Saturday, February 20, 2010

"A future fair for all"

...being Labour's new election slogan - not quite as turgid as it could have been. The trouble is that it sounds like the sort of thing Gordon Brown might say.

Actually, reading it again, it makes me imagine some sort of sci-fi space carnival... "Daddy! Can we go to the future fair?" "Sure we can, Timmy - it's a future fair for all!"

3 comments:

CS Clark said...

Another example of poetic/Yodaesque word order reversal to make it stick, in the manner of the Con's 'Now for change'? (Which I still think is inspired by LOTR's 'Now for wrath. Now for ruin', and which the Tories should have used in its original version as it would have been more honest.)

Shame they didn't think of that in the past - Ike I Like, Only Getting Better Can Things Be, Had It So Good You Never Have...

Tom Freeman said...

Yeah, I've just been thinking about its rhythm too. "A future fair for all" goes soft-hard-soft-hard-soft-hard. That way, at least, it works.

The alternative "A fair future for all" Goes soft-hard-hard-soft and then gets lost. The first two F-words both begins with stresses, which lead you to treat the one that follows in the same way - except that "for" is such a wussy little word. As part of a longer sentence it would be much more natural, but as a standalone slogan - meh.

Anonymous said...

Google for "future fair for all"