(This may not be appropriate for my arts producer website, but it is creative writing borne out of my frustration and a [bruised] sense of humour)
revert to type. phrase [VERB inflects] If you say that someone has reverted to type, you mean that they are now behaving as you would expect them to, after having behaved in an unexpected and better way.
With Brexit in gridlock, all parties are reverting to type – literally. The party PR companies that represent them have been underground somewhere for some time, their heads hidden under the covers. All that work on creating key messages lost in the sea of swirling shifts, changes and blatant lies. Sadly the period of behaving in an unexpected and ‘better’ way is not the case. They have all behaved in an abhorrent and unexpected way, not better. They just threw aside the straplines and became immersed in a bun fight that can clearly never end until they calm down and an adult bangs theirs heads together.
A strange twist is that, I suspect, it is the PR companies that have used their whips:
“Remember your key messages” thwhack!
“Reiterate them at every opportunity” thwhack!
“Jeremy – recite after me – ‘we have more in common than divides us’ and ‘for the many, not the few’” – thwack!
“Come on Theresa, I know it’s hard to say anything much now, because no-one is listening, but have you forgotten yours? Repeat after me ‘strong and stable leadership’ is your big one – use it”.
It’s all Trump’s PR’s fault. Whoever they are, they have trained Trump to repeat, repeat and repeat again. In an endless loop of straplines, regurgitating the same words again and again. Does this make them stick, or make us sick?
In a playful way, I find myself reflecting on the term reverting to type. In this digital age, it could refer to getting the old typewriter out, going back to the good old days. You couldn’t rub out the words you spoke when they were typed. You could try and cover them up with Tippex, but it often didn’t obscure them completely. Compared to digital, they were pretty fixed things, so you stuck to them when everything else in our world was feeling wobbly.
As everyone in the UK gets more wobbly, twitchy and, let’s be honest, scared witless, we too are resorting to simple expletives. Brexshit must be the most common word in social media now (not researched or verified, sorry).
So back to the politics – let’s hope the parties can deliver on their key messages, because they are not delivering on anything else. Sadly, the strapline ‘strong and stable leadership’ turned out to be the biggest lie. They would be wise not to use it any more, to prevent the majority of the uk from rolling around on the floor laughing and potentially causing accidents.
TM refers to the opposition as if it is only labour opposing her. But her own party members, and all other parties oppose her. It’s as if she thinks the ‘opposition’ holds the power and the responsibility. Bizarre. She did this, the tories did it. Clear as day.
The old adage two wrongs don’t make a right comes to mind. They have ALL messed up and it appears it is too late to change Brexshit.
