Page 135 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

COMMUNICATING POLITICS

Figure 6.1 Labour’s ‘Tax Bombshell’.
Source: Reproduced courtesy of Conservative Central Office.

avoiding Labour’s chosen ground of social issues. Labour’s alleged
‘tax and spend’ plans became the subject of the successful
‘Tax Bombshell’ poster of January 1992 (see Figure 6.1), a theme
returned to in posters and advertisements during the election
campaign itself.
The most memorable Conservative advertisement of the 1992
campaign was directed by John Schlesinger, and presented a
personal profile of John Major. The profile fits into the cinéma-
vérité category of political advertising discussed above, in that it
took Major back to his ‘roots’ in Brixton, London, showing him
visiting and talking with ‘ordinary people’ on the streets and at the

114