(Images taken from http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/04/quattro.jpg
and
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/4/2/1270227636291/Labour-campaign-poster-fe-001.jpg)
For the sixth blog post, I have decided to compare two campaign posters, one from Labour, one from the Tories for the upcoming election.
The one thing that makes this campaign stand out from all the previous ones is that the campaign is being led mainly on the internet, and this has led to many people doing their own parodies of the party campaign posters.
The difference between the ideologies of the two parties is evident in the posters, which are both spoofs of the recent Ashes to Ashes TV programme, which is a police drama set in the London Met police in the early 1980s. David Cameron takes the place of DCI Gene Hunt, one of the main characters in Ashes to Ashes.
Labour say "Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s", when there was widespread social unhappiness. Unemployment, racism and riots on the street were rife back then when Thatcher was prime minister. The education system was cut, the health service was cut, the BBC was under threat. Public spending was cut, and so there was little money for improving council estates which had, by the late 1980s, become known as "ghettos". Also, government benefits were cut during 2 deep recessions. Many people consider David Cameron to be the modern day version of Mrs Thatcher, and this has been shown in numerous campaign posters, including the one above.
Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your view), the Conservatives lapped up the opportunity to spoof this poster with their own official campaign poster, probably inspired by what many people have been doing to their campaign posters at http://mydavidcameron.com/
The Conservative version of the same poster also makes use of Gene Hunt's catchphrase "Fire up the (Audi) Quattro", used when he wants his CID team to get shifting if there is a sudden breakthrough in a case they are investigating or some other such event. This catchphrase was not used in Ashes to Ashes' predecessor, Life on Mars, as that was set in 1973 Manchester, a few years before the introduction of the Audi Quattro. In this series, his car was a orangey-brown Ford Cortina, however his Catchphrase (still occasionally used in Ashes to Ashes), when catching someone red-handed was "Stop what you are doing, you are surrounded by armed bastards!!!" This style of police drama explains the popularity of the show and because Ashes to Ashes is coming up to it's climatic final episode, both parties decided to use the show's popularity to their advantage. The "it's time for change" slogan has been used endlessly in the Conservative campaign. Although whether this will be change to something good or something bad we will have to see. I personally suspect that the change David proposes will not be good for most of the country, only the elite few. if they appeal to a small minority, god knows how they managed to stay in power for 18 years from 1979-1997.
The framing of the images is done in such a way that makes the writing the most prominant and important thing in them, instead of David Cameron, even though he is the most important object in the images, as he is the whole subject of both images. The image of David Cameron is there to give you the subject, the image of the red Audi Quattro is there to suggest the basic idea of the poster - i.e. using a popular BBC programme to feed the election campaign, and the writing, which is large, white against a black background, and is given a lot of space on the image, is the most prominent. This means that the main point is (for the Labour poster) to remind those who were old enough or those who had heard of Margaret Thatcher from their parents what the 80s under the Tories were like. It also suggests that David Cameron is trying to be Margaret Thatcher MkIII, much more like Maggie than Tony Blair ever was.
The Conservative poster makes use of the catchphrase from the main character in Ashes to Ashes, Gene Hunt ("Fire up the Quattro"). It suggests that the Conservatives are as raring to go as a brand new Audi Quattro (which was a commercially-released racing car) would have been in the early 1980s. Ashes to Ashes, over it's three series, has been set in 1981, 1982 and 1983. The "time for change" gives the viewer a vague idea of what the Tory party intend to do if they got into power, probably making the viewer wonder changes these could be, thus making them find out exactly what these changes are by themselves, although some of their policies are rather difficult to work out exactly, as they seem to be keeping their exact promises close to their chest. Either this is because they haven't worked out their exact policies yet, or, as Margaret Thatcher did in 1979, only let the public see some parts of their policies, making the public wonder what the exact policies are, making the public vote for the Tories to find out what the exact policies were.
I suppose that these posters could influence a Party Political Broadcast for either Labour or the Conservatives in the run-up to the election planned for Thursday 6th May. For Labour, there could be a video of David Cameron (actually an impressionist impersonating him) in the red Audi Quattro speeding through a run-down council estate or through a city centre with boarded up shops or a Conservative Party Political Broadcast with David Cameron speeding through Canary Wharf in London or through a middle-class suburb or some other place where the proportion of Conservative voters would be high.
