Post 5

Another blog, this time with a look at how politicians have been represented in satirical publications and TV programmes. The example I will use here is Ken Clarke, who has served as the Conservative MP for the constituency of Rushcliffe (South Nottinghamshire) since June 1970 - when his preferred political party unexpectedly won that election. Despite all the opinion polls in the months beforehand suggesting a third Labour election victory for Harold Wilson (his first two being in 1964 and 1966, with another one in October 1974, with a hung parliament in February 1974), the Conservatives won a surprise majority and thus got into power.

(Image taken from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/t/the_conservative_party_gifts.asp)

Before I start analyzing this image, I feel it is necessary to have a brief explanation of Clarke's time as an MP to better understand the hidden codes in this image.

Ken Clarke was a minor backbencher to start with (as all politicians are at the beginning of their political career) and slowly rose through the ranks of his party, until he became a prominent member of the cabinet in Margaret Thatcher's third government (1987-1990, that government in total ran from 1987-1992, the Conservatives being in power that time continuously from 1979-1997).

His roles, alongside being an MP for his constituency, were:
1972-1974 Government whip (under Edward Heath's government)
1976-1979 Margaret Thatcher's industry spokesman (when the Conservatives were not in power)
1982-1985 Minister of state for health
1985-1987 Paymaster general
1985-1987 Minister of state for employment
July 1987 - July 1988 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
July 1987 - July 1988 Minister at the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry)
He then entered senior cabinet roles:
July 1988 - November 1990 Secretary of State for Health
November 1990 - April 1992 Secretary of State for Education and Science
April 1992 - May 1993 Home Secretary
May 1993 - May 1997 Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was appointed as Chancellor after John Major, the then Tory leader and Prime Minister decided to sack Norman Lamont from that position after the events of Black Wednesday in September 1992, when millions of pounds were wiped off share values and the UK had to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

After the Conservative party lost the May 1997 election in spectacular style (the Conservatives had lost 171 seats!), Clarke returned to the backbenches, and stayed there until recently, when on 19th January 2009 he was appointed the Conservative's Shadow business secretary. Who knows? If the Conservatives win the upcoming election (planned for May 6th 2010), which, if they win, will be a slim majority, judging by opinion polls, Kenneth Harry Clarke may return to the cabinet. However this is becoming ever more unlikely as Clarke will be approaching his 70th birthday when the election comes around.

The image is supposedly a representation of Clarke's time as a senior cabinet minister. The Conservative party, have, for many years been well known for public spending cuts. He also introduced an "internal market" concept to the NHS and provoked the ambulance drivers' strike of 1989. He is then said to have "ruined" state education when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science. The sharpness of the blades on his fingers, along with movement lines around them to suggest that they are moving a little suggests that he is actively plotting more savage public spending cuts, while the smile on his face is the impression that he gives to the media - that everything is OK and hunky dory when in fact in the real world, everything is not OK.

The image has links to the film Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), in which one of the main characters, Freddy Krueger (played by Robert Englund) also has sharp blades for fingers. The other source of inspiration for this picture may have been a 1987 episode of Spitting Image, in which, in Krueger style, Margaret Thatcher has blades on her fingers, which she places over Scotland ("the testing ground" as her Spitting Image counterpart called it, referring to the fact that many of her policies were "tested" in Scotland before being introduced elsewhere), suggesting that she is just as much a psychotic maniac as Freddie Krueger. The joke here is different though. Whereas in Spitting Image, the blades on the fingers suggest that Margaret was psychotic, in this picture, the blades on Ken Clarke's hands suggest that he makes many cuts - just as many injuries to many parts of the body populated the film which was the obvious inspiration for this drawing. There is also the fact that this image is in black and white - showing a stark contrast, probably representing the stark contrast that there was between rich and poor or Labour and Conservative before Tony Blair decided to completely transform the Labour party when he became leader after the death of John Smith in May 1994.

I suppose in many ways, you could still apply the blade fingers to a satirical drawing of any politician today, as whoever gets in power, it is currently being well publicised in the media that whoever wins the next general election will have to make sizeable public spending cuts. However, if you got many people who were old enough to remember the Tories of the 1980s and early 1990s, it would be most likely that they draw David Cameron with blades on his fingers. There is also a similar operation to this, as there is a website in which the Tories' many advertising campaigns for the next general election are lampooned.

