The series of photograph ads placed in the Scottish press by the London "grassroots" Tory millionaires' organisation, Nob Orders, where their subjects are described as "unpolished" is one of the most patronising pieces of political advertising I've ever seen. (You can see the posters here on Wings).
I remember thinking that U Kok couldn't get much more sickening than the ridiculous video they presented at the beginning of the campaign... You remember, the one where people said they were Scottish because they went to Burns' Suppers or liked the Proclaimers, knew Scottish poetry, or explained that in Scotland a sausage roll was quite different from a sausage roll anywhere else and how they liked wee dugs.
Well, I was wrong. This is worse.
The people who were used (and I chose that word on purpose) in the ads may very well believe what they have said (although if the history teacher is for real I'm glad she is nowhere any kids of mine), but the unpolished quotes make them sound somewhere between slightly silly and plain thick. I mean no criticism of them. I'm sure they are all perfectly nice people and actually I felt sorry for them. If I'd been asked to take part in a poster campaign for Yes (fat chance) and I ended up being patronised like that, I'd have been furious.
..."Tris wants independence because, although he likes the Lake District and travels to see English Rose, Petula Clark, in concert when she is in Downtown Bradford, he still likes to see a tartan tea cosy on his tea pot"... next to a photograph of me taken after a night on the tiles...
It seems that they have tried to be the opposite of slick. Not for them the advertisers' staple fare of young, fit, healthy, pretty people looking like boy band singers or models, saying smart things put into their mouths by advertising executives...
And, good for them on that score, because you can have too much of David Beckham in his underwear, or Joanna Lumley looking sexy and talking in that ever so proper RP accent (OK, you can't have too much of that!) ...but you can go too far in the opposite direction.
(A politically incorrect friend of mine looking at the series of posters asked... Are there no good looking people in Scotland then? OK that's harsh, but it was said without malice and was just the immediate thought the posters inspired! My response to that is that indeed there are, but they are all on the yes side!!)
The real parody (above), isn't that much worse than the first poster I saw. Frankly it seems to me that this is an English view of what thrawn Scots should look and sound like.
I seriously don't think anyone is going to want to identify with them. I'm just embarrassed for them.