For the sixth blog post, I have decided to compare two campaign posters, one from Labour, one from the Tories for the upcoming election.
The one thing that makes this campaign stand out from all the previous ones is that the campaign is being led mainly on the internet, and this has led to many people doing their own parodies of the party campaign posters.
The difference between the ideologies of the two parties is evident in the posters, which are both spoofs of the recent Ashes to Ashes TV programme, which is a police drama set in the London Met police in the early 1980s. David Cameron takes the place of DCI Gene Hunt, one of the main characters in Ashes to Ashes.
Labour say "Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s", when there was widespread social unhappiness. Unemployment, racism and riots on the street were rife back then when Thatcher was prime minister. The education system was cut, the health service was cut, the BBC was under threat. Public spending was cut, and so there was little money for improving council estates which had, by the late 1980s, become known as "ghettos". Also, government benefits were cut during 2 deep recessions. Many people consider David Cameron to be the modern day version of Mrs Thatcher, and this has been shown in numerous campaign posters, including the one above.
Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your view), the Conservatives lapped up the opportunity to spoof this poster with their own official campaign poster, probably inspired by what many people have been doing to their campaign posters at http://mydavidcameron.com/
The Conservative version of the same poster also makes use of Gene Hunt's catchphrase "Fire up the (Audi) Quattro", used when he wants his CID team to get shifting if there is a sudden breakthrough in a case they are investigating or some other such event. This catchphrase was not used in Ashes to Ashes' predecessor, Life on Mars, as that was set in 1973 Manchester, a few years before the introduction of the Audi Quattro. In this series, his car was a orangey-brown Ford Cortina, however his Catchphrase (still occasionally used in Ashes to Ashes), when catching someone red-handed was "Stop what you are doing, you are surrounded by armed bastards!!!" This style of police drama explains the popularity of the show and because Ashes to Ashes is coming up to it's climatic final episode, both parties decided to use the show's popularity to their advantage. The "it's time for change" slogan has been used endlessly in the Conservative campaign. Although whether this will be change to something good or something bad we will have to see. I personally suspect that the change David proposes will not be good for most of the country, only the elite few. if they appeal to a small minority, god knows how they managed to stay in power for 18 years from 1979-1997.
The framing of the images is done in such a way that makes the writing the most prominant and important thing in them, instead of David Cameron, even though he is the most important object in the images, as he is the whole subject of both images. The image of David Cameron is there to give you the subject, the image of the red Audi Quattro is there to suggest the basic idea of the poster - i.e. using a popular BBC programme to feed the election campaign, and the writing, which is large, white against a black background, and is given a lot of space on the image, is the most prominent. This means that the main point is (for the Labour poster) to remind those who were old enough or those who had heard of Margaret Thatcher from their parents what the 80s under the Tories were like. It also suggests that David Cameron is trying to be Margaret Thatcher MkIII, much more like Maggie than Tony Blair ever was.
The Conservative poster makes use of the catchphrase from the main character in Ashes to Ashes, Gene Hunt ("Fire up the Quattro"). It suggests that the Conservatives are as raring to go as a brand new Audi Quattro (which was a commercially-released racing car) would have been in the early 1980s. Ashes to Ashes, over it's three series, has been set in 1981, 1982 and 1983. The "time for change" gives the viewer a vague idea of what the Tory party intend to do if they got into power, probably making the viewer wonder changes these could be, thus making them find out exactly what these changes are by themselves, although some of their policies are rather difficult to work out exactly, as they seem to be keeping their exact promises close to their chest. Either this is because they haven't worked out their exact policies yet, or, as Margaret Thatcher did in 1979, only let the public see some parts of their policies, making the public wonder what the exact policies are, making the public vote for the Tories to find out what the exact policies were.
I suppose that these posters could influence a Party Political Broadcast for either Labour or the Conservatives in the run-up to the election planned for Thursday 6th May. For Labour, there could be a video of David Cameron (actually an impressionist impersonating him) in the red Audi Quattro speeding through a run-down council estate or through a city centre with boarded up shops or a Conservative Party Political Broadcast with David Cameron speeding through Canary Wharf in London or through a middle-class suburb or some other place where the proportion of Conservative voters would be high.
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