The massive head may also be a nod to the fact that many anti-Tory people thought that they were arrogant, the slang term for which is "big-headed". This could suggest the era when this image was drawn. There had always been a feeling of arrogance among Tory MPs by the general public, however, during John Major's second term as PM (and the Conservative party's fourth consecutive term in office), the feeling of arrogance among Tory MPs was much greater than usual, fuelled by a seemingly continuous string of squabbles, scandals (remember Cash for Questions? and David Mellor's extramarital affair?) and resignations, plus the Conservative party's inability to win by-elections during this bleak period.

The framing of the image is simply with Ken's head (which identifies who he is) and Ken's hands (which can identify his intentions to cut, cut, cut) in the top left corner, with simply his legs in the bottom right corner, so that all of the important aspects of the image are bundled together.

Post 4

(Image from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda+technology/digitalvideo)

The voice screeches out once more on the television. It's now 1990, the Iron Lady has been in power for 11 years. Surely her time is coming to an end??? She seemed to be fully supported by a roaring crowd at the Conservative Conference in October that year, though . . .

When Margaret Thatcher resigned on November 22nd 1990, a long chapter in Britain's political history was closed for good, for newer generations to look back on and such an event would provide any artist or photographer inspiration for a painting or a photograph, such as this one.

The above image is how many people remembered and still remember her nowadays - television pictures, either in this, her real life form, or in her Spitting Image form:

The sight of the iron lady in this form was a regular sight on British TV screens throughout the mid-1980s, as Central Television's ITV programme Spitting Image attracted regular viewing figures of around 15 million by 1989. Politicians of all colours and celebrities were lampooned in rubber or latex puppet form.

(Image reference: http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj59/AidanLunn/Margaret%20thatcher%20Spitting%20image/Thatcherspitimg5.jpg)

To me, the image of Mrs Thatcher on this TV suggests to me that this is how many remembered seeing her, as already suggested. It also suggests to me that she purposefully decided to stay only seen on TV and not seen in real life by the general public, which to me is linked to her wish to separate the gap between rich and poor i.e. not wishing to interact with "the proles".

Also, to me her appearance on this Mitsubishi (?) TV set suggests a little about her popularity at the time and her eventual downfall. On the screen, she appears rather miserable, possibly suggesting to the viewer that Mrs Thatcher herself knows that it won't be long before she is seen exiting 10 Downing Street and the fact that she only appears on this single lone TV set in the picture suggests that she was alone in her wish to remain Prime Minister after a leadership challenge triggered by Michael Heseltine after the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe earlier in November 1990. Also, the colour of the wall in the background behind the TV reflects the colour of the political party that was in power at the time and that Margaret Thatcher led - blue was and still is the Conservative party colour, although the party's distinctive "torch" logo is absent from this image.(Image taken from http://www.ligali.org/images/logos/logo_tory.jpg)
It also, vaguely suggests to me the style of economics she favoured, which I will explain. During her initial election campaign in early 1979, Margaret visited Japan to see how their economic model works, as she was looking for an economic model to base our economic model on once she had changed it (she pledged to destroy trade union power and totally revolutionise Britain's economy. While the manufacturing sector declined under her premiership, it was the fact that in Japan, there were hardly any striking workers or trade union problems that appealed to her the most, and this is how she wanted Britain's workforces to be. The television in the first picture above was made for (not by) a Japanese trading company - Mitsubishi Ltd, a sort of irony in that this TV was made under the economic model that 11 years earlier, Thatcher wanted to adopt for Britain. By this time, foreign, particularly European and Japanese-made electronics were flooding the home and professional electronics market here in Britain, with products from companies such as Bang and Olufsen, Telefunken, Philips, Finlux, Nokia, Sony, Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, JVC and Casio becoming ever popular, while the once-popular British brand names of such products such as Pye, Murphy, Bush, ITT, Deccacolour (otherwise known as "Decca"), Ferguson, Thorn-EMI etc were sold off to foreign electronics manufacturers (such as Pye to Dutch supergiant Philips or Ferguson to JVC of Japan and then passed on to Thomson of France) or were simply closed down as they could no longer cope with the increasing competition from overseas.

















































(Images taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Decca_Logo.svg, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/80/Pye_logo.svg/200px-Pye_logo.svg.png, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Philips_old_logo.svg, & http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/etc/)

The framing of the image is worth an essay in itself, but i shall put it simply: this picture is an image within an image i.e. a TV screen image on a photographic image.

