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[personal profile] undyingking
I got an email from Labour yesterday boasting about their new Dave the Chameleon advert, so proud are they of it. On the site you can buy Dave mugs, T-shirts, posters etc. The idea, if you've managed to avoid it so far, is that David Cameron is inconsistent in his political opinions, changing them to suit the audience.

Is this a rather misconceived tactic?
  • For a start, the chameleon is rather cute and appealing. Wouldn't a monstrous / demonic-looking one, harking back to the days when Cameron was Norman Lamont's right-hand man, have been better? Or maybe a zombie one that sucked out people's brains with its long, sticky tongue.
  • Secondly, I'm sure there are quite a few people who rather like the idea that Cameron will change his policies according to what he thinks people will want to hear and thus will vote for. After all, it worked for Blair. Saying "Warning, this man is not a die-hard ideologue!" might not be all that clever.
  • Most importantly though, I thought this was supposed to be a local election coming up, not a referendum on the character of the current party leaders. What about attacking bad Tory councils and saying how Labour ones can do better? This compulsion to reduce everything to a game of presidential personalities is profoundly weakening to the wider democracy of the country. It's not surprising that hardly anyone can be bothered to vote in local elections -- the results of which can still actually make quite a bit of difference to your everyday life -- if they're treated in this way.
  • And, let's face it, if Labour are really keen to get into a "your leader's a bit of a gitl" contest, they're not exactly standing on firm ground themselves. Blair has more things about him that can be criticized, and much more serious ones.


On another note, I also got a letter from them saying that the membership fee is going up. I suppose now that the honours-for-loans thing has been blown out, they have to scrape up more money somehow. I feel though that in exchange for renewing membership, people ought to at least get a trust school or two to run -- if it's good enough for plutocrats, it ought to be good enough for ordinary folk too. Or maybe a few of us could club together for a vote in the House of Lords?

Our local Labour party has set up a Co-op account, so that when you shop there you can choose to give your divi to them, rather than either keeping it yourself or giving it to charity. I guess Ipswich is a bit short of ambitious millionaires to help out -- although I doubt they very often shop in the Co-op, anyway.

Date: 2006-04-20 11:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] undyingking.livejournal.com
It's a litl like a 'lotl. Although if he turns out to be fireproof we may have to call him salamander.

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