I’ve been wanting to say: “it’s a little known fact” for a while. A phrase that reminds me of a sketch with the great Peter Cook. It was a show called the Secret Policeman’s Ball with a sketch called “Interesting Facts”. Cook sits on a park bench and talks to a well-dressed John Cleese as he is trying to read a tabloid newspaper. A succession of nonsense is streamed at the disinterested Cleese. Most of the comedy comes from the slow build-up of Cleese’s annoyance.
The parallel I have in mind is the mimicry that LEAVE campaigners are perfecting. Persistently revealing quirky and just plain wrong information to a general public who they think is interested. Having the effect of uniting the park bench bores but annoying the pants off of the rest of us.
The down side of this behaviour is that it could have the impact of turning people off. For those of us who are campaigning, the UK vote in June will be the most important vote for a generation. However, getting back to the normal life where a sizable proportion of people don’t vote at all, this annoyance factor presents a real problem.
Fortunately, the STAY (in the EU) side of the argument has a more positive message. Facts revealed need to be true and relevant to everyday life. The challenge remains to encourage as many people to vote as possible and not to annoy the pants off of the electorate.
John Vincent 