David Cameron's bizarre (but expected) use of language.

It's nothing new to hear politicians use bizarre language, they often seem to inhabhit a realm stalked by dizzying words and expressions such as 'empowerment' and 'choice agendas', not to mention the most terrifying of all: 'reform'. However I was struck by two David Cameron uses of language by their utter concealment of truth a nd how a marketing man may twist language to suit his ends. Firstly their was a seemingly innocuous aside after being asked about the shielding of charities from a VAT rise
'I will certainly have those conversations with the Treasury, and we will want to do everything we can to help what used to be called, rather condescendingly, the third sector but I believe is the first sector: the excellent charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises that do so much for our country…so often these first sector organisations have the right answers to the social problems in our country.'
Aside from the clunkiness of his turn of phrase it is astonishing how utterly vacuous his point is and misleading its implications are. Firstly the term 'third sector' is not condescending in any way. The turn of phrase simply reflects the fact that the bulk of GDP is spent and earned in the private or public sector. Would Mr Cameron wish otherwise? Of course not as charities are reliant on private and government contributions to make ends meet, they could never be 'the first sector' in any meaningful sense. So how is it the 'first' sector? Because it is the most important to our welfare? Because it 'so often has the right answers...' ?Well even if these were true, the 'first sector' would still be reliant on government or private money to operate. Of course the other two points are nonsense too. Most great advancements or changes have come about either through private endeavour (Cars, advances in computing) or government (NHS, Welfare, universal schooling.) with volunteers sometimes playing an important role in stepping in when there is both state and market failure to provide a service (often where there is no renumeration on offer for private investors, and either for historical, current reasons or because it's seen as frivolous, the state doesn't want to get involved.) The lable 'the third sector' in fact is far from condescending, it places an importance on charity work that places it alongside the public and private sector as a provider of services: one that is certainly greater than the percentage of GDP it takes up. Mr Cameron here is calling an apple an orange, then saying that the apple is a better orange because it's an apple. Only a PR man could do this.

Second of all there was his characterisation of the Labour front bench as 'deficit deniers'. This is a more pernicious rebranding. Firstly of course because it is directed at his opponents. Secondly because it was a pre prepared line trotted out in response to a question about protecting research grants (?!?!) and lastly because of the term itself. Its ludicrousness is most easily seen if compared with the term 'climate change deniers'. People who deny firstly that man made climate change exists, and secondly assert that anything done to combat it is a dreadful (in some cases a tyrranical plot) waste of money. Do the Labour front bench deny that the deficit exists? Nope, they agree broadly on the figures, although they believe that their policies would leave a slightly smaller structural deficit due to increased growth. Do they assert that we should do nothing about the deficit? Nope. They want it cut, but think that a better way to do this is to cut slowly but surely in order to both save pain and avoid a double dip recession which would derail any plans for cutting the deficit anyone might have. So deniers Dave? Really? You could fairly plausibly say we need to go faster in cutting public expenditure but that? One has a feeling that Mr Cameron, were it not for his connections to Tory central office, would be the type of person who thinks he can call a yoghurt 'natural' because it has been dyed the right colour and has a couple of dried fruit bits in. Activia doesn't occur naturally, growing in a lightly swaying hedgerow, nor are Labour 'deficit deniers', nor I would venture is Mr Cameron a man who would even regard the truth as acceptable when a concealed falsehood helps him to market himself and his worse than advertised product.

The unbearable shiteness of being... a world cup advert

It is not original to point out the ridicule that one can engender by basing a marketing strategy around the world cup. In fact Private Eye has pointed out the curse of tying oneself to major sporting events such as these for years. Michael Owen's knee knack and Brazil's spectacular failure to live up to 'Joga Bonito' being two of the last competition's finest. This year though has perhaps been the toughest competition in years. Here are a few of the best, or worst marketing failures of 2010.

Carlsberg, If Carlsberg gave team talks...: Aside from the fact that if Carlsberg gave teamtalks they'd be in Danish (or rather they would be silent bubbles of carbon dioxide given that Carlsberg is a beer and as such incapable of speech.) this ad manages to be cringe worthy and in poor taste at the same time. First of all there is the dubious ethics of invoking the dead Sir Bobby Robson and a ghostly Bobby Moore in order to sell beer, a strategy one can only hope they repeat when Thatcher dies, sparking an 'if Carlsberg made destroyers of Britain's manufacturing base...' tagline. Secondly a teamtalk given by a collecion of British champions in minority sports... and Ian Botham. Is not one likely to tactically outwit a slug, let alone the likes of Marcelo Biesla and his contemporaries. Although it is rather apt considering 'our boys' have played like drunken sailors so far.

Anything associated with FIFA: Millions are spent by various companies in the run up to WCs in order to become 'the official FIFA World Cup (tm)' tampon or spreadable cheese or toilet cleaner. How many people buy their domestic products on the basis of Sepp Blatter's advice is dubious in the first place, but this wheeze has been arguably made a little toxic by FIFA's hijacking of South African law for corporate purposes. Meaning that those caught selling anything other than McDonalds', Gillette, Budweiser or other FIFA endorsed products in certain designated areas faces jail or a fine. Not good PR when the victims of this policy so far have been impoverished Africans and 30 Dutch women in miniskirts.

