by Tom Regel
I have stared at the words “one nation” long and hard, from all sorts of angles, in different typefaces and in varying font sizes, waiting for it to slide into place or for something to click. But nothing happens. Even when those two words roll of the tongue of someone who isn’t perpetually nasal (an unfortunate trait that lends the slogan a peculiar unctuous quality) it still fails to arouse much curiosity or excitement.
Because Labour’s new mantra is just the sort of affected, quasi-utopian rhetoric that would compel most ordinary people – if heard upon waking in Nick Clegg’s “alarm clock Britain” – to want to stay firmly put in bed and with the blinds snapped shut, try and forget about the outside world.
Or is that just me? There is nothing particularly egregious about the “one nation” slogan. But, on balance – speaking purely from a lyrical perspective – there is nothing particularly exciting, potent or sharp about it either and that is the problem. Of course, there are plenty of worse examples.
It is nowhere near as lame or patronising as David Cameron’s infamous, “big society”. But, “one nation” – just like nearly all other political campaign slogans, ringing with eschatological sentiment (even Obama’s famous war-cry, “yes we can”, feeling somewhat cringe-inducing upon reflection) – still has a nauseating effect. It seems that their banality stems partly from their familiarity. Because half of them sound as if they were plucked from the same sparkly pool that the advertising and marketing moguls fish in – and the connection, I suspect, isn’t a coincidence. The logic isn’t particularly difficult to work out. It must be said though, that most political slogans, by nature, tend to sound a little lousy and contrived – and so my angst about the “one nation” slogan is perhaps a little futile, and isn’t worth dwelling on for too long or too seriously.
