Put your clothes on Dave!

The Conservatives’ new poster has been launched with the words “our new poster underlines our positive agenda on welfare reform”.

Yet the Tory manifesto is not nearly so hard hitting as represented here; the formation of local work clubs and those on job seekers allowance carrying out community work, might even have once been described as paternalistic. Moreover, while the policy to which the poster refers is in the manifesto, it is a policy of last resort.

And it is last resort to which the Tory leader would have appeared to have returned, a sop to a wing of the party who would probably have voted for him anyway. More importantly given the changing nature of the electorate it is a move that Tim Bale argued against two months ago.

The poster’s combination of image and text is also an odd one. Posters are at their most successful when image and text combine, one supporting the other in harmony. It is perhaps the Conservatives who have been best at this in the recent past, as with Labour’s Tax Bombshell (1992), which successfully combined slogan and text in 1992, to visualise an internal fear that many voters had:

The new Conservative poster makes no attempt to join image and word. We have the image of go-getting Cameron and a seemingly unrelated slogan, and while the two don’t contrast they also seem to have little rapport. The poster may prove to be successful, but as a piece of political marketing it is banal.


And then there’s Cameron’s wardrobe or indeed lack of it. Firstly we had Cameron in no tie, relaxed and informal he was the man we could trust. We now have him with no tie and no jacket, go-getting and eager to get on with the job.

How many clothes will he mislay before the election is out?

Christopher Burgess

Sun worshippers let us lead you

The front cover of Labour’s election manifesto - launched this morning – features a bright sunshine. Given that Labour are in the ‘future business’, it’s a strange choice – because it was a common image before 1945, but not since.
Before 1945 party political imagery would often feature the sun, promising a brighter future. Before the First World War and during in the inter war period, Gerald Spencer Pryse was at the forefront of poster design for the Labour Party. In his work the people could be seen stepping out of the dark and into a brighter future. Most notably in “Forward the Day is Breaking”

and also “To-morrow when Labour Rules”

Although not by Pryse but even more striking use of the sun-visual metaphor is ”Greet the Dawn, Give Labour it’s chance” (with the apostrophe in the wrong place), which was used by the party in the elections of the 1920s, and which Labour’s modern image most obviously resembles.

But it is not just Labour which historically has used the sun within its propaganda. The Conservatives “Sun-ray treatment” utilised strikingly similar imagery in 1929.

This has not been unnoticed by one prolific blogger, although it should be noted that he got the date wrong.

Christopher Burgess

Fire up the Hansom cab

"It seems odd for parties to look back into the relatively distant past, considering that they are in the business of providing better futures..."

In all the fuss about the new Labour poster featuring David Cameron as Gene Hunt one thing has been missed: this is not the first time that the party has turned to its supporters for poster designs. For that, you can go back to the distinctly pre-internet 1908, when the National Executive Committee decided to put an ad in Fabian News soliciting ideas. It’s not clear what ideas this produced, but Labour’s 1910 campaign went on to feature the iconic designs by the Royal Academician Gerald Spencer Pryse, ‘Workless’, ‘Landless’, and ‘Forward! The Day Is Breaking!’ The Conservative party agents journal of 1910 similarly asked if agents had any ideas for posters, and to send them in.

And note: it’s also not the first time Labour attempts to play on history have backfired. In 1979 Labour produced this:

The poster was meant to remind people of Heath’s three-day week, but coming just after the Winter of Discontent it was a marketing disaster.

It seems odd for parties to look back into the relatively distant past, considering that they are in the business of providing better futures. History, if nothing else, is open to interpretation as the Tory rebuttal has shown. To anyone under the age of 30 the 1980s were a time of childhood. To fans of Ashes to Ashes, Gene Hunt anyway is a hard nosed go-getter. Perhaps parties should concentrate more on the future, rather that arguments about a past that a significant number of the population can’t remember. However given what’s in store, whoever wins the election, perhaps it’s not so surprising that the future will not feature much in the current campaign.

Christopher Burgess