Nike, Write the Future: Nike adverts are always the lavish setpiece ads of any World Cup, beautifully put together, containing all the stars and often containing what passes for wit amongst sportswear manufacturers. However the ad urging it's participants to 'Write the Future' through their brilliant play (in Nike boots of course) has been one magnificent curses in sporting history, even by Nike standards. (Their 98 campaign centred around a Brazil team which descended into farce around Nike's golden boy Ronaldo and 2006's Joga Bonito Brazil were anything but.) The fortunes of those featured is as follows:
Ronaldinho: Not selected for tournament
Wayne Rooney: Currently playing like his useless ginger bearded alter ego from the advert in an abject England side.
Franck Ribery: Threatening to go on strike in a French side in turmoil.
Fabio Cannavaro: Last seen blaming anyone but himself for Italy's dismal draw with New Zeland.
Cristiano Ronaldo: Fared okay by others standards but has looked average, petulant and far from the movie material the ad would like us to believe.
Didier Drogba: Playing in a Cote D'Ivoire side going out of the tournament with a broken arm.
Roger Federer: Almost lost to a player ranked outside the world's top50 at wimbledon 2010.

ITV: This is a special mention, first for their HD England goal gaffe, which may have stressed jazzed up telly execs a little blue in the face, second for their pundit Robbie Earle being involved in aformentioned mini skirted women scandal, third for their sponsor Hyundai's advert being a parody of their commentary teams inadequacies and lastly for the inexplicable horror (my eyes! My ears! My sense of human progress!) that is James Corden.

Mars: Forgetting a huge reason for football fans' love of the 1990 England World Cup song World in Motion is that it represents a more innocent time when footballers didn't flog chocolate bars Mars have enlisted the now ludicrously overweight John Barnes to reprise his rap for a chocolate bar. I think they may have paid him in them.

Special mentions: Kitkat's 'fingers crossed' campaign, released when England fans are far more likely to be using their fingers to signal different things to their team, the Adidas Jabulani, Betting companies for encouraging morons to give us the kind of tips that make you realise that this gambling lark is a tax on the stupid who think they know about football.

Treble (Carlsbergs) all round!

What To Make of The Weak Pound

A weak pound is alarming isn't it? After all Gordon Brown said 'A weak Pound is a sign of a weak economy'. Well that much is true, but misses the point. The reason a weak pound is a sign of a weak economy is because it is necessary to engender a recovery in that economy, especially when that economy's major trading partners are in a poor position too. To quote Mr Brown again 'This is a global recession' - also very true, and this is at the centre of why we need a weak pound. It is essential that we have an export driven recovery, and at that one that is based on goods and genuine services rather than financial tomfoolery. Our major trading partners (the EU, the US) are also struggling dreadfully in the current economic climate, therefore in order to stimulate demand that actually contributes to improving the balance of payments and the current account we need a competitive currency that will make it cheap to trade in British goods. Obviously we do not want the pound to go through the floor, due to the costs this will incurr upon our national debt, but this is to be paid off in the long term and if a weak pound helps encourage investment and expansion in industry the short term losses will easily be wiped out by longer term gains. My guess on the current movement of the pound is that it is simple currency specullation - traders know that it needs to fall to a certain, artificially low level in order to help us reorganise labour in our country, thus traders sell at what was a 'high' and will buy again once they feel it has reached the level that we need. To quote a certain Lance Corporal "Don't Panic".

The Seven Ages Of Advertising

Men

1. Be one of those special moments that can only be caught on an HD ready camera, after which one is fed sieved HydrochienMange, all one needs to grow up to be Minister for Ships. Finally take a massive shit, and demand implausibly soft toilet paper and/or demand an air freshner that smells of 'summer breezes'.

2. Become the most precocious little shite in school by discovering that modern philosopher's stone the Shredded Wheat/Cornflake/Shreddie, after dissecting JS Mill's 'On Liberty' due to eating a 'whole grain' decide to roll around in mud in a plain white T-shirt. Finally run around like a border line nut case after a car with flashing lights that flips over, before outwitting your parents in an especially 'amusing' way.

3. Wake up with spots, imagining them to be a particularly virulent strain of small pox which can only be cured by gaining a centre parting and vigorous rubbing with pseudo-medically named gloop. Whinge at your mum about your football socks being dirty, then have your first orgasm over the fact that by the miracles of a particular soap they are clean. Towards the end of this troubled time you may find an urge to start a band with a group of strangers in tribute to a mobile phone tarriff. Chew gum rolling down a hill throughout.

4. Develop a hairstyle that magically morphs into the one that makes you look like the biggest cock at any one particular time, pick up failed underwear models using only your thousand yard stare and a can of Lynx. Play sunday league football with repressed homosexuals before hitting the pub and only drinking beverages of a primary colour, if not a big drinker drink diet drinks while eating doritos and dominos pizza.

