Return to the source

I took myself off to the People's History Museum last week, to see their exhibition of election posters. Not just because I'm a massive nerd, but because it's a wonderful, unapologetically leftwing place. Going back occasionally is a way to recharge my batteries and cheer myself up.

The exhibition was fascinating: a lesson in how we've returned to the same arguments, over and over again. The Tories are still the party of the selfish rich. The workers are permanently exploited. The Liberals are still untrustworthy turncoats. Only the Labour Party has changed. It used to believe in things. Now its job is to soften the edges of Conservative Capitalism.

I took some photos: they're not very good because the museum lighting is low to protect the textiles and there's so much material that a good angle isn't always possible. Still, see them here, or click on these highlights for larger versions:

They're STILL using this. They keep saying 'the Labour recession' and 'the recession we inherited' despite the facts: the country wasn't in recession in the quarter before the election.

Labour instituted tuition fees, the scum. The Tories and Lib Dems have tripled them, despite campaigning to abolish them!

Deeply ironic.

One of my ancestors fought in the Irish Brigade during the Boer War. The anti-British Irish Brigade, that is. Later on he was the Dublin Commandant of the IRA and one of Michael Collins' closest allies. 

This is a much more honest Tory poster about Ireland. The Union-Jack chaps are famous conservatives. The lad in the shamrock is an Irish nationalist getting a buffing.

What can I say? Has the Daily Mail changed at all? Although given that its owner, Lord Rothermere, claims to be French to avoid tax, perhaps it wouldn't support 'tax the foreigner' these days.