Armando, great to have you here. Nice to be here
Thank you so much for joining us. So, apart from having
a swearing consultant
on your show Veep, you've just
had four years in Baltimore. What
are the lessons that you have learnt
having that close an eye on
American politics? What are the bearings
on European and British politics
in particular? Well, American politics
is interesting. In the current series of
Veep, Selina Meyer the Vice President
becomes the President.
Which has involved us talking to
lots of people who work for Presidents
and observing the Presidency
One thing that struck me is how
frustrated and how
limited is the power of the
President. The whole American
constitution is predicated
on the White House talking
to Congress and both
parties in Congress
doing deals to reach agreement
That only works if
that element of compromise
is up and running. But what you've got
in America at the moment
are parties refusing to do
deals with each other.
Thus the whole constitutional
operation of government has ground
to a halt. You get lots of politicians
campaigning in America now on
the basis of
what they don't do. They'll say vote
for me and I will repeal
health care. Vote for me, because
as a senator I said no
to this sort of reform
They all deal in extremes
and negatives at the moment. So, that's why
I think there is a lot of frustration from
the American public at the
moment. How in a poll recently
said that, I think Congress
had something like a 12%
approval rating.
Which prompted the question from
a lot of observers that, who are these
12%?
So that's what I've experienced
I think. That sort of thing is a gift to you, right
as a satire writer? Well
you know, one doesn't rejoice
at that. Anything
I do in how I portray
politics is really borne out of
the same frustration
I think that is being felt
by electors and
voters. Or indeed people
who choose not to vote. That's
really what I'm trying to tap into
So I think there's always a danger
that if you call yourself
a satirist, which is something
I try and shy away from,
it, kind of, implies that you're
revelling in everyone's misfortune
and I'm not. I mean, the theme of
this is optimism and I fundamentally
always feel positive about
politics. I'm very passionate about politics
you know, I want politics to work
I get frustrated
at those points where I see
that it's not working. That's where
creatively, I feel I can
do something or respond to it
With the greatest respect, because
no one could be a bigger fan of your
work than me, do you in any way
feel responsible, though, for some
of the cynicism about politics
I mean, you have created those characters
Do I feel responsible, hell
no.
No, because, as I said
it is borne out of, you know
I think people, even though
they may say they're not interested
in politics, I think they might
actually mean they are not interested in politicians
or party politics. I think
they are fundamentally interested
in politics, but maybe
single issues. Maybe their personal
how it affects them personally. They
want to engage, but
I think they feel frustrated
that what they see in the campaigns
feels very
tailored and enclosed
It feels very exclusive
So I say to any politician
well first of all, sometimes
in something like The Thick of It and Veep
we make things up. We just
come up with the stupidest story
we can imagine. It goes out
and then a politician comes up to
us the following week and says
how on earth did you find
that out? We thought we had kept
that quiet. That's
brilliant. There was an episode of Veep last
year where we had the storyline
about Jonah Ryan who works
in the White House doing
a blog anonymously
about people who work in the White House
and then getting fired. The consultants
who work on the show, and they've worked
for Presidents and Vice Presidents
and Secretaries of State, and they look at the scripts
and tell us what is convincing and not
They all said, That would never happen.'
We filmed it and the very
following week someone was fired
from the White House for running
an anonymous blog gossiping
on other members of the White House. So
if anything, real
life is a lot worse
than what I'm showing. At least
I am showing something that's got some jokes
in it, which makes it a bit better. It
certainly does. In terms of people
engaging, obviously
technology plays a huge
role in that. Yes. In terms of
how the youth engage in particular
Somehow on Twitter people felt like
they'd been living in an echo chamber
Yes, I mean, that's the danger. One
assumes that because there is
social media that somehow by
using social media, and
just saying that you're using it, everything
is going to be better. It's not, it's
what you do with the social
media, I think, that is
important. So I think, maybe
Labour in particular thought
they were getting all these tweets
and Millifandom and
you know, the mentions of Ed Milliband
and the hashtag here was going
up.
By just quantifying
it like that, they somehow felt
the debate
was having an effect.
What you don't realise, of course
is it's all very well using
social media but you've got to
show that you've thought of
what that use is for. Do you know what I mean
It's like the medium of social
media isn't the message, the message
is the message.
People can detect on
say, Twitter, if a politician
has decided to tweet.
