I knew it! The Wargame proves that we are lucky Michael Gove was never prime minister
The first thing you will hear when you tune into Sky’s new reality series The Wargame is a warning that the programme will contain “scenes which some viewers may find distressing”. Presumably the thought behind this is that it shows depictions of foreign missiles hitting British shores. But then again, the opening scene does contain someone addressing Michael Gove as “prime minister”, so maybe it’s that too.
The reality is that there are many ways of viewing The Wargame. Ostensibly, it is a recreation of how the British government would react in the event of a Russian attack on our soil. If you wanted to see it purely as entertainment, however, then it’s a lot like sitting through a series of 24 where we never get to see Kiefer Sutherland and all the action is confined to a bunch of dull people pulling faces around a table. You could also argue that, since everyone on camera repeatedly complains how poorly equipped Britain is to deal with an attack, The Wargame also sort of doubles as an open invitation for Russia to come and bomb the hell out of us.
My favourite reading, however, is that this is the modern-day equivalent of Jim Bowen ending a Bullseye episode by showing dejected contestants what they could have won. The Wargame exists in a universe where not only is Michael Gove prime minister, but Nicola Sturgeon is his deputy, Penny Mordaunt is defence secretary, Harriet Harman is Home Secretary and Anthony Scaramucci – of all people – is the US secretary of state.
In other words, The Wargame is a stinging rebuke for anyone who thinks that we currently live in the darkest timeline. Because, sure, things ain’t great, but you have to hope that our current lot won’t scrabble around quite as uselessly as the cast assembled here.
Obviously Michael Gove is a subprime prime minister, but you must have expected that. He’s been out of the game for a while now, and has retreated to the comfort – tenuous as it might be, given that it involves a print publication – of editing The Spectator. You can see this loucheness all over his demeanour on the show, not least thanks to his whopping new sideburns, which give him the presence of a corduroy-clad visiting professor who arrives at campus by falling out of a smoke-filled camper van.
He does make some decisions – albeit a bit late, hoping that adding “ASAP” at the end of his orders with the trademark Gove-y list gives them some urgency (it doesn’t). The same decision-making verve cannot be said for Sturgeon, who spends the entire duration of all Cobra meetings piping up to either state the obvious or repeat what someone else has just said, just to remind people that she’s actually there. If you have ever had a meeting in your life, then you will understand how dreadful this is. True, making the wrong decision and causing the world to end in total nuclear obliteration is one thing, but allowing a meeting to go on any longer than is necessary is absolutely unforgivable.
Nobody else is much cop, either, as you’d expect from a government assembled from people who presumably just really need the money. Harman does a very good impression of someone whose constipation has rendered her apoplectic. Mordaunt keeps doing this weird David Brent thing where she mentions how much she loves the navy whenever the camera is on her. Only Jim Murphy, the former Scottish Labour Party leader cosplaying as foreign secretary, is relatable, but that’s only because he seems to end the majority of his phone calls by groaning the word “f*ck”. Who among us, etc.
But let’s be positive. True, as entertainment, The Wargame most closely resembles a touring regional production of the British government, but at least it is a show where former politicians get to play dress-up as current politicians. If you remember some of the indignities of the past – like Matt Hancock on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, or Matt Hancock again on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins – then this has to represent something of a step up.
More importantly, look at their happy little faces! These are all people who have been rejected by the electorate, getting to splash about in a simulacrum of power. It’s actually kind of sweet in a way, a bit like when they put virtual reality machines into care homes so that residents can relive old memories from the comfort of their rooms. You keep half expecting Gove to walk in with a little cape on, telling everyone that he knows how to fly. It must be lovely for them.
Clearly, despite presenting itself as a half-inch from the truth, The Wargame is an entertaining piece of hokum. That said, I hope it runs and runs, with new what-if governments helmed by a procession of other failed prime ministerial wannabes taking charge of new scenarios. How would Wes Streeting have coped with an American civil war? Or Jeremy Corbyn with a plague? What if we put Esther McVey in charge of the country on the day that sharks grow legs and start running around eating people? Please, I implore you to watch The Wargame in enough numbers to make that a reality.