The Children’s TV Guide To Elections
A little bit of politics, with a side of sausage
Last Wednesday, louder than the beats from Steve Bray’s boombox, a cry of “NOOooOOOooOOOOooOoO” echoed around South East London. This was because, dear reader, Mummy and Daddy had the temerity – the audacity – to turn the channel over to “boring grown-up television” to watch the Right Honourable Rishi Sunak MP stand in the pouring rain and call a General Election. We had been watching a lot of Numberblocks (So. Much. Numberblocks) but I’ll tell you my views on that later because… we need to talk about politics.
(Another reason we need to talk about politics is to welcome the new subscribers who’ve come via Jonn Elledge’s excellent The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. Greetings, fellow YIMBYs, public transport nerds and centrist parents (delete as applicable). I hope you find Square Eyes useful, or at least mildly amusing.
Anyway, there we were, watching the announcement of the Genny Lec (I personally prefer “snappy G,” except it’s not really that snappy now is it?) and the girls were like “what even is an election” and I was all “don’t worry CBeebies has got this covered.” If you want a straight explainer, Newsround has one here, while this is a Sky News one. But you will have much more fun watching one Duggee and one Bluey.
Isn’t it time for… campaigning?
I’ve been meaning to write about Hey Duggee for several weeks. It is such a great programme. I know we all worship at the altar of Bluey now, but Hey Duggee is the Salieri to Bluey’s Mozart, the Jason to its Kylie, the John the Baptist to its Jesus. (Yes, I did have extra coffee this morning. It’s half term. Shush.) Hey Duggee is hilarious, the writing is brilliant and the voice acting is great.
The concept is simple: Duggee, a giant dog, runs a scouts/childminder/breakfast club type set-up called Squirrel Club, with five members: Roly the hippopotamus, Norrie the mouse, Happy the crocodile, Tag the rhinoceros and Betty the octopus. Fun ensues, both in the Clubhouse and out on adventures; each episode the Squirrels earn a badge for what they’ve learned.
It’s also a tiny bit political. Right back in the first series, we meet the Punky Penguins, a bunch of rahs who build increasingly ornate snowmen in competition with the Squirrels. Their leader? Boris, a hooray Henry with a mop of blond hair who builds a pig, then a tank, as his opening ice sculptures. No, it’s not subtle. You can watch the whole episode here.
As Duggee finds its feet as a series, more and more episodes are actually simple explainers, charmingly well done. ‘The Tree Badge’, ‘The Toothbrushing Badge’ (which has a song which functions as a toothbrushing timer) and ‘The Election Badge’ are all masterpieces of the genre.
‘The Election Badge’ delivers on its promise. When Eugene the anxious parcel delivery chipmunk unexpectedly drops out of running the summer fair, Duggee and the Squirrels have to have a Woodland Committee meeting to decide who takes over. Lord Fingall, a castle-dwelling terrier in a kilt, stands against Buggy, a rainbow-coloured insect who rose to fame in action movie pastiche ‘The Juice Badge’
Are you looking forward to all the football?
Lord Fingall is obviously Tory coded; Boris the Penguin is his campaign manager, while King Tiger praises his “impressive pedigree.” Buggy, much like Keir Starmer, simply has to keep her options open and offer an alternative. Fun alone is enough of a manifesto. Duggee gets a cartoon swingometer.
It gently exposes the political fault lines that can run through even the most healthy relationships. Mr. Crab, one half of the show’s same-sex couple who have tip top party-planning skills and strong late-nineties gay Tory vibes (remember Ivan Massow?), turns to his partner and says “I’ll be voting Lord Fingall, won’t we Nigel” – while Nigel holds up his “Vote Buggy” poster.
SPOILER ALERT: they basically end up with a unity government and run the woodland fair together. Having lived in several countries with complicated coalition governments, IMHO it is better than First Past the Post and shouty adversarial House of Commons politics (and I speak as a former schools debating champion). In terms of the day-to-day running of the Duggeeverse, I am assuming some kind of constitutional monarchy (King Tiger doesn’t seem to be overworked), but who knows?
Bread and…
Once Duggee has explained the basic concept of elections, Bluey can show you the reality. The episode ‘Circus’ (see what they did there) shows the Heeler family going to vote.While Chili and Bandit go to the ballot box (compulsory in Australia, fact fans), Bluey is the ringmaster in a game of circus, but a bigger dog called Hercules wants to play his motorcycle game instead. A bit of ensemble cast problem-solving, inclusive leadership and boundary-setting soon ensures that everyone has a good time.
Bluey’s already established its credentials as an export vehicle for Australian values: in this episode, the world learnt that Aussies get barbecue sausages at the polling station. I asked my friend and exiled Canberran Rob whether this was real: it is, they’re called “democracy sausages,” and local charities raise money by selling them. What a great idea. I’m not going to lie, while I liked the clever metaphors for the political process, my main feeling was sausage envy.
(SJP in SATC internal monologue voice) I wondered what the UK equivalent of democracy sausage is and… we don’t have one? Voting is just a solitary, thankless, task? Given that Bluey’s election episode features, well, dogs at polling stations, I guess there’s #dogsatpollingstations, where people share pictures of canine companions while they do their democratic duty. However (brace yourself for an unpopular opinion) I find it a bit twee, not everything in life has to be another smol bean doggo internetz moment for the ‘gram.
This Episode of ‘Bluey’ is called ‘Electoral Reform’
HOWEVER I feel ever more strongly that the entire democratic process is broken – like really broken. As a teenager, I remember finding out that a party can end up in government despite winning fewer votes nationwide, and I guess that moment of WTAF that’s not how elections work has stayed with me ever since. That doesn’t mean we should bin the concept entirely and live in absolute monarchy, so knock yourself out with pictures of a cute cavapoo outside a primary school.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from watching too much children’s TV, it’s that you have to work with what you’ve got. So as much as I might wish for proportional representation and a political system based on compromise not confrontation, it matters more that young people understand the system we have and their power to change things. So go out and vote Buggy. Not yet, obviously, the election’s not for weeks.