Getting angry

It’s a difficult balancing act, being a cartoonist when a serious or tragic news story breaks. On the one hand, it’s your job to seek out the lighter side but on the other there is the question of taste and the feelings of others. It’s exacerbated when the story touches on something close to home.

It was literally close to home last week. Just up the Cumbrian coast, in fact.

The story of the shootings was breaking whilst I was at the Westmorland Gazette. It was clearly not something I could tackle. Fortunately there was other news and a cartoon appeared on the front page, as usual, referencing a story several pages in.

As national coverage developed over the next couple of days, some of it pursued a well-worn path. ITV news talked of a “dark cloud which hangs over this picturesque corner of England”. The Daily Mirror ran a comment piece questioning the reaction time of the police (note to the Mirror: buy a map, use your fingers and add up the distances involved). Sky News embarked on a mission to interview anyone who had ever heard of Cumbria. 

On Twitter, hundreds of people responded to the news as it unfolded. Most were offering condolences or simply reacting with shock. The Twittersphere became a source of breaking information from local newspapers and Cumbria Police. A few Tweets shared chilling insights; a photographer in Whitehaven had been contacted by a London tabloid to acquire any wedding photographs of the deceased. Increasingly, the Tweets were about the media coverage itself. First signs of a backlash were already present by midday Thursday. 

News needs a story to tell. The journalists are there to bring together the threads. Unfortunately they also like to apply glib labels. This area has a wealth of associations so I doubt they’ll succeed in branding it another Dunblane or Hungerford. There is far more to Cumbria than a handy tag for the media when it refers to one tragic day. 

A newspaper cartoonist is in a privileged position. It provides an opportunity to reflect what others may be feeling, in the most direct way that you can. It’s not just about being funny; it’s about commenting, pointing out something that has been overlooked. Or, sometimes, it's just about getting angry.

Pay As You Stop

One of the lead stories in this week's Westmorland Gazette is about a radical new scheme for Lakeland car parking. Taking a lead from York and Westminster, the plan is to have one ticket for all the car parks which can be booked or renewed via mobile phone.

Given signal conditions in an area which features one or two mountains, this seems fraught with possibilities.

Here are the six sketches I submitted. The finished cartoon can be found on the front of today's Gazette or on my website.

Eating Crow

This week's Westmorland Gazette featured a story on birdies. Both the golfing and the feathered variety.

The two came together when a bunch of smarter-than-yer-average crows twigged that golfers on Ulverston golf course stopped for mid-morning snacks around hole 9. Eschewing worms, they have learnt to unzip golfing bags and extract chocolate bars. (The crows, that is, the golfers may well have already known how to do this.)

Stepping carefully round a minefield of puns, I produced five cartoon ideas for this. You can see which one got in by visiting my website or buying the newspaper.

Up The Wall

This week's Westmorland Gazette story was the tale of a lady who drove through a wall. Specifically, she crashed her Punto through a church wall.

As usual, I submitted four sketches to illustrate the idea and you can see which one got in by (a) buying the newspaper, (b) visiting my website, (c) forming a coalition of (a) and (b).

The Poll of Poles

It’s 11pm on 6th May. Campaigning is over. Even David (“call me the Duracell Bunny”) Cameron has got to desist now. Gordon Brown can have a lie down and Nick Clegg can stop walking on water.

On TV, Jeremy Vine is crouching and scuttling about in front of computer graphics. Huw Welsh is looking serious, as well he might having been relegated to the typing pool. On ITV, a newsreader is standing in front of a cardboard set, pretending it’s Number 10.

According to the polls, the Tories may achieve a slim majority. But the polls are usually wrong. They exist to keep unemployed pollsters on the streets and to give excitable Today programme presenters something to talk about.

In South Lakes, the only poll that matters is the Grin-o-Meter. I was away for the bank holiday and conducted the usual rigorous research upon my return.

Between the M6 and Windermere there are:

70 signs for Tim Thingie (LibDem)

37 signs for Gareth McGareth (Conservative, staring manfully into the distance party)

18 signs for Parking

2 for Matthews Benjamin (sell your house party)

1 defaced sign for UKIP (not by me)

0 signs for Labour

A quick glance at the Grin-o-Meter, which today depicts the results in the form of an oil slick, reveals a number of startling facts.

Labour and Jonathan Whatsit have disappeared altogether. Never mind, Jonathan, it’s all good experience for the safe Labour seat you’ll be offered next time. 

UKIP are barely visible, little more than a gush of steam on the horizon as they are wheeled back to the day care centre. 

The new Parking Party has come from nowhere, with their jaunty slogan - “Gone for Change”. 

Matthews Benjamin aren’t doing too well but then estate agents don’t come out from under rocks that often.

But, taken overall, it means that even if Gareth forms a coalition with the Parking Party, Mathews Benjamin and UKIP, Tim still has an overall majority.

