Broadcast Bingo 2: Labour Party Election Broadcast, complete with unsurprisingly bad music

The second in my series on the UK’s party election broadcasts in anticipation of the European election. The lack of Europe references in both of the broadcasts so far has not escaped my notice - more on that next time…

And now for the second round of quite possibly the geekiest game you’ve ever played: Broadcast Bingo.

Last round the Conservatives scored a measly 3.5/10 for their failed attempts to avoid clichés in their party election broadcast. And one of their 3.5 was awarded for the novelty value of name dropping a Spice Girl.

Will Labour have any equally cringe point enhancing moments? I wonder…

But not for long, because here, my friends, is Labour’s party election broadcast. Sit back and enjoy…

Broadcast Bingo Results:

Length: 3.08

Times Brown says “Brown”: 0

Interviews with potential voters: 0

Cameron bashing: Nothing direct

Needless celebrity name drop: 0 sadly

Shot of sickeningly sweet child: 1

Times “recession” mentioned: 5, with numerous mentions of “downturn” (4) and other synonyms

Times “Obama” mentioned: 1 (but with many shots)

Amount of shots of campaign banner: 0

Best line: “Barack Obama and I share the same values…”

Plus…

Background music: Sounds like a GCSE music project

Generic people-walking shots: 1,000,000 approx.

Some Very Serious Analysis:

The broadcast begins, worryingly, with three shots of Brown that look as though they were recorded by a stalker, perving on our PM through a variety of key holes. But at least this stalker’s cool; his peeking is accompanied by guitar chords.

And yet, despite the GCSE music-project soundtrack, Brown moves on to succumb to the clichés we have come to know and love.

There is, for example, the token shot of a cute child. Although this one doesn’t have any aspirations to save the world, penguins, or anything else, thank goodness, and stays mercifully mute.

There is also, as in the Conservative’s attempt, shots of the party leader on trains. I’m still unsure as to why. Fast moving, perhaps; forward thinking? Whatever - any link is tenuous at best.

Unlike Cameron, though, Brown managed to avoid saying his own name repeatedly. But perhaps this was because he knew that doing so wouldn’t do him any favours. Also, unlike the Tories, Labour’s broadcast didn’t feature numerous interviews with potential voters, singing the praises of the PM. But perhaps that’s because they couldn’t find anybody.

Labour instead stuck to what they do best: Brown-nosing (yes, I did it again) Obama. With a substantial 24 seconds of the three minute video dedicated, in some way, to Brown’s favourite special relationship.

What was, perhaps, surprising, was the amount of time that Brown spends in schools. Which worried me a tad. And the copious amounts of generic people-walking shots, so numerous I stopped counting. When I was working at Sky News, these shots were what you included in long packages when you’d run out of material… It’s hardly comforting that Labour struggled to fill 3.08 minutes.

Yet again, a predictable broadcast with few surprises. Unfortunately for Labour, they lose a quarter of a point for not including any celebrity name-drops. But they claw back one point for the interesting use of pervert-filming technique at the beginning. As such, the Labour party election broadcast video scores…

Barack Obama marks Gordon Brown out of 10...

This can also be found on my personal blog here.

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