In praise of ... heckling (Guardian re; Wolfgang and Blair)

Leader
Friday September 30, 2005
The Guardian

Three things may be said about Walter Wolfgang's brief moment in the political spotlight this week. The first is that he was absolutely right to raise the temperature in the Labour conference about the situation in Iraq. The second is that he was shamefully treated by party officials who threw him out of the hall. And the third is that to describe what Mr Wolfgang did as heckling is a sad comment on our times.

According to his own version, Mr Wolfgang's response to Jack Straw's speech defending Britain's role in Iraq consisted of a shout of "Rubbish." Judged by the publicity that this interruption achieved, Mr Wolfgang obviously did the business. Judged purely as heckling, though, it hardly cuts the mustard. In heckling terms it was Vauxhall Conference stuff not Champions League.

The key to classic heckling - and to its near relative, the successful riposte to a heckler - is to capture (or in the case of the riposte to regain) control of an event. Mr Wolfgang did not do that. Admittedly, getting control is harder in a large hall in the microphone age than it was in the rough equality of the now all but extinct public meeting. For a classic heckle, one must go back to less authoritarian times. As Harold Wilson - no mean riposter - hymned Britain's naval achievements during a speech in the dockyard town of Chatham, he added: "And why am I saying all this?" A shout came from the back of the hall: "Because you are in Chatham." Now that's what we call heckling.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2005/comment/0,16394,1581643,00.html