General elections are fought and won on the ground, constituency-by-constituency, doorstep-to-doorstep, as well as in the air, in print, broadcast and social media, through posters, leaflets, big speeches, stunts and rallies. Political parties deploy their best brains, creativity and cash to turn their ideas and ideologies into images which capture our imagination and our votes for their cause.
It’s all happening now.
This exhibition is about the best and worst in political communications. It’s about the iconic images and memorable moments which make and break election campaigns. It shows that having the most powerful poster, the biggest-ever election rally, the best party election broadcast doesn’t always win on polling day.
Of course, as with elections, it is rare there’s a consensus so in this General Election year and because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, visitors to our exhibition will get to cast their vote for the political communications hits and misses of the last few decades.
We need to thank many people. Firstly our sponsors Bell Pottinger: David Beck, Darren Murphy and Tim Collins.
We are also indebted to the following for supplying material and ideas: the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People’s History Museum, the Conservative Party Archive Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford, the Press Association, Jonathan Isaby, INS News Agency Ltd, the Sun newspaper, Politicaladvertising.co.uk, Event Projection and last but not least our design partners Harrison:Fraser.