difference! Except those of
us who have eyes and half a brain. The whole thing looked cheap and
didn’t seem to ever really add up.

Blair was painted throughout the show as this confident, cool customer with the
ladies and, apparently, never short of an admirer or two. Just as your
screen-addled mind got used to the idea, the show cuts to this prick
lookalike prancing around in white loons. The poor lookalike must
have a funny old life, walking around looking like Tony Blair all day.
It’s a dubious talent, maybe he knows the poor chap who played Michael
Jackson in Sky’s re-enactment of his court case. 

Blair, we were told, promoted a band called Jaded (no wonder) and
harboured his own passion to be the ‘leading man’. Valerie Moss, a
haggard old chest of a woman and ex-classmate, mocked Blair at every
turn. Not out of loathing, more a case of not wanting to seem pally
with that man who blew the Middle East up a fair bit. In fact, most of
his old friends seem to paint Blair as some kind of pseudo lefty
mongrel who lacks sincerity but makes up for it with enthusiasm. Not
changed a bit then, eh readers?

It was mentioned that Tony lived the dream, hung around with bands
(including his own Ugly Rumours), and played at the game of
‘spin’. Well, spin the bottle at least. This being smack in the tail
end of hippiedom, nakedness ensued! Crikey! How risqué! It even showed
‘Tony’ getting caned… from a headmaster.

You see, all this programme tells us is that he messed about when he
was younger, and has retained his drive and his grin. It also told us
that his old mates thought he would be an awful PM. Again, TV has left
us a nation confused and bewildered. We don’t know what to think
anymore. Maybe this was an attempt to make him seem more human. Or maybe -
just maybe – they wanted to make him look like a complete cock.

[story by Mof Gimmers]