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POLITICAL LOGOS : WHY NOT PARROTS & DRAGONS' EGGS?

10/27/2015

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Picture

   It all began while watching the conference of the appallingly callous party, now with a human face ( I use the word 'human' liberally!).
   They have occupied the middle ground of  politics , even if it resembles     a No-Man's-Land strewn with the abandoned poor and refugees from wars they actually began.
   In the background is the large Conservative logo and, the more I look at it, the more it resembles certain things.
   They've painted the green English oak ( not the Welsh druidic one)        with the Union Jack :a tree metamorphosed into an imperial flag.
   Under Thatcher they had the so-called 'torch of freedom', an arm taken from the Statue of Liberty : appropriate when you consider how we were a base for US cruise missiles and how our neo-liberalism aped that of Reagan.
   The Union Jack is, of course, the flag of the only true form of Brit patriotism left in these isles, namely the n.Ireland Loyalists, and the fact that the oak's shape is also that of n. Ireland can't be mere coincidence.
  I'd suggest a more suitable logo, the Japanese Knotweed : a plant which is the most invasive in the world and strangles everything else around it.
   The Labour leader and those close to him may well be singing the Red Flag again, but their conference was anything but the open debate promised.
   Where were the honest exchanges about Trident, the monarchy and the bombing of Syria?
   To be frank, if they'd really argued these through the outcome of the week would've been the splitting of one party into two!
   The red rose logo may have been a Blairite dream in its escape from socialism, but it was apparently invented by Neil Kinnock as part of his rebranding process.
   Confusingly, it's also the badge of the English rugby team and Lancashire cricket club.
   Will the red flag be revived under Corbyn?
   Here in Cymru, Carwyn Jones is happy to ignore Corbyn's ideas, turning 'clear red water' into the murky blue Severn estuary.
   Perhaps Welsh Labour need to adopt their own logo : how about Carwyn's decidedly pink face superimposed on a red balloon?
   The Greens claim wide-ranging credentials with their globe emanating white flames.
   Perhaps an international party should respect smaller nations more, and cease to treat Cymru as a 'region'?
   Their conference came and went with little media coverage and their best leader is still Caroline Lucas, who no longer holds that post.
   Their politics is as red as Corbyn's, yet there's no sign of that on the logo.
  So I'd suggest they use Mars rather than our planet, as we'll all have to escape there if we carry on destroying the earth at this rate.
  Predictably, UKIP are now blaming everything on the EU rather than just immigration.
   This is largely due to the public sympathy for migrants and especially refugees.
  Their logo is purple (based on Farage's face when he  lost the election?) and their symbol the pound.
   Brit identity embodied in a unit of currency yet......are the French any less so because they use the Euro?
   A more apt image would be a wall topped with razor wire, though I've no argument with purple : the colour of bruising.
   Plaid Cymru's conference consisted mostly of reiterating - ' When we are in government......' as if repeating it will make it happen.
   Many in Plaid claim they're socialist, but if that's the case then where were their policies to create  a true NHS ( no private consultancies) and comprehensive education ( no private schools); above all , where were plans for co-operatives all over the country?
   The logo's based on the Welsh poppy ( y pabi melyn) , which no-one's heard of or even associates with Cymru!   
   It closely resembles BP's logo, but the company have never sued.
   Their previous logo was preferable, the Triban with its three green triangles each with a deconstructed dragon on , representing the three main peaks of Wales.
   Perhaps it was dispensed with  to broaden appeal away from mathematical mountaineers into mythology.
   A more suitable logo would be a dragon's egg, as they're still waiting to be born into any form and substance.
   Outside the Welsh context, I quite like the SNP logo as it reminds me of those metal puzzles I had in my Christmas stocking as a kid.
   I'd no idea it meant a combination of thistle and saltire; at least it's simple, even if it appears to have nothing to do with Scotland.
  Like the Tories, the LibDems conference tried to occupy the middle ground, to appeal to disaffected Labourites.
   Funny that, for a party who'd just shared a government which had penalised the poor ,disabled and students in particular, creating a country where Food Banks grew like Pound Stores.
   Their soaring yellow 'bird of liberty' is actually quite a catching logo , but I'd still replace it with a puke-coloured parrot (which repeats the Tories, like Clegg did for Cameron).

   I have an oak in my garden. The hillside  out the back is covered in them.
   They once dominated the ancient forest land.
   If there were a Union of United Oak Trees I think they'd take the Tories to court immediately.   


 RECLAIMING  THE  OAK
 
I will take it down
from their political banners :
shape of an enormous brain
branded with the Union Jack,
or an Ulsterman's thought-bubble.
 
I shall place it again
in the wild fields surrounding
so the trunk will be bent
to ways of wind and stream
and, if you listen carefully,
you'll hear the druids chanting.
 
I will plant it back
where squirrels and wood pigeons
can feed off its acorns,
where tree-creepers and nuthatches
skitter along  moss-covered bark
picking for tiny insects.
 
I'll tell them they don't own it ;
nor the farmer with deeds
or horses who rub against it,
children suspended on branches,
or me, in my loftiness.
 
I will bring it back, and leave it.
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