Why I’m Sick of Politics Being Described as a Circus - CircusTalk

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Why I’m Sick of Politics Being Described as a Circus

Jon Sopel has a new book out this month – A Year at the Circus. But the BBC’s North America editor hasn’t spent the last 12 months taming roaring lions in a sawdust ring or swinging on a trapeze wearing a skin-tight sparkly leotard. He’s been covering Trump’s presidency. And the ‘circus’ he refers to is the chaos and infighting inside the Oval Office. The book’s jacket shows a picture of the White House with a red and white striped circus tent perched over the stucco roof railings. ‘At the heart of Washington, there is a circus. It’s raucous, noisy and full of clowns,’ Sopel declares.

This distinguished member of the White House Press Corp is not alone as a political commentator in using circus to describe incompetence. During the Conservative party leadership contest, Rory Stewart called his rival a ‘clown’ who couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear button, and the CBI’s Carolyn Fairburn called on politicians to stop the ‘circus’ when parliament rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal earlier this year.

But the White House is no circus and PM Boris is definitely not a clown. Because describing something as a ‘circus’ or someone as a ‘clown’ to say they’re incompetent is completely inaccurate and insulting to circus people like me. While veteran reporter Sopel may have the insight of spending several decades dealing with politicians and press briefings, he’s clearly never peeped behind the red velvet ring doors. If he did, he’d discover that circuses aren’t chaotic. They’re extremely efficient machines built on trust and teamwork…

Read the Full Article at The Spectator

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