Exclusive: Labour ‘happy’ with Cameron spoof site
Sources within the Labour Party are clearly hoping that more of the national media start paying attention to the grass-roots campaign to spoof David Cameron’s posters.
Following on from the wild popularity of the MyDavidCameron website, which was also echoed on LibCon in this popular spoof pictures post, the Labour online team ran with the idea on their website.
A Labour source working on online projects told LibCon today:
We are proud and more than happy to promote campaigns that our supporters online have developed, and give them further publicity. We wanted to give people visiting our site to create their own spoofs. It shows we are responding to what interests our supporters.
The source also told Liberal Conspiracy they were “bemused” by an attempt by Tory blogger Guido Fawkes to spin this as a ‘dirty tricks campaign’.
The more people that talk about our campaign and Cameron’s posters the better really.
The Conservatives have of course done the same in the past, once publishing a poster of Brown and Darling, and another poster later accusing Labour of ‘class war’.
That point was further underscored today in a blog-post on the industry publication Brand Republic’s website.
In a post titled ‘Guido Fawkes gets knickers in a twist over airbrush spoof‘, Gordon MacMillan says:
The Labour Party and its digital team has clearly been paying attention to what it going on in the real world where brands have been doing this kind of thing for a good while.
Adopting ideas from you community is not “stealing” or “devoid” of political ideas it is smart and shows that the party is in touch with, responding to, and engaging with its supporters
…
…I’m sure there will be a note of thanks on the way for keeping the story going and spreading the word about airbrush Dave Cameron.
He then links another real defacement of the Cameron poster:
Serena Hotel attack two years on
Two years ago today gunmen attacked the Serena hotel in Kabul. A number of my friends were there at the time and a couple got caught up in the cross-fire. Here is an account by one of them about what happened.
Thor Hesla, a former colleague of mine from the UN mission in Kosovo, was amongst the people killed that day
Is it the end of racism?
In a speech today the communities secretary John Denham will say that ethnic minorities are no longer automatically disadvantaged in Britain, but that disadvantage is more linked to poverty, class and identity.
New trends are emerging linked to the way that race and class together shape people’s lives and this makes the situation much more complex. That does not mean that we should reduce our efforts to tackle racism and promote race equality but we must avoid a one dimensional debate that assumes all minority ethnic people are disadvantaged.
This should be welcomed and I’ve been arguing for a multi-dimensional approach for years, one of the reasons why I opposed ethnic minority shortlists. Class is indeed one of the primary factors affecting minorities, especially in education where middle class boys of Indian and African backgrounds do better than working class kids from white, Caribbean and Bangladeshi backgrounds.
To say that a person’s race affects their opportunities in society less than factors such as class and gender is now, I think, to state the obvious. In a way it is also a welcome development because it shows our society has become much more progressive on race issues: though it’s still a problem that how much a child’s parents earn still matters.
I can predict some comments and headlines on the right: ‘see, it shows why multiculturalism and political correctness should be ditched and Richard Littlejohn spoketh the gospel‘ etc.
continue reading… »
Ditch the old New Labour crew, says Statesman
The New Statesman magazine this week calls for a ditching of the old New Labour guard.
Once regarded as a Brownite magazine, the stark leader calls Brown’s administration “intelectually hollowed” and out of ideas.
Despite three consecutive and historic general election victories for the Labour Party over the past 13 years, the triangulations of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson have left mainstream progressive politics in the UK intellectually hollowed out, bereft of an animating or compelling vision of “the good society”.
…
Interestingly, and dismayingly, neither Mr Hoon nor Ms Hewitt could point to a single policy associated with the Prime Minister with which they disagreed. Those who seek to topple Gordon Brown do so because of personality, and not policy. They have nothing new to offer.
The magazine then goes on to praise attempts by the likes of James Purnell, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander, all much younger than the triumvirate of Brown, Blair and Mandelson, as voices worth listening to.
Does Labour have a winning argument?
That is one of the questions we’re asking at Saturday’s ‘Causes to fight for‘ Fabian new year conference.
In a piece for the New Statesman’s Staggers blog yesterday, I looked at the particular challenges for Labour in reconnecting to disillusioned liberal-left voters as part of the task of rebuilding the broad electoral coalition which won it three election victories.
Here’s a snippet:
The focus of Labour’s campaign has been on ensuring the Conservatives face the scrutiny of a would-be government in waiting. That the Conservatives are ahead in framing the election year can be seen in how often Ministers seem forced to contest Tory narratives – a debt crisis, the broken society, or the (ludicrous) idea that Labour has declared ‘class war’.
Guido blames Labour for Beau Bo D’or spoof
Guido has an ‘exclusive’ for his readers this morning…
Exclusive : Labour Faked Cameron “Airbrushing”
In response to the last story Guido got a tip-off by a co-conspirator to compare the original Tory poster with the Labour attack poster. The before and after comparison is clear: before on the original poster Dave is wearing heavy make-up but you can still see stubble, lines and skin pores, after Labour have manipulated the picture it looks as if he has been very clumsily airbushed. Deliberate manipulation to make the slogan work…
Labour faked the airbrushing on the spoof Cameron posters?
