Throwing Out the Baby with the Fuel Petition

The other day I did ask 'who is charge of the Labour machine up there in Glenrothes?'. Well in charge of the press operation whether corralled or held back at gunpoint, step forward press officer Kenny Young. He's pictured to the left on his own election communication for 2007. Yes that is one full side he's used up, it's not a folded sheet.

By the way he is the larger of the two humans pictures as we haven't cut the age for candidates quite that much yet. cute eh? What do you think it conveys?

Well a quick scan of his online biographies, pen pictures or interviews fails to turn up any mention of fatherhood for the young man. Now if you were a young father supporting a child you'd think it would be the sort of thing you'd like the electorate to know about. Yet holding a baby on his election literature appears to be the only sign of any sort of allusion to such a state of affairs.



Indeed if his literature had mentioned childcare anywhere on it you might well have excused the gratuitous, cliche ridden use of a baby, admittedly not being kissed. Sadly not a hint or whiff of anything along those lines was seen anywhere near this particular communication. Indeed the wee mite is a long way off paying much tax of any type you'd expect.

Now I may be being cynical about the above picture, but if like me you'd seen it against some of those that Labour have used in this campaign you may share my scepticism.


I have already mentioned The Fifer a Labour production that is hitting the doorsteps of Glenrothes. Well there is one picture in there that appear Picasso-esque in it's sense of angles and perspective. Sadly when I tried to scan it in it emerged rather too dark.

But in this picture we have two women at a petrol pump filling up their car. One women has a blue pic biro in hand and is signing the petition again fuel prices being held by Lindsay Roy the Labour candidate. nothing wrong with the picture in words so far.


Well the petition is being held perpendicular to the ground, yet the woman is still going ahead and signing it. She is also doing this over the right hand of Lindsay Roy who is holding it at a rather odd angle for such a task. It may be because Mr Roy is not looking anywhere near either of the women in the picture. The rather gormless impression of a fish on his face also looks suspiciously like a mirror image of a similar picture elsewhere on the leaflet. He also appears to have managed to thrust the clipboard beyond the reflection of the name of the petition in the car's paint work to almost over the pump, while standing behind the vehicle.

It is either the most contrived set piece picture I have even seen trying to reflect a piece of actuality, or the worse case of photo-shopping. But an image is said to speak a thousand words even if those thousand words aren't quite what is the case.