The Information Commissioner has given Labour a ticking off for making unsolicited phone calls to 495,000 people at the last local and European elections in June 2009.
The calls were aimed at encouraging people to get out and vote, but the Deputy Information Commissioner states: "The fact that the calls were targeted at what were believed to be Labour supporting areas confirmed our view that they were designed to promote the Labour Party's electoral cause by encouraging Labour supporters to vote."
The ruling found that the Labour party breached privacy and electronic communication rules by making the automated calls - featuring the voice of Coronation Street star Liz Dawn - without the consent of those receiving the calls.
See here, here, and here.
The Labour Party had previously been warned about this in 2007.
This time, the Information Commissioner has warned the party that further breaches of the ruling would be a criminal offence which could result in prosecution.
What this blogger finds interesting about it all is the use of Coronation Street star Liz Dawn's voice on these messages.
Coronation Street is, as you know, set in the fictional Manchester suburb of Weatherfield. At the last European elections, Labour lost one of it's MEP seats for the North West region.
Liz, of course, played the character of 'Vera Duckworth' - a much loved, hugely popular character whose working class credentials were metaphorically worn on her chequered pinafore.
The problem for Labour is that the Labour Party has moved so far away from the salt of the earth working classes epitomised by the wonderful character of 'Vera' - irrespective of any clever psychological association they might now like to rebuild.
Come on, could you see Peter Mandelson taking a break from his Rothschilds in order to go have a few pints of Newton & Ridley with Jack Duckworth, after a hard day of mucking out the pigeons?
Or could you imagine Cherie Blair sewing knickers in Underworld?
Camilla Parker-Bowles might have looked perfectly at home pulling pints in The Rovers, but we digress...
A common complaint from the white working-classes epitomised by Vera Duckworth is that they feel isolated and unrepresented. See the archived 2008 reports from BBC Newsnight and the Daily Telegraph.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
This blog seeks to uphold the right to free speech. However, comment moderation is used to prevent the posting of comments which could be considered libelous/offensive etc. We do not, however, guarantee to publish all comments and we reserve the right to refuse to approve any comment submitted at our discretion. Views expressed are those of the comment author and do not neccesarily reflect those of this blog.