Monday 23rd November 2009

I can't help but laugh at how political parties have recently been using popular culture, particularly The X-Factor, to the get their message across.
The Tories last night jumped on The X-Factor bandwagon by launching a poster portraying prime minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alastair Darling as the act Jedward, who were voted off the show last night. The photo shopped pictures of Brown and Darling are accompanied by the text "Jedward are gone but we're still left with... Deadwood". I find it quite amusing that the Conservative HQ have been waiting for weeks and weeks until Jedward had left the show before releasing this poster.
But to looking at it from a cynical point of view, this poster is just pathetic tit for tat retaliation from the Tories after Labour recently released their own Jedward poster showing Tory leader David Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne as the annoying Irish twins with the tag line "You won't be laughing if they win".
Using John and Edward on a political poster was amusing when Labour did it first, but the Tories are simply regurgitating a recent joke in such an unoriginal way. Its lazy work from the Tory PR machine and they're going to have to do better than this in the next few months.
And let us not forget that it was Conservative Leader Cameron who said Jedward were his favourites to win X-Factor (after their exit last night he was pretty wrong there), whereas Gordon Brown (who satirists such as the brilliant Jon Stewart have compared to another of this year's reality TV sensations, Susan Boyle) said Jedward were "not very good".
All this use of popular television in politics has got me thinking about the future.
Perhaps soon we will see former MPs as contestants in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. I for one would start tuning in to see former politicians being forced to eat insects and stick their heads in tanks filled with all sorts of horrific creatures.
However, George Galloway didn't do himself many favours when he appeared on Celebrity Big Brother a few years ago. It is quite ironic that he formed the Respect Party, as he lost a lot of his self respect when he went on the show and had to do his best impression of a cat.
Maybe this link between popular television and politics needs to be established to increase turnout during elections. After all, programmes such as The X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent seem to generate a lot more interest, particularly among young people, then an election does.