Monday 26 April 2010

The General Election 2010 - One joke too far?

It’s been a week since I've posted anything and I need to get something on here. It seems like there is no time in the day and the way this election is moving, anything I think of writing soon becomes out of date and irrelevant.

Gordon Brown is acutely aware of a similar problem. During the debates he gets his ‘jokes’ in whenever there is a window of opportunity, but if the window is closing he gets it in any way. I refer you to his “Big Society at home, Little Britain abroad” quip to DC in the second debate. The next question was approaching and he knew he had to get that ‘gem’ in, but it barely made any sense in the context of what had been said prior to the gag. I think the other two just ignored him and the Sky man called time on the subject.

All ‘jokes’ supplied by Labour party aides/amateur comedians, including the one and only Alastair Campbell (he’s on Twitter all month…). He no doubt rehearses them with Gordon Brown until Brown is transformed into a grinning lunatic…

His smirk before the “bath time” joke; truly unnerving…! That wasn’t polite laughter from the audience, it was nervous laughter! You could see them shifting in their seats.


“Easy Gordon, just calm down, it’s over. They’re leaving quickly this time…”


Anyway I know the manifesto launch was a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve seen very little mention of Labour’s thoroughly patronising cartoons. I know I will have missed some, but the TV debates have probably let them get away with it, to some extent.

They’re trying to cover all bases; they’ve got a policy for all the family! And they’re trying to show what their policies are all about in nice little bit sized pieces, for people with short concentration spans (and I fully admit I’m in that bracket, I just like to think I can handle more than a badly drawn cartoon).

They’re also trying to reach to those people via YouTube and the internet at large. They’re going “viral”… (And I’m quoting there).

Labour's Cartoon


Mandelson and Brown prepare for the final televised debate…

(I couldn’t find any pictures of the manifesto cartoons. Maybe they will be forgotten forever, as is likely because of the debates, but they could in future be used as evidence that the Labour party had lost the plot…)

This is the link to the manifesto:
http://www2.labour.org.uk/manifesto-splash

Well I’m all for embracing technology, but in the right manner. Right time, right place… They do know they haven’t lowered the voting age yet? I’m not sure they’re planning to lower it to 10…?

I’m sure they’d like to go further, in their use of technology. They’re certainly wh*ring themselves on Twitter and on every available media, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to go one step further…

“So let’s say you’ve lost your job, your house is about to be repossessed and your life’s going to shit?



We’ve got an app for that…!”



"The Labour Party (in conjunction with Apple), we’ve got an app for just about everything!"


Apple didn’t go for it…

And no amount of formula can help with some messes.

But thinking about it, Labour wouldn't have anything for that. If kids or having kids was involved, I’m sure Labour could come up with sort of app for that. Oh let's see, something financial…?


These blogs take up a lot of the very short amount of personal I seem to have at the moment. I have a job where they actually make me work! It’s a bloody liberty. But I’m looking at getting me a job in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After seeing that leaked memo about the Pope's visit, I’m thinking it looks like a good laugh in there…!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642404.stm

This is not party political of course, but it does basically say something about the culture of Government. It must be a right laugh in there if any of those ‘junior’ civil servants thought it would be acceptable to circulate (apparently as far as Downing Street) a memo ripping the piss out of the Pope and Catholicism in general.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong in making jokes about religion, but surely there’s time and a place? I have to work when I’m in work, and when I do skive and take the piss, I don’t circulate the results of it to all senior bosses!!!

But apparently they weren’t skiving this was a brain storming session. Well in these tough economic times I’m just glad our well paid civil servants, in charge of Britain’s international affairs and influencing trade and relations, have plenty of time on their hands…

Apparently the Civil Servant responsible has been “put on other duties”. He’s doing warm ups for Richard Dawkins on the seminar circuit…

This is not the best example of it, as obviously it was in some way deemed acceptable somewhere within the FCO, but it does add some credence to my notion that you would have to kill someone to get sacked from the civil service.

What if Ed Miliband's Labour party manifesto team got together with these bright young sparks at the FCO to come up with poster to commemorate the Pope's visit?



Worth the sack..?

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