The first image, i.e. the image of the TV showing Mrs Thatcher doesn't show much, but it shows enough to suggest that this is in the living room or "lounge" of the average householder. They are probably either working class or lower-middle-class, judging by the age of the TV if this image was taken nearer the end of Thatcher's downfall. if they were middle-class or even upper-class, then they probably wouldn't have kept a TV for 10-15 years. (I collect old TVs and can usually place the age of a TV based on its design - this TV has no remote and the layout of the front panel suggests to me that this is pre-1990, as that is when TVs stopped being designed with the speaker and control panel to the side of the screen, instead being placed underneath). The TV has a wooden shell with black plastic front panel, although I cannot tell if it has an electronic tuner (and thus has a remote or not) or if it is one of the older-style colour TVs with a number of channel presets that are manually tuned (i.e. via thumbwheels or small screws).

The first image manages to give the impression of the surroundings and the possible place in the class system that the owner is in while also managing to keep the viewer's attention on the TV and the person on its screen.

The second image i.e. the one being shown on the TV screen shows only mrs Thatcher, and there is so little detail shown of the background that it is unknown where exactly she is, although judging by the style of the framing, I would say that she may be making a speech on stage at a conference of some sort, maybe a Conservative party conference.

But how can this image be applied to modern politics? Simple. Look at Gordon Brown's popularity with his party. There are many within his own party, New Labour, who see him as a liability to them winning the next general election, planned for the 6th of May this year. The same thing was what brought down Mrs Thatcher in 1990 - her party saw her as a liability to them winning the next general election (planned for 1991 but deferred to 1992 to give her replacement, John Major, time to settle in and gain the electorate's confidence) and promptly forced her out by holding a leadership contest.

A similar image with Gordon Brown at either the 2007, 2008 or 2009 Labour party conference on a TV set set against a red background (red/cream seems to be the fashion in many middle-class living rooms nowadays). An older TV might even be used to show the image of the current prime minister, to show how out of date he is. In my opinion, he seems to be wanting to turn Labour back around to the old-fashioned pre-1994 Labour, instead of Tony Blair's post-1994 New Labour, in which many of the Tory party's policies were adopted and adapted to fit Labour's political ideology. There have also been accusations that the current prime minister is out of touch with voters, the old TV representing the fact that the TV's owner is out of date or out of touch with technology.

(Image taken from http://www.gillatt.org/labour/images/rose-

Visual Communication blog 3

(Image taken from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/08/xinsrc_5821004090836953124696.jpg)

In contrast to the previous image, this image is taken from above MPs and thus reverses the "superiority" feeling as seen in the previous picture.

The previous picture was taken in the 1950s or 1960s, with this one being taken in 2007. Over that long time, the public's perception of politicians had changed dramatically. In the 1960s, the British public were much more subservient to their "masters", however by 2007, politicians were resented much more by the British public than they had been just 40 years earlier. Presumably this is because since then there have been a number of scandals involving MPs, not least through John Major's 1992-1997 Conservative government, which led to public distrust and, ultimately, his Conservative Government's downfall in May 1997.

The way this image reverses the "superiority" feeling seen in the previous photograph (a much younger Margaret Thatcher outside the Houses of Parliament) is by looking down on a packed House of Commons during a Prime Minister's Questions session. This makes the MPs look numerous and small to the public, which is helped by the fact that they portray themselves as grown-up school-children gangs in a make believe playground when they are debating.

The feeling of inferiority is also helped by the fact that many, if not all, of these MPs could lose their seats at any time during an election or a by-election.

The framing of the image, once again is done in such a way as to make the Prime Minister the central subject in the image. However, the wide-shot of the Government side of the House of Commons in session for PMQs makes a good impression that Gordon Brown is not the powerful political monster that his predecessor was, and the image of him looking rather small and insignificant among his fellow MPs makes him look like he has no power over his party, unlike Tony Blair, who had his party united.

