Tories – Page 11 – Prog Gold

Eminently spoofable

Published on January 20, 2010

Spoof of the Cameron election poster

Let Alex explain why this poster works and is so spoofable

Somehow, that poster seems almost designed for satire. There are excellent reasons why it works so well; itâ€™s possibly the most stylised example of a political advert I can think of. In a sense, itâ€™s a movie â€“ not at all original, but highly competent in a limited way, and therefore a perfect subject for parody. You only need to identify a small number of controls, or variables, that define it, in order to produce a message that matches the requirements of the format perfectly but has an entirely different payload.

(Yes, he does think a bit too much about these things, but that makes his blog a must read…)

The Tories and their pals in Europe

Published on August 11, 2009

As if it’s not enough that the Tories are now aligned in the European Parliament with the Latvian Waffen-SS Admiration Society, it turns out that yes, their current chair — Michal Kaminski from Poland’s Law and Justice party — is, if not an outright antisemite, not quite somebody who gets invited to a lot of Bar Mitzvahs:

Mr President should not take the guilt on the Polish nation, the whole nation that he should represent for what happened in Jedwabne and apologise in its name. I am ready to say the word: I am sorry but under two conditions. First of all I need to know what I am apologising for. I apologise for a handful of outcasts. Secondly I can do that if will know that someone from the Jewish side will apologise for what the Jews did during the Soviet occupation between 1939 and 1941. For the mass collaboration of the Jewish people with the Soviet occupier, for fighting Polish partisans in this area. And eventually for murdering Poles.

That was said by him in an interview with the Polish newspaper Nasza Polska, in the context of an official Polish apology for the atrocities that happened in Jedwabne back in 1941, on the sixtieth anniversary of the massacre there. As the Wikipedia article on Jedwabne makes clear this is a touchy subject for Polish nationalists, as it clashes with the image of Poles as innocent victims of nazi oppression and raises the question of Polish collaboration with the Holocaust. Every nazi-occupied country, including the Netherlands has had to deal with this of course, but we’ve had had longer to come to terms with this part of our past; during the communist era in Poland (and other Warsawpact countries) this was a taboo subject. No wonder than that rightwing nationalists like Kaminski are not too keen on this subject or too sympathetic to the Jewish experience in Poland during World War II.

Should David Cameron and the Tories, who after all do want to establish themselves as a modern rightwing non-xenophobic party, therefore be associated with him? What’s more, should Stephen Pollard, usually the first cock to crow at any hint of anti-semitism by anybody even vaguely associated with the left, be spending his time defending his man?

Well yes, better this than accusing others of anti-semitism…

Tories say: trust people, but not with money

Published on July 6, 2009

Red Toryism apparantly is taking the worst of New Labour paternalism and combine it with the worst kind of …erm… New Labour free market fetishism, if two recent trail balloons — aid vouchers for people in poor countries to spent on private schools and investment vouchers for the poor in the UK, paid for by the sale of the nationalised banks to make them into “asset investors” — are anything to go by. So much for fresh new ideas from Cameron.

If you genuinely want to give poor people control over how to spent the money to get them out of poverty, give them the money directly, don’t arse about with bloody vouchers. But if you give them money you can’t control what they do with it and they might actually spend it on the wrong things. They might even buy …cigarettes. What’s more, vouchers are like company scrip, only redeemable through approved venues, another way to channel money supposed to help the poor into the pockets of your business friends.

The best way to lift people up out of poverty is by giving them money. Sure, some no doubt will fuck up, but they do so already and the thing about fucking up is, it matters less if you have more money (and are safely middle class) as we all know. I know I’ve made mistakes, but none of them could doom me, as I had money and more importantly, my parents had the money and connections to shelter me from my mistakes.

When Middle England Attacks

Published on May 27, 2009

Just because they don’t shout doesn’t mean they don’t want to lynch you. Watch troughing Tory Andrew McKay MP get taken apart over his expense claims by his politely furious constituents :

His face is an absolute picture. I might’ve been a little less contemptuous of McKay had he got up, told them to go forth and multiply, and walked out with his greedy and amoral head held high.

But he can’t get away – he’s spent so long playing the Tory grandee he’s permanently stuck in character. He has to sit and listen to people tell him what an asshat he is, because to do otherwise would conflict with his mistaken gentlemanly self-image. Look at his expression: it has the studied rigidity of the baddie brought to book in an Enid Blyton school story.

Exceedingly enjoyable. I’d like to see every MP made to sit and watch it several times a day for several days at least once a year, on their own time, no expenses payable. Can’t wait for the next one, for this surely is the start of a longrunning series.

Tories and IT, A Match Made in Hell part II: Electric Boogaloo

Published on February 11, 2009

So yesterday Palau brought you the story of the Tories’ internet witchhunt against a supposed undercover journalist looking for dirt only to discover she wasn’t, actually. Today we get a perhaps even worse example of Tory IT bungling, as the party has been caught in perhaps the saddest thing you can do to win an (online) argument: altering a Wikipedia page:

The Tories have admitted a member of staff altered a Wikipedia entry on the artist Titian after a row between Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

During exchanges at prime minister’s questions, the Tory leader mocked Mr Brown for talking of Titian at 90, when he said in fact he had died age 86.

Shortly afterwards a Wikipedia user registered at Tory HQ moved his birth date forward by four years.

The party admitted an “over-eager” member of staff had been responsible.

David Cameron has since been disciplined for his gaffe and has had to hand in his Imac for a week.