Remember, the Grin-o-Meter never lies.

Party Poppers

Despatch from the Westmorland Gazette office, Wednesday afternoon.

Everyone is working at this week's paper but there is an air of hushed expectation. Rumour has it that William Hague is in the building. This isn't a random, gratuitous occurrence. Hague is in South Lakes canvassing on behalf of the local Conservative candidate, Gareth McGareth.

A photographer is despatched to reception and the editor is wearing a jacket. Everyone adopts a busy, nonchalant pose. We've all met major UK political figures before, yawn, yawn. 

I'm feeling a bit shifty. The story I’m illustrating this week concerns a scarecrow festival. The temptation to tie that into Hague's visit has, regrettably, proved too much. 

"Second floor," says Stella the lift. The doors open and there’s a surge of dark suits and the impression of a fabulous, eight-legged political insect scuttling into view. Hague is much taller in real life. And narrower too. I must get the settings fixed on my widescreen television.

He's accompanied by a frightfully young chap who is someone important because he's clutching a Blackberry (the phone not the fruit, although I can’t vouch for the contents of his pockets). Gareth is third and a lady in a jolly jumper brings up the rear. I have no idea who she is; possibly the Biscuits Advisor. Biscuits have become a gigantic campaign issue ever since Gordon Brown refused to identify his favourite on Mumsnet.

Gareth smiles inclusively at everyone, baffling one journalist by asking "How are you? You're looking well." ("I've never met him before in my life,” she says afterwards.)

The party disappears into the meeting room. That explains the tray I spotted in there earlier. It had been set out with Kendal mint cake and Nestle's Blue Riband bars. I wonder what it will be if the other parties visit? KitKat for Labour, custard creams for the LibDems and crackers for UKIP?

The Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency is a key marginal. In 2005, Tim Thingie (LibDem) got in by 287 votes. It broke over 3,000 years of Conservative rule in the area. The Tory chap lost because he spent too much time being Mr Angry on Radio 4 instead of sucking up to the locals. Gareth is jolly careful not to make that mistake. He is much in evidence and it is all going GREAT, according to his Twitter feed.

Whoosh. The political party are out of the meeting room. I shuffle my drawings so the Hague cartoons are on top. They spurn the Cartoon Desk and head for the lift. That was brief but heady.

POSTCRIPT:

Later, I discover that Joan, the Gazette's splendid receptionist, insisted Hague and Gareth sign the visitor's book before she let them in. “Got to,” she said, “They could have been a fire hazard.”

I head out in the real world and discover that Gordon Brown has called someone a bigot. That sounds a little unwise. I can't imagine any of those nice Tory visitors doing that.

At the hustings

There is nothing better for the democratic process than watching your local parliamentary candidate squirm. Failing legalised use of tasers, the best way to do this is go to a public meeting and ask awkward questions.

Last week, I attended my first husting. These are often held in churches, possibly because they share the church’s shared high ideals or simply that they’re cheap to hire. The location caused me a minor problem; architectural monuments to superstition all look the same to me and I’ve never taken the trouble to learn the names of any of them.

There was a good crowd of people in attendance, together with four election candidates and a chairperson. It was a bit like Question Time but without the token rabid national newspaper columnist on the panel. The audience was very polite and orderly. No political firebrands here. If Thomas Paine had lived in South Lakes, Rights of Man wouldn’t have got written; he'd have been too busy sending letters to newspapers about parking and dog dirt.

There were some splendid questions, although none I’d hoped for (e.g. “why should we let you lot back in after you made such an appalling cock-up of flogging off the railways?”). The candidates generally handled the questions well but I was encouraged to note that the UKIP chap displayed a tendency to go off at tangents and blame everything on the EU. 

The candidates’ statements could be summarised as follows: 


Tim Farron (LibDem) promised to "work his socks off" (thereby conforming to the Liberal stereotype of sandals), Gareth McGareth (Conservative) stated that if he didn’t get into parliament “there is no plan B, I’m fighting to win” (he may need to reconsider that given the decline in the banking industry since he left), Jonathan Whatsit (Labour) declared unqualified love and adoration for everything in the Labour Manifesto and the bloke from UKIP advanced the startling theory that global warming is a conspiracy and we actually need more CO2 in the atmosphere because it’s good for the plants.

Disappointingly, we only have four election candidates this time round. Gone are the heady days of 2005 when there was a wild card banging on about Windermere speed limits and allowing smoking in pubs. This time even the Campaign for Real Liberals has failed to emerge from its burrow and the rumoured BNP candidate is probably abroad somewhere, getting a nice tan.

So how are the remaining candidates performing on the Grin-o-Meter?

LibDems and Conservatives are still in the lead but Labour has put in an appearance (on the basis that a leaflet has been thrust through my door). UKIP’s presence, so far, is limited to belching CO2 and hot air.

Nine days to go. Can it get any more exciting?