You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, mother may have said. Unless, she should have added, it is a political manifesto, whose pages of lofty promises and hollow rhetoric few voters are ever actually going to read.
The cover of Labour’s manifesto, revealed in a teasing tweet by Ed Miliband on Monday morning, speaks volumes about what lies within. Rebranded as “the party of fiscal responsibility”, Labour now comes packaged in a no-frills wrapper, exuding clarity and transparency. It is back-to-basics branding, a manual for a “better Britain” for “working people” that does exactly what it says on the tin. There’s no time for expensive agencies, either: this was all done in house.
Keen to be seen as the party of responsible banking, Labour has taken lessons from First Direct’s brutally clear advertising campaign, spelling out its promise with stark simplicity. The message couldn’t be more direct, emblazoned in a red sans-serif typeface on a plain white background: this is a straightforward pledge from a party without the small print.
With its stripped-back, text-only approach, there’s also a hint of a budget supermarket line. “It does not do what most manifestos do,” said Miliband. “It isn’t a shopping list of spending policies.” But if it was, it would be sticking exclusively to the Sainsbury’s basics range. No-nonsense nourishment for working people.
More manual than manifesto, it launches straight in with: “This is a plan to reward hard work.” The word “succeed” appears twice in just 22 words, along with “working people” and “hard work”, the two sentences bookended either side by “Britain” – and underlined for good measure by “Britain can be better”. Inside, there’s no messing around with sexy graphics either. It gets straight to the point, with page one introducing the “budget responsibility lock”, like a chastity belt for the Treasury.
And there’s a reason why it’s all so straight. In our new world of coalition politics the role of the manifesto has mutated. It is now less a contract with the nation than an opening bid for negotiation with the other parties. The cover doesn’t have to seduce. Labour’s online presence – a clear, issue-led site and manifesto builder made by Blue State, the digital agency behind Obama’s campaign – will be a more important tool for speaking to the electorate.
The branding is a dramatic departure from the last election, when the cover of Labour’s 2010 manifesto presented an image drenched in nostalgia, with a family looking across rolling fields into a radiant sunburst. It combined the new dawn emblem of socialist-realist propaganda with the folksy glow of London Transport posters of the 1930s and their green and pleasant land, promising “A future fair for all”. It lost out to the Tories’ hardback blue book, with its authoritative serifed title: “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”.
This time around, Labour has no time for such pastoral pleasantries. There’s a sense of urgency in the design – indeed, there’s no time for a front cover at all. This is a government that would get straight down to business. As Miliband would put it: hell yes.
