Page 131 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition
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AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Figure 6.2 Labour’s position on Europe
Source: Saatchi.
Labour-bashing messages could find a receptive audience (although
such tactics had worked well in previous campaigns). The British
people (or enough of them, at any rate) had grown tired of the
Tories, and sceptical of their messages, and were prepared to give
Labour a chance. Evidently, they were not to be put off by attack
ads of the type almost wholly relied on by the Tories in 1996–7.
POLITICAL ADVERTISING IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM: LABOUR
In stark contrast to the Conservatives’ unashamedly commercial
approach to the selling of politics the Labour Party was, for most of
the period under discussion here, resistant to the charms of the
professional advertisers. In the 30 years up to the election campaign
of 1987, only in one of the earliest campaigns—1959—did Labour
successfully use the medium of television as a marketing tool.
Ironically enough, the two figures most associated with this use were
Woodrow Wyatt, who later became a prominent member of the
British right, and Anthony Wedgwood Benn, better known as Tony
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