5. Get a car, a silver car, a sleek car oooh what a car, drive across unspoilt uninhabited roads while talking away from a camera like Richard Hammond with a stroke. Drink unpalettable Spanish Lager (it's still primary coloured!) if good looking and succesful. Get a nag of a girlfriend who won't let you pursue an inane activity such as hug your tyres or sleep with a prostitute made of tyres. If you are a failure as a human being marry an older woman and buy BT internet. If you can't even manage that, become a teacher.

6. Serve as the comic foil for your oh so multi-tasking wife while not so much as shifting your arse off the sofa to think about mortgages, before she runs off with a younger drinker of Spanish Lager, impress her and treat her to a ready made box of tacos. Finally develop a cockney accent, bet on football, talk about vans and spray a fence a revolting shade of brown.

7. Now it's too late to make ay serious money, insure your life! That or cash in on the mortgage you never paid off. Develop an irrational hatred of lawns that aren't radioactive green in colour. Feed slightly cheap toffee to unsuspecting grandchildren before going on a cruise, marrying Judith Chalmers and dying.

Women to follow...

Cameron's attack on Brown shows the nonsensical skill of the PR man.

First of all allow me to get it out of the way that I have no truck with anyone using any sort of legal argument to get away with the parliamentary abuses that have gone on, be that parliamentary privelege or any other legal argument that the accused MPs may employ. I am not a lawyer and further than that, if they are acquitted of wrong doing there has still been an unbelievable abuse of their role. However the words of Cameron's statement once again expose his shallow politicism. He is perfectly prepared to accuse Brown of lack of leadership of his party, perhaps a legitimate criticism, while exercising none over his own party. Are we prepared to accept that a Tory can accuse gay people of being not worthy of his marriage allowance? Are we prepared to accept his own (and shadow cabinet's) far greater abuses of the allowance system than lack of discipline? Mrs Julie Kirkbride should become a major political issue given his supposed attack on parliamentary expenses in my opinion. The accusations that the Tory leader has thrown over the past day are not just idiotic (considering he has committed the same fallacies) they are counterproductive and deliberately against the interests of politics. One can only think that he is listening to Mr Hannan a little bit too much, and those of us whose economics lecture he addressed know where he leads, in fact his blog says it today.

In summary, there is no point saying 'Dave, be fair, it's all our fault' so politics will descend in to the mire.

At bloody last. Almost by accident Labour has hit upon the strategy that can actually hurt the Tories. Their inconsistencies and intellectual dishonesties have been building up for a while, and over the past month they have finally put their rope upon the gallows. However it would be completely wrong for Labour to crow over the fact that despite the best intentions of Geoff 'Buff' Hoon it's been a good month for Labour. In order to avoid the same mistake Labour must look at why Cameron's strategy has been wrong, not just over the past month but for 5 years. It starts with the phrase 'one can prove anything with statistics'. No doubt there are a lot of things about Britain that are not 'Great' but one can overstate the point, it is not 'broken' as the Tories like to say, nor are we 'broke'. On the other hand 'Voting Blue' was never going to turn Britain green, and as for 'letting sunshine win the day' fucking hell, for a party whose natural pessimism about human nature is a selling point, that is just idiotic. An opposition can say anything it wants, a government cannot. It can be darn obfuscating, it can tell you meaningless things and dress them up as profound achievements, it can even produce cringe worthy soundbites, but it quite rightly gets pilloried when it oversteps the mark (Iraq, fundraising, etc). Here is Cameron's strategy's major flaw, he consistently overstates his case, people may be fearful about crime and feel someone should do something about it, but they know it hasn't gone up 236% in 7 years, with the proliferation of CCTV it has understandably gone down. In layman's terms if you want to impress a girl and keep your dignity you may overstate your knowledge of music, you don't claim to be best mates with Oasis. Both cases smack of only one thing, ulterior motives. So instead of a credible and fair way of reducing the deficit we get 'the nation's maxed out its credit card' or instead of let's reduce crime and disillusionment with society we get 'broken Britain'. In the individual case Liam's best mate just wants the girl's nickers on the floor, in the Tories case it is power and the ability to do things the public might not want but hedge fund managers think are great. People quite rightly ask 'If you do genuinely care, then why use lies and misrepresentations?' Labour has become mistrusted because it did the same, it overstepped the mark between portraying the best of itself and dishonesty, we know the Tories are worse than they are, simply because against a weak government they can't put their case without resorting to idiotic sophistry. Labour should not crow or claim this shows why Tories are evil scum, that would be the same mistake, let the Tories show put a flush on the table or get caught bluffing. With the amount of PR men and tabloid types in their ranks, my bet's on the latter.

Some brief words on the BNP.

First of all while I do not agree with the likes of Peter Hain on the banning of the BNP from television I can completely understand his position. Watching Nick Griffin on the panel of QT was painful and hilarious, and perhaps he should have the right to lie gratuitously, but I can understand why people who have consistently campaigned against racism are upset at seeing him on telly spouting this crap. After all I'd imagine anti-racist campaigners who started out in the sixties (like Mr Hain) would have thought that they would have got a bit further by now. Apologies we haven't Peter, there are still a lot of overt and covert racists in this country, I support your aim and to a certain extent methods, but Griffin is the wrong target, for a simple reason, him and his followers are fucking idiots.