Will chameleon karma help Labour?

It's one of the more unusual political images. Labour hopes its impression of David Cameron as a chameleon on a bicycle will create the impression that the new Tory leader changes his views to suit the audience.  It's a brave approach, which by implication condemns new Labour. Tony Blair came to power after ditching everything his party campaigned for in the general election that sent him to Westminster in 1983. Small things like nationalising everything that moved, withdrawing from Europe and unilateral nuclear disarmament.

The reality is that few political ads have any impact. Most voters switch off whenever a party political gets in the way of their diet of soaps and celebrities. And some of the most famous ads won applause but not votes - most memorably, 'Kinnock the movie' in the 1987 election campaign, which spectacularly failed to stop Margaret Thatcher winning her last landslide.

To strike home, a political ad must echo a common feeling. In 1978, Jim Callaghan's government was running out of road. The Seventies were a grim decade, dominated by strikes, the end of full unemployment and inflation. Saatchi's 'Labour isn't working' poster for the Tories brilliantly captured the mood of a nation. The timing was perfect: Callaghan famously decided not to call an autumn election, gambling that the Government's success in taming inflation would continue. He couldn't have been more wrong. Within months, the winter of discontent left voters disgusted with union callousness and irresponsibility, and prompted them to vote for Britain's first woman prime minister. The bitter irony was that Thatcher returned Britain to Thirties-style mass unemployment. The hypocrisy stank. But hey, political ads don't have to be legal, decent or truthful! 

Comments

[Bob Piper]

As someone who campaigned for Labour in 1983 I challenge you to show me where we threatened (promised) to 'nationalise everything that moved' (I wish). We did promise a whole host of good socialist measures than the Blairites have reversed... but hey, he won, we lost! In fairness to Blair (he said through gritted teeth) I doubt he ever campaigned for a socialist agenda. He is a Liberal Tory and he has remained so consistently... the bastard.