Visual Communication blog entry post 2

(Image taken from: http://www.davyking.com/Houses-of-Parliament-Corrupt.jpg)

My third blog entry, rather than being about a particular Prime Minister or Government, is about the Houses of Parliament as a whole.

This image was created by, and is obviously aimed at, those people who hate virtually, if not all, MPs, never mind a particular party or ideology.

The sun shines and the way the image is framed doesn't make London look too bad on the day this photograph was taken. This helps show the comparison between the real world and the people within the Houses of Parliament. It shows that while the outside world is good and honest, the politicians within this building are scheming, lying, murderous bastards, to put it into the general public's opinion. The black "CORRUPT" lettering, to me, shows that MPs are unfaithful liars and murderers, everything that a saint (represented by white) isn't. It also provides a decent contrast with the background.

The way the image is taken, with everything either side of the Houses of Parliament in this image cropped off, shows that the Houses of Parliament are isolated, maybe isolated from the real world, but it also shows that it could be (literally) isolated from the real world. It could be trying to make the Houses of Parliament look like an isolated prison ala Alcatraz, which could be suggesting where these people belong, after all, prisons are also filled with murderers and fraudsters. Looking at it for a few moments, in this photo, the Houses of Parliament look slightly like a fortress.

The image is framed with the edges cut off to also direct the viewer's attention to the Houses of Parliament, as calling all MPs corrupt is the main objective of the image. The "CORRUPT", styled like the "INSANE" ink printed on a clinically insane prisoner's hand also goes to suggest that all MPs are corrupt, with the "CORRUPT" lettering hanging over the Houses of Parliament as this immediately says to the viewer that all MPs are corrupt, with nothing else in the image to make the viewer think that the "CORRUPT" relates to something else.

Needless to say, no matter how many times people protest like this, it is unlikely the lying, scheming and murdering will stop anytime soon!

Visual communication blog entry post 1

My second blog is also about the political career of Margaret Thatcher, when her premiership and the economic changes she sweeped in weren't even a dream or a nightmare to anyone except Margaret Thatcher herself.

This photograph was taken of Margaret Thatcher much earlier in her political career, and judging by the style of the photograph, it was either taken when she was first elected to parliament as an MP for Finchley, North London, when she first entered the Conservative shadow cabinet as shadow Fuel Spokesman, or when she became secretary of state for Education under Edward Heath's Conservative government in June 1970. It is unlikely that it was taken when she became Conservative party leader in 1975 or after that as fashions, her hairstyle and her hair colour had changed dramatically by then. The fact that the image is in black and white and obviously aged, and the fact that Margaret Thatcher looks young in this image suggests roughly how old the picture is.

(Image taken from http://www.morethings.com/images/margaret_thatcher/margaret-thatcher-100.jpg)

The image of a young MP in front of the Houses of Parliament is an effective one - the size difference between the MP in the image and the Big Ben clock tower shows that the MP feels very small and insignificant in such an institution as the House of Commons, especially when they are new, plus the image shows that the MP still has a long way to go to being a prominent member of the cabinet, as the size of Big Ben compared to them represents the size of the task that lays ahead of them before they are to become a household name. Towering persons or objects have represented power and wealth in photograhy many times from MPs standing in front of the Houses of Parliament, to the Daleks on Doctor Who.

Images such as this have even been spoofed by satirical media, such as The New Statesman, ITV's political satire sitcom, which ran from 1987-1992. This is not the finalised DVD cover for the DVD release of the series, however this image was used in the montage image that was the final DVD release cover.

(Image taken from http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/953/thenewstatesmanfrontcov.jpg).

The photo of Mrs thatcher, above, is a great source for framing to represent power.

For a start, the placing of Margaret Thatcher a long way in front of the Houses of Parliament suggests, to me, that she is a bright young person, eager to take on the world of politics, and with a political career ahead of her. The image of Big Ben in the background, however, suggests to me that the inception of parliament is not in the distant past yet, as it will have many more years of use, but Big Ben being in the background is certainly rather old.

Little did anyone know at the time of taking the original photograph what effect Margaret Thatcher would have on the UK and how she would split society between "love her" and "hate her". She has been likened to Marmite because, as one of their advertising slogans went: "you either love it or hate it".