Armando Iannucci: 'Are you saying I'm responsible for Donald Trump?!' - BBC Newsnight

I'm an avid watcher of political shells you know I you know I I mean are you so good at all nine the key thing I enjoy and and I got very heavily involved in in watching the American election coverage until the result and then I actually couldn't watch television for about a week or indeed read a newspaper you're eating an awful lot of Donald Trump you're about two or three a day or retweet yeah and actually we had Tom Friedman of the New York Times on these programs and if you try and fight the go take him on he'll suck your brain I wonder whether he is Manuel Brea that is his genius and I think the great mistake is to is to portray him as an idiot because he's not he knows what he's doing and he's very clearly it's a very clever salesman and that's what he's been doing for the last year and a half is selling this model of the business successful businessman who believes everything he says and and and it's persuadable enough to get you know a sizable amount of electric cable from I mean how did we get here let me put one suggestion to you you spent two thousand mocking the kind of controlled careful politics of new labor message you know clearly delineated at this is the PC stuff yeah um and hey rebelled against did they took your message and said yeah where we going someone's to compete on so I know you kind of you have to be careful what you wish for that mill I believe that later like some of the thick of it are also real genuine frustration and anger but in my particular case that we could go to war with Iraq despite millions of us protesting straight from every expert in the UK and across the world say this would be a disaster and it proving the case and I took that sense of frustration that that sense that politicians weren't really connecting with the people and produced on right the thick of it which was with Walter looking at the notion that politicians were concentrating more and more on a smaller and smaller group of people the the middle England they say a man wanted will know about right now right there is a squeeze middle that the tiny any amount of people who can swing an election and in the course of doing that just taking for granted everyone out and as the years have gone by that that that group of people were taking for granted has become like 80% aging practices which is why you get this level of situation and I should say you told the FT the Financial Times in 2012 you said all of this you made this eating anger people don't know where to direct it everything's become polarized people don't mind their systems being held up to ridicule because that articulates what they're feeling but what's really interesting is what you've just given this account of the kind of people who felt cut off and pom yes that is what the populist as we call them more people go on that's their appeal that's what Donald Trump says he says they forgot you know Rust Belt us it was in the recruitin left that out and yet you don't really like Trump I'm guessing and you're not a kind of Trump fan so the people who were left out yes didn't like the things you wanted well all together start mashing the right when people being left out on the right and a left that's why in the UK we've got you know momentum and you Kip and we've got the right we read about the rise of personalities we've got person instead of parties we've got Torben Lieber and we've got Boris Johnson conservativism and Teresa may conservativism there we've got factions we don't really have anything that resembles the head of the two of the three party system that we had in the 50s and 60s right through to the 70 most quickly well against mine you mentioned Corman yeah because one of the things that you parodied was the severe control of sort of pages and yeah give out the line yeah no one would say this corner labor is controlled now do you think does it work or does it cost that work you now think I see why the mandals now I'm going to count the arrow trying to do then what happens is you get this frustration with the you know intense media management so people are hungry for something that's entirely different which is why we go to you know Boris Johnson because he mumbles and has hilarious hair or Jeremy Corbyn because he wears a vest and has a beard and and that has an instant appeal and yeah I can completely see why that has an instant appeal then you get to the point of like of trying to work out how you can actually control at a party and get back into government and that's when you know the chaos approach to politics doesn't doesn't work I mean you've Lampoon politicians do you do you respect or pity them at all I mean no I do not you because they they do actually a lot of them are better than I no no I eat old and they don't baby I say it's people are kind of that Chris not be able to fix I say actually I find the most sympathetic characters in the thick of it it's a politician if the minister at cetera I feel sorry for it's the strange young people that she surrounds herself with who have United green PPE from from Oxford and Gary a little else who are trying to run the her department but I think there is a real danger you took some of the humor to the states with a deep sorrow and vice-presidential a vice president who wants to be President it it's very funny I mean did you find it it is exactly the same you could basically you British guy was in Scotland you can just go there and take the same humor and it works there or did you have to fight off the writers are likely to force it down if I try this but um yet we took the thick of it writers it's all British writers British directors we we edited it in London it's still going you're not involved anymore right yeah I'm well after four years of jet lag and flying Bibles and folder I think it's also British thing we only do three or four series of something and then we yeah we admit both episodes in America you expected to do 29 series of 38 episodes a year and then die what about news okay so day to day yeah have you seen any improvement in the writing using Kazan as well major and I think what's interesting is this whole business of fake news but the fact that the Internet no allows anyone saying anything to make it look as valid as you know The Telegraph or The Guardian or the BBC website because it's there in typeface and that's a real problem and I think what the rise of trouble and his attack on the news may do is is provoke people like you into figure fresh about how you make the news how you how you show that the news isn't fake I thought it was really interesting the arch we had on us be following Giants in the White House or ugh all right a lot of us are hoping that people will want to come to places isn't got economist a heretic juror yes I think it's so important for the established news programs to show the decisions that they have to make on a daily basis you may cut a comedy like the thick of it now I mean I think be very different and you know I wouldn't be inclined to because I'm more concerned now about trying to energize 16 and 17 year olds and 18 year olds into politics I mean that's that's the real frightening thing that they they don't vote in a lot obviously don't come to thinking something but you know 18 year old onwards don't vote in the numbers that people are 35 and 40 people and that I think that's because of being turned off by party politics so it was really interesting in the Scottish referendum having the votes for 1617 years because it really a galvanized them it told them that their view was important and it made them really think and examine the issues and I only wish that opportunity had been presented to us all in the general election Monday you know she's not going to you baguette

Channel: BBC Newsnight

Views: 69,307

Rating: 4.6607141 out of 5

Keywords: bbc, newsnight, news, interview, President Trump, Donald Trump, Trump, fake news, comdey, Armando Iannucci, Iannucci, government, media, evan davis, parody, The Thick of It, New Labour, popular culture, jeremy corbyn, theresa may, boris johnson, the thick of it

Id: jZ0W1c8AO_M

Length: 7min 38sec (458 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2017