They can see that that politician
has decided not to say anything
too controversial because
that tweet might be used against them
in three or four years' time. So they keep
it very dull and bland
Or if they say something unfortunate
and forget that tweeting is actually
something that can be observed by
everyone, and say something personal about
something, it's used against them. So you get this
caution by politicians
on the media I think. That's a paradox
isn't it? As an electorate, as voters
we want them to, apparently
be human. Yes. Yet we don't like
it when they're human, when they do things like
go on holiday or they have a kitchen
that's worth cooking a meal in. Or
indeed, they say anything on Twitter
We would be castigating
them if they were really being their real selves
on Twitter, so what's the point of it
That's the thing. A lot of people who say
to me, aren't
you being cynical about politicians
I say, actually, the most human people
in my shows are actually the elected
politicians. It's the people they
surround themselves with that
become the, kind of, the agencies
of their destruction.
It's worth pointing out that I think
we, as a public, as
an electorate, are contradictory
You know, we don't like our politicians
to have holidays and to
make money and to have
a life outside Westminster
We don't like it. Yet neither
do we like them to be robots
and just talk about politics
We like them to be human, like
Farage and Boris Johnson
We like that roughness about
them, the fact that they might say something
embarrassing. Farage, by the
way, is back as leader of UKIP
in case any of you missed that breaking
news headline. That happened while
we were in an earlier session. So
make of that what you will. Armando
make of that what you will. Well there you are, who
is accusing me of being cynical when someone who
has based himself and projected
himself on his honesty and
talking truth unto power
saying, I'm a man of my word
I will resign as leader if I lose,'
has then resigned? Then
said, yes I have resigned
that's all I said I'd do. I'd resign
and I have resigned, but
I didn't say that a
day later I'll un-resign
So, you know, I, kind of
give up in a way. Exactly, your
job here is done. It's done, yes
We made the point earlier actually that one
of the most successful politicians
of course in recent history is Tony
Blair, and he pulled off this amazing
knack of, kind of, being a robot
and yet giving a very good impression
of actually being human. Yes, I mean, that's true
actually.
Yes, he was a robot built
to act human whenever a camera
was in front of him.
I worked very briefly with
him in 1997
at a, kind of, Labour rally, and that
was my one and only encounter with
him. I was struck by how, when
he talked to you he was
very engaging and so on, but as
soon as he had finished
talking to you and you started
speaking,
he would look all around the room
Look to where Alastair was
and where Mandelson was, and
then become human again
with his next line. That was
an interesting insight
into how, unfortunately
certain politicians work. We're
going to have talks tomorrow about machine
intelligence and the evolution of
so I'm sure that will
be a topic that we pick up on. A robot politician, Robopolitician
yes. So in terms
of you, you've had four years on
Veep. You obviously had huge success
with The Thick of It, on all sides
critics, juries, the people
within Westminster, people outside
of Westminster. What's next for you
What's next? I'm going to do some films
now. Veep is going to carry on, but
after the fourth season which is going out now
I've stood down. I've offered my
resignation as show runner
on Veep, which has been accepted
I'm going to do some films. I'm doing a film
next year about the death of Stalin
Which might be funny, but it's
based on true events. I'm
writing a comedy script about
artificial intelligence
So I'm very much looking forward to
tomorrow's session. That laugh out
loud topic, artificial intelligence
Are you feeling optimistic about
the future? Well, yes, I always
as I say, I do feel passionately
positive about politics and I
feel it can change. But I do
feel
this thing that, I think what's
happened now is that
and Jon Snow said this last
night when he got his Bafta, this is a good
time to be a journalist actually
Because all the tools are now available
to everyone, we're all journalists
You know, we all have cameras, we all have
access, we all have Google
and Wikipedia, you know. We can research
everything, but it's then what we do
with it. That's the important thing. We've
got to be active with it. It's not
just a case of just hashtagging
Nepal will not save
Nepal. You've actually got to send
money to Nepal or go out
there and do something. The Internet can
provide you with the information
about how to get the money there
or how to contact someone to help
you get out there. That's what it's there for
So it's very easy
to fall into the trap of thinking that
all this new world
we have in front of us is
suddenly going to change everything on
a simple click. It's not, it still
boils down to what we do and
how active we are in how
we use it. There is now no excuse
because it's all there. Thank you very much
Armanda Iannucci everyone.
Thank you.