Features

Sketching Parliament's Scandals

By Anna Rosario Elicano
Published: 17/05/2010

Change may be afoot at Westminster, but cartoonist Gary Jenkinson-Graham is eager not to let us forget the scandals of last year. Forge Press finds out more.

An MP in drag was spotted along Banks Street today. Tomorrow, said MP will be training piranhas before being sent to work the minefields as a human detonator.

More indignities are meted out in the exhibit ‘101 Uses for an MP’, and it is for that reason that politicians should be thankful that Gary Jenkinson-Graham is a cartoonist and not God.

54-year-old Gary, an alumna of the University of Sheffield, started his project last June.

From May 2009, the Daily Telegraph had begun to expose details of abuse of expenses by MPs. Memorable claims included £2,115 for cleaning David Hogg’s moat, and a £1,645 duck pond. The scandal caused widespread public outrage and a loss of trust in politics.

“I’d been thinking about it for years’, Gary Jenkinson-Graham explained, “but my project suddenly crystallized at the height of the scandal.

“I felt much better after completing each drawing,” the cartoonist said with relish.

‘101 Uses for an MP’ was inspired by “101 Uses for a Dead Cat”, a humorous but controversial cartoon collection by Simon Bond about dead felines, which was first published in 1981. Diehard cat-lovers objected angrily to the series.

Gary’s exhibit, on the other hand, has so far not prompted any protestations or adamant reactions.

The show, which was launched on April 20, was also intended to make a statement about the public’s attitude towards the General Election.

It was originally meant to finish on May 7, a day after people voted, but gallery organisers promised “to extend it in case of a hung parliament”.

As fate and the LibDems would have it, the exhibit will indeed stretch on till June.

“Not many people looked forward to the elections,” mused Gary, who, the very week before the elections, was still unsure whether to vote at all. It’s no small wonder why.

Drawing for the exhibit might have exorcised Gary’s frustration towards the MPs who figured in the expenses scandal, but who knows what a fresh new batch of politicians might do?

Gary’s ‘creature’ is an overweight, balding, downtrodden man with terrified eyes.

“Of course, this is the exact opposite of how MPs think of themselves’, said the artist.

“They hold themselves up to be such examples of morality”.

Visitors have attempted to guess the politician who features in Gary’s cartoons. But the generic MP, in his impeccable pinstriped suit, looks just like about anybody at Westminster.

He could have been inspired by a politician featured in the pages of the Sheffield Telegraph, where Gary works as a cartoonist.

Or perhaps he’s a bureaucrat that Gary encountered in his previous job as a civil servant.

Guessing is pointless; Gary refuses to name names. His cartoon, he says, is simply the sum and ultimate representation of what he thinks MPs are: ridiculous.

“When people look at my drawings, I want them to laugh. As the saying goes, people shouldn’t be afraid of MPs, MPs should be afraid of people.”

I asked Gary if any MP had dared to visit the exhibit during the run-up to the General Election.

“They’ve been keeping away so far,” he said.

“I think some of my drawings might bring to mind previous gaffes which would be too uncomfortable.

“Besides, they’re all too busy campaigning now.”

Gary stressed that he does not intend for his exhibit to be derogatory. He does not dislike MPs and is even acquainted with some of them.

Just last year, he gave one of his prints to the wife of Sheffield Brightside MP David Blunkett as a wedding present.

The cartoon commemorates the time Mr Blunkett broke a rib rescuing his Labrador from a charging cow at the Peak District. The print is now displayed at the Blunkett’s home.

“I think that MPs are doing a difficult job, and the public will always find new reasons to hate them.

“But, as we saw in the expenses scandal, they aren’t doing what they are supposed to do- serve the people. My exhibit is a way for the public to have a go back at them,” said Gary.

People have that chance to hit back until June and, if the exhibit guestbook is any indication of it, they already are.

Countless wellwishers have paid tribute to his work:

“I prefer this election to the real one- there are less lies”, says one.

“Fascinating”, chimes another. “Pity that not all of them could be put into practise.”

It’s obvious from these that it wasn’t only the artist who’s had his catharsis with the cartoons.

While the public will never see an MP strung up in a tree as a monkey swing or fried in the act of circuit testing, they can still use their imagination and laugh at Gary’s depictions.

The feeling of powerlessness is replaced by the thought that, yes, someday comeuppance will come to the corrupt - albeit not in these forms. Besides, not all 101 cartoons are as farfetched.

One print depicts a “jail bitch”, nervously shaking under the arm of a burly, fellow inmate in prison overalls and pink bunny slippers.

In the spirit of the general elections held earlier this month, visitors can cast their ballots for their favourite use of an MP and win a signed copy of the exhibit book.

They are also invited to suggest the ‘102nd’ way to use an MP’, as Gary plans to release a second set of illustrations with the same theme.

With all the campaign gaffes and points of absurdity of the election still fresh in people’s minds, Gary will certainly have more than enough material for his upcoming collection.

Rate this article