So far we’ve had the Labour and Conservative election broadcasts. Here’s my nutshell review.
The Labour one was essentially the Tony and Gordon gay love-in; as for the Tory one… well there was some god-awful noise err music and a load of fluff.
In both cases I had to deliberately avoid switching channels. With the Tory one, the noise was so bad that I failed to not switch, but then switched back.
What did you think?
No bastard TV at work any7 more. I saw snippets of the Labour one and it was vomit.
I don’t like Michael Howard so I won’t have liked the Conservative one (plus I am a leftie)
“Are you thinking what we’re thinking?”
NO. F*ck off.
For us US dopers who are vaguly aware that their is a country called the U.K. and that it is in Europe somewhere, can you tell us what your talking about? Is it traditional for political parties to each broadcast a program prior to the election. Do they discuss issues, introduce candidates or what? Is this because restrictions on campaign commericials are stricter in the US.
My vast ignorance awaits your answers
<Applause>
Basically your guess is correct. Each party is entitled to election broadcasts. Don’t ask me what the rules and specifics are, but basically it’s the party’s chance to ‘advertise’ themselves as the party of choice.
Where to begin?
OK. We’re having an election where all the MPs - every single one - is up for re-election. The election is on May 5th. There are two main parties: Tories and Labour. Both parties are rather to the political Left of the Democrats, Labour further to the Left than the Tories. The Liberal Democrats are the biggest of the minor parties. Each party has a restricted number of election broadcasts - you can’t buy airtime over here - so each broadcast is critical. They’re essentially adverts.
Both broadcasts have been nauseatingly dreadful.
Clear as mud, right?
Party Political Broadcasts can be found at:
http://www.labour.org.uk/audiovideo/
and
Both terrible. Interestingly or not, Anthony Minghella(Cold Mountain, The English Patient) directed the Labour one.
IIRC standing in 70ish seats gives any party at least one broadcast. You can look forward to Kilroy getting back on the box 
Thanks for the answers.
Y’all get no pity from me though. I was in a swing state during the elections here, I think I permenetly lost 5 IQ points from all the unlimited campaign ads.
What I want to know is, will the Silly Party hold Leicester?
There is a ban on paying for political TV ads here, to avoid the outright plutocratic influence which such a thing could easily lead to.
The Labour one just looked like a Bremner, Bird + Fortune sketch.
Havnt seen the Tory one yet.
Sin
I strongly suggest you turn the sound off and subtitles on.
LIb Dem update - Kennedy looked awfull. Worse than at the manifesto launch - and that was baad.
Sin
Here’s the Lib Dem one.
http://www.libdems.makeni.net/peb1/index_w.html
Has there actually been a good PPB anywhere in the world.
This evening’s Labour broadcast was very negative, and quite effective. A bit of a high-risk strategy, though, having two of their allotted broadcasts so early.
I should add that I only caught the end.
As I understand it, in the US politicians are allowed to advertise on TV. So you might have an advert for a party or a presidential candidate in between a commercial for Nike and a commercial for Pepsi Cola. Is that right?
In the UK there is a complete ban on such things. There are no political adverts allowed on TV whatsovever. None at all. What we get instead are short documentaries about the merits of a particular party. A party is has a few minutes in which to describe why they are the best people to vote for. These are shown just once, but on all the networks including the commercial-free BBC. The major parties are given equal airtime, I think it’s about 5 broadcasts each. Minor parties such as the Green Party (environmentalists) are allowed 1 broadcast.
In the run-up to an election these are called Party Election Broadcasts. In between elections, they are much less frequent, and are then called Party Political Broadcasts. Truth in advertising laws do not apply to PPB’s and politicians can say anything they want to and get away with it.
There’s also this Tory cinema Advert:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.multimedia.page
(go to the cinema ad with the red picture of Blair)
I rather like it (but then I’m not someone they need to persuade). I’m not sure I can remember political ads in the cinema before. (I can only remeber the ones for local curry shops and barbers).
Yes, it’s much better than their TV spot.