So Farewell Then Steve Bell

Do you remember the heyday of IF … ? The cast of characters was seemingly endless: Reg Kipling, The Penguins, Monsieur l’Artiste, John The Monkey, Inner London Wildlife, and every politician ruthlessly lampooned, whatever their party. Mrs T got it in the neck, and so did the Labour opposition with unforgettable characterisations such as “Kinnocratic Centro-Sensiblism”.

Steve Bell

All the creation of Steve Bell, that greatest of cartoonists, his style unmistakable, his targets equally so: John Major’s underpants, Tony Blair’s eye, David Cameron as a condom, Theresa May in a clown suit, and Jeremy Corbyn as a Star Wars-a-like “Jez-Bi-Wan Conorbyn”, along with his opponent Bozza The Mutt, and the tellingly named Ken Solo.

Young Dave was not at all happy at the condom characterisation, upbraiding Bell at one Tory conference with the unintended double entendre “You can only push a condom so far”. Yik yik, Spab spab. And Bell also gave offence to some; this has been part of the job description of the greatest cartoonists since Gillray. But his time at the Guardian has now come to an end.

First featured in the paper during the editorship of Peter Preston, Bell’s best work came in that period and after Alan Rusbridger took over the helm in 1995. Since Kath Viner gained the editor’s chair in 2015, Bell has had his contributions pulled on more than one occasion. IF … ended its run in 2021. And now, a cartoon the paper’s news desk failed to understand was his last.

Kath Viner

The impression is given that anything Bell produced satirising Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu would put the editorial team on edge, on a hair trigger for an excuse to call “Anti-Semitism” and have it pulled. So it was no surprise when a Netanyahu cartoon brought the curtain down. It was an homage to David Levine’s characterisation of Lyndon Johnson.

LBJ was depicted with a scar in the shape of Vietnam; Bibi was shown with an outline of Gaza. The Guardian’s team declared “pound of flesh”, as in the loan default penalty of Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. But that was a penalty that had to be paid by someone else; the Netanyahu cartoon showed the Israeli PM about to harm himself clumsily and needlessly.

Perhaps the Guardian and its editor wanted rid of Bell and happened upon a convenient excuse: today’s version of the paper is, sadly, a mere shadow of the title that pulled the plug on phone hacking, its editorial team wanting to be, if not loved by the rest of the print media, at least not getting spat on at press events for busting the code of newspaper Omertà.

The cartoon that ended it all ((c) Steve Bell 2023) ...

The right-wing press, so often the target of Bell’s satire, was not celebrating. Thus far, nothing from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog; perhaps The Great Guido would rather not be reminded of his ability to play both sides of the field on anti-Semitism. And the increasingly alt-right Spectator has registered its concerns.

Editor Fraser Nelson once again ascribes more influence to Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat calls it this week, than it actually possesses. But he is right to conclude “Losing him over this cartoon was a mistake and sets a dangerously low bar for what counts as unacceptable satire”. A mistake that has to be debited to the account of editor Kath Viner.

... and David Levine on LBJ's scar

Nelson also says of the cartoon that effectively got Bell sacked “It seems a fair analogy: Netanyahu will be defined by what happens next in Gaza just as LBJ was by Vietnam”. Johnson was so irredeemably defined by the mess of Vietnam that he declined to run for the Presidency in 1968.

He observes “Bell’s enforced retirement can be seen as part of a bigger trend, that of the parameters for humour and satire being tightened. If they become so narrow as to make both impossible, then our national debate and our culture will be the poorer for it”. And is far too kind to Ms Viner, who has demonstrated a craven cowardice which many suspected was there, but no longer need to suspect. This episode is a disgrace. And it’s down to her.

Meanwhile, thank you Steve Bell, still the greatest of cartoonists.

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