TORIES TAKE THE LOW ROAD...IN GERMANY

The Tory Campaign Poster

The General election campaign has started!

But the Tories appear to have taken a wrong turn already!

They have chosen the slogan... "Let's stay on the road to a strong economy", which would be more appropriate if any of us, outwith those people at the top, actually felt that there was even a modicum of truth in it. How many strong economies are £1.6 trillion in debt, and growing?

With a little adaptation

That aside, and who was expecting any truths in the campaign, of course any advertising for anything in the days of photoshopping is always open to a little adaptation so it's not surprising that some clever work from the keyboard satirists has been going on. Every party will experience that and the advertising companies employed to come up with poster ideas should take sabotage into consideration when presenting their ideas, as should the parties when selecting them!

...and some more adaptation

So some of these doctored posters must have been expected. However, the Tories' opponents couldn't have planned for the what comes next. 

It appears the road used in the advertisement is not in fact even in Britain.

The original photograph

It is claimed that the illustration is, in fact, from a photograph taken in 2008, by German photographer Alexander Burzik, not far from his home town of Weimar. 

Initially, when asked, Gideon insisted that the road was definitely in Britain, but then, after careful consideration, the Tories admitted that the road was a composite of several images, but added that they had been assured that all of the illustrations used were in Britain.

You should have checked, Gideon, because it does look remarkably like the whole thing, while doctored, was based or Herr Burzik's picture!

Stefan Drew  a marketing expert told the Mail: "When you first look at it it's just a grey road going into the distance. 

"But the more you look at it, the more you see that it's actually quite an evocative picture with a lot of hidden messages. 

"It taps into emotions – the green and pleasant land, (or should that be "grün und angenehm Land") the straight and narrow, blue skies and the patriotic Union flag."

Somewhere nearer the truth

I'm puzzled, though. 

For all the economic failures of this and previous governments, there are some very attractive roads in the UK. Some of them are reasonably straight, stretch off into the distance, and with a little bit of artistic licence could be made to look as if they were not full of pot holes.  So why complicate things by using a composite of images, whether or not they were elsewhere?
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Ah, that sounds just like our lovely UK

Added to all that, Gideon unveiled the poster on a government visit, seemingly violating the rules that government and party business must be kept separate.