The Very British Tradition of ‘Verbal Cartooning’
LONDON—When Boris Johnson joined a London-based radio program last month to discuss his ongoing bid to be Britain’s next prime minister, he was quizzed 26 times about the origins of a mysteriously timed photograph of him and his partner, Carrie Symonds, the Conservative Party’s former communications chief. Each time, the prime-ministerial hopeful evaded the question with his trademark bumble and bluster. In all, the four-minute exchange was awkward, incessant, and painful to watch. For John Crace, however, it was perfect.
“Did he know who had taken the picture?” Crace wrote in his sketch of the interview for The Guardian the following day. “‘Um... er...,’ mumbled Boris. There had been so many photos and so little time. Could he even remember when the photo was taken? A look of panic crossed his face. When you’ve told so many lies, there’s always a danger you might accidentally tell the truth.”
For Americans, it’s difficult to imagine a journalist writing about a politician in such a pugnacious way—not least in one of the country’s most recognizable newspapers. But Crace isn’t an ordinary journalist. He’s a parliamentary sketch writer, for whom poking fun at the U.K.’s political class is simply part of the job.
Sketch writing is essentially “verbal cartooning,” Quentin Letts, the parliamentary, told me. “Like cartoonists, we deal in caricature, character assassination, whimsy, broad-brush generalization.” The goal of sketching isn’t to report on what a politician said—that is the job of traditional journalists—but to reflect how the politician said it, why it matters, and what kind of reaction it sparked. Parliamentary sketch writing at its best makes readers feel as if they were there. It also, of course, should make them laugh.
