I find on my return from America that the weather is chilly, that potato ricers are popular and that Borgen has this country – and this newspaper – by the throat. On Saturday both our television critic and our political editor recommended it. Is this a record?
The Guardian has gone mad for Borgen as well. Last week Martin Kettle wrote an article about how Borgen, and the American film Lincoln, reflect a shocking and inherently foreign idealism about the profession of politics which would never be found in the UK . Or in Ireland either, of course.
Not that Borgen is a popular hit. Like most television series that are universally praised- and actually watched by media types, Borgen is on a minority station (BBC Four) at an unsociable time (Saturday night).
I have a resistance to posh telly: all those yoghurt-eaters wittering on about The Wire and The Sopranos did get a bit tedious.The consensus on Breaking Bad is enough to put you off it for life, which would probably be a pity.
The most annoying thing about these television crazes, of which Borgen is the latest, is the implication that the series in question is a diamond plucked from the slurry pit. In fact, although we’re always complaining that there’s nothing on, there is good television everywhere.
If Borgen is the new The Killing and West Wing combined, then Scott Bailey is the new New Tricks, only much better. Scott Bailey is an excellent prime-time drama that you never read about outside the television columns. But then it’s on ITV and about female cops in Manchester.
On the other hand Borgen is Danish, and about the imaginary female prime minister Birgitte Nyborg, who is the head of a coalition government ruling that country. Borgen comes with handsome men, an interesting line in work wardrobes, an awful lot of pony tails on middle-aged women and the best fringe on television, and may yet singlehandedly revive the wearing of the scarf indoors.
I know the BBC has had to become more cautious, but for some reason Borgen also comes with a pre-broadcast warning about bad language even though it is sub-titled.
Borgen is about politicians and journalists who have a series of moral dilemmas, mainly because they have morals. To an audience in a country which is also ruled by a coalition Borgen is full of lines that lose nothing in translation. Such as: “Marrot’s been considered harmless ever since he became Labour leader.” And “Labour’s reputation for internal strife never did us any good”.
In Borgen the politicians are the heroes, and the journalists are as well – no wonder we love it so much. Here is a world where we sometimes get it right.
Borgen’s only nasty journalist is, obviously, the editor of a tabloid. He’s a pantomime villain if ever there was one, saying rather wonderful things like, “Have I slept with my secretary? I can’t remember.”
Luckily the sexy young journalist and her gritty, alcoholic older colleague are prepared to resign their jobs rather than do the bidding of this evil boss. If that brave decision holds throughout the series it will provide incontrovertible proof that Borgen is fantasy of the most touching kind.
Borgen is realistic in surprising ways. Even though she is prime minister Birgitte Nyborg still has to tidy her house and worry about unblocking her sink. But then she sleeps with the man who tries to unblock it (I know, I know.) Quite a lot of Borgen is female fantasy, right down to the decor.
Borgen is good, enjoyable television. It may turn out to be too good to confirm our fantasies about how politics and the media really are. Or it may be cynical enough to confirm them.
Either way, it’s pretty sad that we are being asked to look at a piece of television drama to see how things should be run. It is true, as Stephen Collins said on Saturday, that the Irish media has nothing to congratulate itself about.
It is also true that Irish politicians, without an idea or even an opinion between them, are obsessed by the media and what it says about them. It came as no surprise to read on Saturday’s front page that much of the €175,000 of public money spent by Government Ministers last year on “secretarial allowances” was actually used for public relations services.
The truth is that both politicians and the media in this country are held in pretty low esteem, and with good reason.
One lot allowed the country to go bankrupt and the other lot agreed with them every step of the way.
Parliamentary politics and the media are locked together in a firm embrace; this is the passionate relationship that Borgen really explores.
But in the real world both parliamentary politics and the media have become increasingly irrelevant; the real danger for them both is not just corruption, laziness and falling standards but the fact that they have gone over the cliff of public apathy already, never to return.
For these reasons the story of Borgen so far is one of profound nostalgia for a time when both politicians and journalists mattered.