I'm writing this and objecting to it at the same time!
It's the afternoon Boris Johnson stood up at Prime Minister's Question Time and offered something like an apology for the Downing Street Christmas parties.
I don't, as a rule, think shame is a good thing. But a complete absence of it isn't good either. That said...
People who write, and who care about politics, will want to write about times like this. But, if you just object to what's happening, or if you record it as it happened and say how ridiculous it is, you get lost in a whole host of voices doing the same thing. And your particular political bias will probably show through, robbing your writing of much of its impact. (And probably limiting its audience to others who agree with you.)
Be smarter about it. Be creative. Use analogy. Use satire.
You could say George Orwell already addressed Partygate when he wrote "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
Political satire has a history almost as long as the history of government. In Britain, Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, and Ben Elton all used satire to poke fun at the governments of their day.
You will stand a better chance of being read across the spectrum if you disguise your mockery until the reader has already agreed with you about how ridiculous the situation (placed in an arena where they aren't invested in any of the fighters) is.
So, far so good. So, why do I object?
Because modern politics, it seems to me, out-parodies parody!
But, I imagine satirists of every age thought the same as their leaders pushed a new extreme.
And, therein, lies the creative challenge. Write about it without writing about it. And don't let it break your heart.
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