Tim Horton of the Fabian Society wrote this on the Left Foot Forward blog today, and it's too good not to borrow, so I hope they'll forgivve me:
After yesterday's failed Rally Against Debt — attracting around 500 attendees, despite the benefit of aTimes opinion collumn and coverage across the newspapers - we thought it was time to turn the tables on the Tories by using the No2AV posters they funded to campaign against the Coalition's cuts.
These posters, you may recall, courted controversy during the referendum campaign with a claim that the Alternative Vote system would cost £250 million alongside a picture of a baby, arguing the money would be better spent on maternity units. Another poster carried the picture of a soldier, arguing for more spending on bulletproof vests.
It was ironic to see a campaign funded by Conservative backers and run by the Chief Executive of the right-wing Taxpayers' Alliance — who organised yesterday's rally - championing public spending. It must have been a refreshing change for them to be able to harness people's love of public services, rather than trying to do them down all the time. But, in the process, the No campaign have given us a great way to campaign against the cuts.
Thanks to Clifford Singer of the Other Taxpayer's Alliance, the creative force behind theMyDavidCameron.com phenomenon, we have transformed these iconic images into arguments against the Coalition's programme. And, now the referendum's over, we'll keep using these posters to remind the Tories of popular support for our services.
In the meantime, I'll be writing to the Taxpayers' Alliance to ask if they'll join with the Fabian Society to call for higher spending on maternity units and soldier's equipment, rather than their current focus on even deeper cuts to corporation tax.
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Interesting. The posters are a great way to campaign about cuts because rather than trying to use a narrative based on policy or facts and figures, they create one that encapsulates or appeals to the country’s moral vision.
See this piece by George Lakoff, a Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, on how a speech made by President Obama on 13th April used a moral narrative to give “…all progressives a model of how to think and talk about every issue.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/obama-returns-to-his-mora_b_850295.html?view=print
Maybe such an approach would also go some way to answering the two questions you posed in this blog on 15th April: “What is the new narrative we’re seeking? What form of words tells the ConDems they’re wrong?’”
Interesting idea.
I’ll use on it!
How about a narrative of restructuring PFI NHS deals?
The cuts are an excuse for a privatising/liberalising agenda which will prove harder to reverse than spending cuts, and to which there is no logical connection to ‘cuts’.
If it is primarily cash, then the PFI deals are the way to go.