Just got usual weekly missive from the Groan’s ‘backbencher’ and its looks like the ‘crits’ for Fox News Lite aren’t going to be good ones…
What is it that makes 18 Doughty Street (
http://www.18doughtystreet.com/ )’s new attack ads so different – so
appalling? You might have thought PPBs couldn’t get any worse, but
Tim Montgomerie, Iain Dale and their team have found a whole new way
to inflict desperately unsubtle political messages on a gullible
public.The first ad, for those who didn’t have the pleasure, featured a bloke
so accustomed to swiping a “tax card” on demand that he tries to
insert it between a woman’s breasts. The second, a daring expose of
MPs’ cynicism about state funding for political parties, is little
better.Suddenly, the free airtime parties enjoy for their PPBs and PEBs
seems, well, entirely reasonable – which is surely not what the
free-marketeers had in mind.
Hahahahahahahaha…
Sound less like Fox News and more like ‘Confessions of a Frustrated Tory‘ – wonder if they’ll be hiring Robin Askwith for future ads and getting Christoper Wood to write the scripts…
“inflicted on a gullible public”?
Is there any indications that the site is visited by anyone who is not already deeply entrenched in one camp or another, or involved with politics at some level? Do any ‘civilians’ visit it?
Actually, I quite enjoyed the first one though the second one was utterly abysmal.
What I don’t get is this: the Tories have committed to current levels of tax, and they are in favour of state funding of political parties.
Obviously, I’m very happy that 18DS are producing free advertising for UKIP, but I just can’t work out why…
DK
Now, I can’t let you away with that, DK.
The Tories are not “committed to current levels of tax”. They are committed to the [deliberately vague] formula of “sharing the proceeds of growth” between public services and tax cuts; which is their way of trying not to frighten the horses.
Nu Labour pledged to match Tory spending plans in the first 2 years for exactly the same reason; no Corsa-driving floating voter would trust them with the public finances unless they promised to be prudent. The Tories are doing exactly the same thing in reverse; trust us, they say, we’re not going to succumb to our instincts and slash spending on everything. We’ll make cuts only if and when prudent to do so.
(Of course, Nu Labour turned out to be lying. Let’s hope the Tories are, too. I’m not holding my breath for a bonfire of quangos and an orgy of tax-cutting, but I’d love to see it)
But to say that the Tories are “committed to current levels” of tax is just a wee bit disingenuous. They’re judging that it’s better to promise little and deliver it than promise the earth and fail. That’s as much a tactical judgement as a statement of principles.