Really?
That’s funny, because I – and just about everyone else in the left-wing blogosphere who’ve been in on the joke for days – was under the impression that the original spoof poster was Beau Bo D’or’s work…
The moral of the story seems to be that if Guido spent less time listening to ‘co-conspirators’ and more time paying attention to the world around him then he wouldn’t make quite so much of an arse of himself.
Update
As you’ll see in comments, Beau Bo D’or has confirmed that its not his original artwork that’s being used but the template from myDavidCameron.com, which is clearly inspired by Beau Bo’s original Madame Tussards gag.
That’s still good enough for me to credit Beau Bo for coming up with the airbrushed Cameron joke in the first place.
The Tory NHS: Lies, Libels and Price-fixing
If you were to ask David Cameron to sum up the content of the Conservative Party’s draft health manifesto in three words then I dare say he’d reply, ‘decentralisation, accountability and transparency’.
Read the manifesto for yourself, and you’ll quickly find three much better words to describe it, ‘lies, libel and price-fixing‘.
Now, admittedly, you do expect that political parties will be somewhat economical with the truth in setting out their manifestos, but by any reasonable standards, the lie contained in this manifesto’s introduction is a whopper…
We understand the pressures the NHS faces. In recognition of its special place in our society, we are committed to protecting health spending in real terms – we will not make the sick pay for Labour’s Debt Crisis. But that doesn’t mean the NHS shouldn’t change. When you’re more likely to die of cancer in Britain than most other countries in Europe -
You are not more likely to die of cancer in Britain than in most other European countries as a peer reviewed study of estimated cancer incidence and mortality rates in 39 European countries, which was published in 2007 in ‘Annals of Oncology’, clearly demonstrates. continue reading… »
Fabian Society annual conference this Saturday
Titled ‘Causes to Fight For’, the Fabian Society are holding their New Year Conference 2010 on Saturday 16th January 2010, Imperial College London
Keynote speakers: a senior Government ministers including Lord Mandelson, Ben Bradshaw MP, John Denham MP, Hilary Benn MP, David Lammy MP.
Others include: Ken Livingstone, Vince Cable MP, Sadiq Khan MP, Will Hutton, Matthew Taylor, Polly Toynbee, Kerry McCarthy MP, Douglas Carswell MP, Gaby Hinsliff, Nadine Dorries MP, Neal Lawson and Rushanara Ali PPC.
Fabians are also members to submit one idea to beat the Right in 2010 – anything from policy proposals to election tactics. Or perhaps you have an effective general election slogan or want to draw a specific dividing line with the opposition?
The best submissions will be asked to pitch their idea to the Democracy Den Dragons – including David Lammy MP, Ken Livingstone, Mehdi Hassan and Deborah Mattison.
You can submit your idea for the 2010 Democracy Den – One Idea to Beat the Right – by clicking here.
Tickets for the conference and the full agenda is here.
The state is wrong to ban thought-crime
Say someone of Basque extraction, working in London, hangs behind his desk a flag obviously based on the Union Jack, save that the crosses are white and green and the background red.
Just for clarification, we’ll add here that all his colleagues know that to refer to him even casually as ‘Spanish’ is making a one heck of a mistake. And when the story breaks that Euskadi ta Askatasuna tried three times to assassinate Jose Maria Aznar, failing on each occasion, our hypothetical friend maintains in conversation that they were right to do so, and that he hopes that they have better luck next time.
Alternatively, anyone old enough to remember the days of lock ins at Irish pubs may have found themselves standing to attention at some point in the small hours, as the show band played a passable version of Amhrán na bhFiann and the buckets started passing round and filling up with cash.
continue reading… »
Help Haiti
A huge 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti last night. This is one of the worst disasters to befall crisis ridden Haiti.
The extent of the devastation is still unclear but it is likely thousands have died and many many more are trapped in the rubble. The early signs are not good, with communications down across the country Haiti’s large expatriate population are still unclear what has happened to their relatives and friends.
We’d urge all of our readers to donate to the disaster relief charities, and ask other bloggers to crosspost this message to spread the word about how to help.
Oxfam has long experience in Haiti, and they are rushing in teams from around the region to respond where they’re needed most. They already have a team in Port-au-Prince and their response will include providing clean water, shelter and sanitation.
UNICEF have issued a statement that “Children are always the most vulnerable population in any natural disaster, and UNICEF is there for them.” UNICEF requests donations for relief for children in Haiti via their Haiti Earthquake Fund.
Medicins san Frontieres are responding to the Earthquake in Haiti with their usual speed and efficiency and any donations would be of a great help.
Mercy Corps are also seeking donations so they can expand their aid efforts in Haiti.
More organisations seeking donations are available here. Please help in whatever way you can.
(With thanks to Left Outside, original post here)
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