Labour has released a new poster attacking David Cameron. It shows him as Gene Hunt from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, with the slogan "Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s."
But you can see that for yourself
It is a very bad poster for two reasons.
The first is that David Cameron is nothing like Gene Hunt. These sort of parallels work only if the two figures have something in common and you are drawing attention to that quality. If a politician is a bit of a spiv, then likening him to Arthur Daley is a good tactic. If he is universally regarded as an upright citizen, then it is just silly.
And this is a silly parallel because Cameron is nothing like Gene Hunt in appearance or character. I suspect the public will just be puzzled by the poster.
Labour had better hope they are, because the second reason this is a seriously bad poster is that Gene Hunt is a hero. The fact that Labour are using him in this way suggests, as they might put it themselves, that they just don't get it.
You can imagine Labour workers around a table saying how terrible Hunt and his world are. The inappropriate language! The poor attention to health and safety! The lack of an Independent Safeguarding Agency!
If any of those workers took a different view, I doubt they would have the courage to say so in public.
So they imagine that the rest of us are horrified by Hunt too. And if any people are not, well they must be racist or sexist or be infected with some other ism.
The truth is that Hunt became a national hero because he operates in a world where he can speak his mind unencumbered by the codes and boards that hem us in today. In an earlier generation, Pop Larkin enjoyed his family and the good things of life while maintaining a healthy disregard for officialdom.
Many on the left take the complaint about "Political Correctness gone mad" as a simple wish to be racist. But why not take it at face value? Yes, it soon gets tedious. Yes, it is often ill informed. But isn't a dislike of being told what to do and say by the government one of the foundations of Liberalism?
The left fears that if people are not nagged or policed then social progress will never be made. But look around you at the most public signs that we have become a less racist society - the mixed-race couples, the white children with the names of black footballers on the back of their shirts - and it is not at all clear that they are principally the result of government action.
So Labour should not be using Gene Hunt to attack David Cameron. And Liberals should be aware of what Hunt's popularity signifies.
6 comments:
Gene who? Never heard of him. One wonders what sector of the electorate this poster is aimed at.
But I do remember the 1980s, and from that point of view it might hit home. So its the car, not the Cameron image, that is the star.
To add to dreamingspire's point - it seems to be a popular notion with a select part of the blogosphere that Gene Hunt is a "hero" to lots of voters... but I'm not really sure that's the case.
a) As dreamingspire illustrates, the viewing figures for the show aren't actually that high - in terms of the electorate.
b) Maybe there are particular demographics for whom Gene Hunt is a hero, but maybe there are others for whom he isn't. Can't think why all those articles about how women in marginals are the key voters this time around springs to mind... must be some mental affliction I have...
Gene who? Never heard of him.
I hadn't either, so all I saw was Cameron sitting on the bonnent of an Audi.
Didn't quite see how that was meant to be an attack on him.
As for people who do watch the show: the wikipedia article on him suggests that most of them regad him as one of the good guys.
I think that the Labour spin machine got this one totally wrong!!
Never mind, the Tories have their secret weapon - called a Grayling - which can be relied on to bring Cameron's assurances crumbling down. I can see them dusting off section 28 and thinking 'hmmm with a little re-wording, we might have something here' hahaha
I did regard that generation of Audis as spivs' cars, but not necessarily the Quattro which was a muscle car (rally driver stuff, you know).
I emigrated to Canada before the PC madness of Labour all but destroyed the UK. Although we don't get Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes here, YouTube has at least allowed me to catch up with the episodes. I was 15 years old in 1973, the year Life On Mars is set in. All the uniformed coppers were like Dixon of Dock Green, and CID were all Gene Hunts (for the most part). Crime was kept under control, detection rates were better, and you could speak your mind in public without being arrested for it. Even when I emigrated over here in mid 1990's, it still wasn't bad.
Fast-forward to 2010 and what do we find? Hundreds - and I mean HUNDREDS - of UK coppers all moving to Canada where they are continuing with their careers here. When I ask most of the ones I meet as to why they moved away from the UK, they gave me three common answers.
1. Too many politically correct rules suffocating their ability to do the job sensibly.
2. between four and eight hours of paperwork per crime (so they are stuck in the nick all day).
3. Out-of-control (violent) crime.
I even met PC Stuart Davidson of PC David Copperfield fame (he authored the book. "Wasting Police Time"). Stu now works for the Edmonton City Police here in Alberta. He loves it here and will never go back to the UK.
By the way, oversix hundred ex-UK coppers now work in NSW, Australia. Like their Canadian colleagues, they are staying put!
What, with clean, modern living, a great standard of living, breathtaking scenery, far less violent crime that the UK, and petrol at only £1.70 a gallon, I'm not moving back either!
Bill Gibbons
Calgary, Alberta
Post a Comment