Patrolling the murkier waters of the mainstream media


No to AV’s new campaign is beyond parody

“Do what we say, or the baby gets it.”

There are some things in life that seem so far beyond parody – Sarah Palin's continued credibility, for example, or Michael Winner's Twitter feed – that the sceptic in me keeps waiting for the moment when we all get made to look like fools for taking them seriously. But the longer these things keep going, the more we have to face up to the unsettling probability that actually, they're not a mock-up at all. This is what people really think. Not for a laugh, not just to get attention, but because that's just how they are.

And that's what I keep thinking to myself when I see the No to AV campaign's bizarre range of adverts. I keep expecting someone to say: "Doh! Of course that's not a real No to AV advertisement, you big silly! We'd never put out something as crass to make a political point – what do you take us for, a bunch of jerks?" But that doesn't happen. It's a real advert. It's actually earnest, po-faced, this-is-what-we-think campaigning.

If you've not seen it, I'm sorry to have to bring it to your attention, really. It's a picture of a newborn baby, with the shouty slogan "She needs a new cardiac facility NOT an alternative voting system". The implication is, I suppose, that there's a binary choice – either we have a cardiac facility or a new voting system. There's a pair of scales with electoral reform in one pan and the life of a child in the other. In another advert, we're given the choice between bulletproof jackets for our brave boys in Afghanistan, or an alternative voting system.

Hang on a second, though. Does that mean it's an alternative voting system, or bulletproof jackets for soldiers, or a cardiac facility? If so, who gets to choose that bit? (You could argue that we don't, because the voting system is not proportional enough, and that's exactly what the Yes to AV campaign is about; but that's another matter, and I don't really want to get sucked into the vortex on this one.)

The problem with creating either/or choices on subjects that are slightly more complicated than "tea or coffee?" is that the fallaciousness of the argument can be exposed by simply adding another choice. How about electoral reform, or bulletproof jackets, or a cardiac unit, or a free pint of beer for everyone? Does that change anyone's mind?

AV or not AV, that is the question. What I can't understand is why, when there are reasonable and rational answers in the No to AV camp, such as those put forward by my fellow NS blogger David Allen Green the other day, they are eschewed in favour of "Do what we say, or the baby gets it". It's infantile in every sense, and just seems like shock value for the sake of it, the kind of angry argument that assumes voters don't have a clue and see the whole world as a series of either/or choices.

If this is the quality of campaigning we're going to have in the coming days and weeks, it's no wonder that the issue could fail to grasp the public imagination. Come to think of it, I suppose that a distaste for the whole thing is something that would benefit the No campaign – but, having seen what they've come up with thus far, I doubt they're that smart.