Labour Isn't Working

Why it works

The poster that brought modern advertising techniques to British politics. A dole queue snakes toward an Unemployment Office under three words that pun on the governing party's name and the nation's condition. The queue was about twenty Hendon Young Conservative volunteers photographed repeatedly and composited — a fake that became a scandal that became free media when Chancellor Denis Healey attacked it in Parliament ("selling politics like soap-powder"), guaranteeing front pages. Revived as "Labour Still Isn't Working" for the 1979 election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power — the party treasurer claimed it won the election — it was voted poster of the century by Campaign's jury in 1999 and is held by the V&A. It is studied as the founding case of attack advertising in UK politics and of controversy as a media multiplier.