Jeremy Corbyn meets Janet Breen

While it is often said that life imitates art, I never really believed it to be true, not true in the sense of there being incontrovertible evidence that proved it to be so. All that changed a few moments ago though, when I saw this headline in “The Guardian’, ‘Susan Sarandon, Olivia Colman and Paul Mescal join star donors of Cinema for Gaza auction.’ 

 Joining the celebrities is the former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn – billed as the star of Sumotherhood, thanks to his cameo in last year’s Adam Deacon urban thriller – who is donating a Zoom poetry reading and a selection of homemade jam.’ 

Did anyone else think of Janet Breen and the Jam Festival, the sketch in ‘The Day Today’ which expertly lampooned the presumed moral superiority of people who are successful at one thing deluding themselves that their outrage at another more complicated thing has greater value than that of others.

All actors do is dress up and play make believe essentially, and you tend not to get plumbers, refuse collectors or nurses carrying on like this. 

Its all just virtue signalling, no its worse than that, its selective virtue signalling, the selection being based upon a self-serving desire to be well thought of. Or at least not be rounded upon, as happened to Olly Alexander a few weeks ago, when he refused to withdraw from Eurovision because people were upset about Israel’s participation in it. But that’s all forgotten now, because he’s ‘ offering ‘a Zoom serenade of the song of you choice’  and has redeemed himself, in the opinion those whose opinion he cares about at least.

That’s the main problem that I have with all of this very public display of virtue signalling, that it’s all done so very publicly. If they were doing it privately, possibly donating a days salary, then that’s one thing, but not rummaging around your attic for some old tat – Mike Leigh’s donating an ‘Abigails Party poster – or to read your children a bedtime story like Rebecca Hall. Oh, Tilda Swinton wants to do that as well, although not at the same time and not in person.

But the absolute pick of a very unworthy list of contenders is Josh O’ Connor – he played the young Prince Charles in ‘The Crown’ – who is offering a ‘perfect porridge masterclass via Zoom’