The Big Picture
The Big Picture is a showcase for local photographic talent. Please email pictures for consideration, along with some details about them, to jamesp@baylismedia.co.uk throughout society in general and the way in which most people also arrive at their buying decisions.
For people who are just too lazy, or who are incapable of thinking for themselves, brands are what guide their decisions.
Conservative is a brand just like Domestos is a brand.
Both can sometimes be found down a toilet pan but at least one of them kills 99 per cent of household germs.
And Harrods is a brand – it’s posh ain’t it? It’s not stretching a point to say that
Durex is also a brand. At least it’s an extra safe one.
You must have heard people say things like ‘We’ve always voted Conservative’ or ‘I’m a Labour man meself’ or ‘I always vote Lib Dem’. Why?
Many kids will refuse to wear trainers without the Nike logo.
Which is why Nike pay millions to sports celebrities to ensure those kids will accept no alternative.
If you want sell stuff to silly pampered women with more money than sense, you need brands like Armani, Gucci, Versace, Prada etcetera.
If you want to sell stuff to equally silly men with more money than sense, you need brands like Bugatti, Ferrari, Ralph Lauren and Rolex. “Look at my watch!”
And if you want to ensure the next local lack-lustre Conservative drone gets sold to the voters of Windsor and Maidenhead, then you package them with the Conservative brand.
Other brands don’t seem to work here.
You just stick a blue rosette on ‘em and away they go. These BlueBots then mysteriously all lend support to mad plans the brand has already agreed upon.
To be fair, the blinkered young Labour voters of London behave much the same.
Stick a nice red rosette on a useless guy who should have followed in his father’s footsteps and bingo, he becomes The Mayor of London.
But as for the BlueBots of Maidenhead, they’ll proceed to say things like: “Let’s desecrate a golf course and say it’s for much needed homes. If the voters complain we’ll give it a green spine.”
They’ll probably say: “Let’s get shot of that dreary old Spencer’s Farm. What people want are pollen rich gardens, vibrant communities, biodiversity and never mind the sewage.
“And if all else fails, we’ll give ‘em a Lord of The Greens and he shall be called Barnaby.”
So next year, as The Who once said, please don’t get fooled again.
Be colour blind and say to hell with Old Blue or any other political colour.
After all, Mick Jarvis, who I know really does care about the area, was beaten by a bloke with an ego the size of a Royal Borough and who then went on to nearly bankrupt it.
But he did have a nice blue rosette.
The thing is, who you vote for locally will always have a far greater impact on your life than who you vote for nationally.
MALCOLM STRETTEN Boulters Lane
Maidenhead