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

This post can also be found on the Th!nk About It blogging platform here.

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...

Snap! A tale of Team Brown’s four broken hearts

The tale of Team Brown’s four broken hearts begins when their American, and – I think we can accurately predict – far cooler counterpart,  Team Obama, informed them that no longer was Brown’s trip to the US going to involve the press conference of their dreams. You know, the one where Barack and Gords stand together, in front of the presidential seal, best buds, hands clasped, embracing… ah hem.

Snap! went their hearts: Obama just, like, totally stood up Brown.

Instead, they were told, there would be a… “pool spray”.What, I hear you cry, the hell is a pool spray? I’m sure Team Brown cried the same thing. Sounds like a, urm, spray. To perhaps be used on a, urm, pool.

NOT Obama's gift to Brown.

But no. Surprisingly, Obama is not planning on presenting Brown with an aquatic cleaning instrument. Instead, Team Obama have decided that Brown can – what with being the Prime Minister of the UK ‘n all – face some questions.

At this point, I reckon, Team Brown’s hearts lifted. Questions? Well, that’s pretty much like a press conference, right? No one will ever know! Perhaps it was at this point in the tale that the press officer released this statement:

We always said that a media event was planned and that’s what will happen. The White House will confirm details in the course of the day.

Little did they know that this “pool spray” actually consists of four – yes, four – questions. Perhaps Team Obama had heard of the Arctic Monkey incident. Snap! Their hearts, I predict, broke for a second time.

Still, at least they could rest in the knowledge that the UK public were unlikely to miss the news of the momentous trip. After all, not only is Nick Robinson off to the US with our good old PM, but so is Oliver Burkeman along, I’m sure, with others. Missing news of the momentous trip should, in fact, have a hefty cash prize attached to it, so hard is it to avoid the publicity of Brown, who is – didn’t you know? -“the first European leader invited to Washington… blah… blah”

What publicity Team Brown didn’t bet on though, was the news that, although Obama is seemingly too busy to hold a press conference with Gords, he is not too busy to meet with the Scouts this afternoon. Snap! For the third time in two days, the Team’s hearts crumbled. At this point, I imagine, they could take little more. Three times in two days is enough for any heart – even those hardened, practised ones of Team Brown.

But there was more: this photo was about to find its way into the media.

Snap! (Wow, almost a pun.)

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Team Obama didn’t rate Brown highly enough to give him a press conference (perhaps they’d been checking out the polls); as if it wasn’t bad enough that Brown was deemed only able to cope with four questions; as if it wasn’t bad enough that Obama places scouts above our PM – now everyone’s got a photo of him having make-up applied.

Either that, or he has a strange fetish for having his nose stroked by a lady in red with an unidentifiable object (his expression does look oddly sexual).

Regardless, I think it’s fair to say that Brown’s trip to America has not been good for his Team’s love life.