Sunday, April 10, 2005
Are you thinking what we're thinking?
Apart from leaving themselves wide open to lampoon (see my rather amateurish approach, right), the Tory campaign slogan must go down as one the bravest strategic failures since the Charge of the Light Brigade.

It is supposed to connect with the 'ordinary' voter, I guess, but it leaves it too open to interpretation.

An election campaign should be used to express what your party stands for; or at least - and most commonly these days - what you party does not stand for.

'Are you thinking what we're thinking' explicitly does not express any ideals, policies or values. It is strategically staying silent on these, assuming that the politicians and the electorate are already perfectly in tune with one another.

Of course, we know this not to be true. Despite the advent of electronic media, democratising the world and giving constituents a direct line through to their elected representatives, the gulf remains as wide as ever.

Just because we see these people on the news day in-day out, does not mean we know them intimately enough to assume we're thinking what they are thinking. Hell, I've been married nearly 9 years, and I'm a dismal failure at reading my wife's mind.

Labour's 'Britain, Forward not Back' is also as empty and devoid of policy as any marketing slogan, but at least it explicitly espouses a 'value' (whatever a 'forwards' Britain actually is, see below).

The Tory slogan can and will only appeal to existing Tory voters; only they have some idea of what Mr Howard is thinking, being of the same political persausion. 'Are you thinking what we're thinking?' will ensure that the Tories will forever fail to appeal again to a broad section of community and will die a slow death, as its 'traditional' support grows old and dies.

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