An excellent Twitter thread by Alistair King caught my attention yesterday, critiquing Keir Starmer’s supposed new slogan “make Brexit work”. Meanwhile Andrew Adonis summed it up visually with this: “Make Brexit Work” pic.twitter.com/ExqjoKThal — Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) November 7, 2021 Aside from the snarky tweet, there is a nugget of […]
Tag: Framing
“World-leading” as a framing device in the UK Government’s communication
So the UK Government is at it again. Sunak has announced a “world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help cultural, arts and heritage institutions” The show must go on. We’re introducing a world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help cultural, arts and heritage institutions weather the impact of coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/J3KXUOxJEE […]
Why are populists better at digital communication than the “mainstream”?
I gave a speech this week to PES members of the Committee of the Regions about digital communication in the run up to the European Parliament elections. The Q&A with the members was especially interesting, and one question – from a mayor from Greece – prompted me to write this […]
How to make sure the People’s Vote ends up with the UK staying in the EU
In a fortnight the House of Commons will almost certainly reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal when the so-called “Meaningful Vote” happens. After that the path ahead is unclear, but one of the ways forward would be for a second Brexit referendum – a People’s Vote – to take place. If […]
No more Remoaners. No more Saboteurs. No more Citizens of Nowhere. No more We Are The 48%.
A tweet by Alexander Clarkson caught my eye this morning: As long as Remainers reproduce an inaccurate "citizens of somewhere" with a class subtext they will simply keep playing on Brexiter terms — Alexander Clarkson (@APHClarkson) October 30, 2017 Once in a while you read something that crystallises your thinking, […]
The anatomy of misinformation: Cadbury, the National Trust, and (Easter) Eggs
At 10pm last night, The Daily Telegraph released a story entitled “Easter egg row: Church of England accuses National Trust of ‘airbrushing’ religion out of children’s egg hunt“, written by its Consumer Affairs Editor Katie Morley. The story concerns the renaming of the Cadbury-National Trust Egg Hunt from ‘Easter Egg […]
The hard vs. soft Brexit framing will do just fine
Owen Jones has a piece in The Guardian about the language of Brexit. We should not use the term “Hard Brexit”, he argues, because actually what a “Hard Brexit” means is a “Chaotic Brexit”. Jones is right to talk about the vocabulary, and he is right that framing matters, and […]
Britain Stronger in Europe – horrible framing and imagery, and a message bordering on the disingenuous
So, all hail the ‘Remain’ side in the referendum campaign! Place your trust in “Britain Stronger in Europe“, the Will Straw and Stuart Rose campaign. It’s like the late-1990s “Britain in Europe“, only with more muscle, more fight, and more nationalist fervour! Gone are the solitary star and the yellow […]
The term “economic Schengen” needs to be banished before it gains any traction
Henrik Enderlein and Jean Pisani-Ferry started to talk of an “economic Schengen” in the autumn of 2014, and Enderlein and Germany’s economy minister Gabriel were at it again today at a conference in the BMWi in Berlin. This is a really bad idea for four reasons, each of which I […]
Repeat after me: EU myth rebuttal does not work
New year. Same old UK-EU comms. Two tweets from today: A new year brings new opportunities to debunk EU myths. Here is: things euroscpetics don't want you to know #1! pic.twitter.com/WtGnQx26pe — Richard Corbett (@RichardGCorbett) January 6, 2015 .@damiangreenmp argues that pro-Europeans must 'dispel the myth, fostered by the Better […]
Big on the big things, small on the small things – Brussels bullshit meaning ‘deregulation’
Back in 2013, José Manuel Barroso in his State of the European Union speech stated that the “EU needs to be big on big things and smaller on smaller things” (speech text here – phrase 3/4 of the way through). Since then this phrase has become some sort of mantra […]
Rehn is more than an “expert”, and Tusk and Mogherini are not “diplomats”
When Blair was rumoured to want the job, the President of the European Council position was branded President of the EU by the British Press. Now Donald Tusk has been appointed to the position The Guardian went the other way, running a story on Saturday entitled “EU leaders pick new […]