The Ad

The ad is available at the Conservatives' website (scroll to "latest videos").

We see Mr. Blair repeating the phrase, "Enough of talking," over and over and over again. Mr. Blair then declares, "It is time now... to do." We then see the Conservatives' slogan, "Are you thinking what we're thinking?"

(You mean, am I thinking that you are all overly-pessimistic? Well, yes, yes I am.)

Anyway, we then have a montage of Blair faces in red, black, and white, with quite a few grins, and a couple of smirks. A montage of Labour quotations, and newspaper rebuttals, subsequently appears. For example, we see a Labour quotation of, "Immigration rules will remain clear, firm, and fair," followed by a newspaper headline describing, "NEW ASYLUM FIASCO". There are similar montages for education, taxes, crime, and health care.

Footage of Mr. Blair then appears, with him being patted on the back by George W. Bush. A nonchalant Mr. Blair comments, "A day like today, I mean, it's not a day for sound-bites, really... um, we can leave those at home, I feel that, I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders..."

We then return to the Conservatives' montage, with extremely large lettering declaring, "IMAGINE ANOTHER 5 YEARS OF HIM.", with Mr. Blair commenting, "I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders." Some Conservative announcer then repeats the phrase, "Imagine another 5 years of him."

"Are you thinking what we're thinking?", is then displayed, with "VOTE CONSERVATIVE" appearing soon after. Throughout this final montage, Mr. Blair describes, "Enough of talking... it is time now to do... Thank you." End of advertisement.

The Music

The most noticeable part of the advertisement is the catchy tune. "Take That Look Off Your Face" is the tune played throughout the 90 seconds. It's quite a nice song, and it's an Andrew Lloyd Webber piece! Gotta love those showtunes.

Take that look off your face...
Take that look off your face...
I can see through your smile...
I can see through your smile...
You would love to be right.
I bet you... didn't sleep good last night,
Couldn't wait... to bring all of that bad news to my door.
Well, I've got news for you:
...I knew before.

You knew before? You knew what before? You knew what before when? So many questions, so few showtunes. Even so, it's a catchy song.

The Impression

Is this ad effective? I'm uncertain. I guess that it does hit the point home -- if you don't trust Mr. Blair, why would you vote for (nominally) five more years of him?

But as I left the movie theatre, I left with a queasy feeling -- and it wasn't from Miss Congeniality 2. While the Tories are explicitly attacking Labour's performance over the past two terms, they're implicity attacking Mr. Blair's "trust" factor. Which is fair enough -- polls consistently show that Mr. Blair is one of the least trusted politicians in Britain.

But it's more than just a "trust" issue. While I adore Andrew Lloyd Webber, and while the tune is certainly catchy, I can't help but think that the Tories are criticizing Mr. Blair because he smiles/grins too much. Exactly why should we "take that look" off Mr. Blair's face?

Are we really voting against Blair 'cause we don't like his smile? How tacky is that? And isn't that just a little insensitive? Hell, many people smile and grin when they're placed in nervous, uncomfortable situations, too -- does that automatically preclude them from being PM?

How much different is this ad from the 1993 Chrétien ad in Canada? Sure, Mr. Blair's smiling isn't a physical deformity such as Mr. Chrétien's, but does that make him unfit to be PM?

Overall grade: B. The ad is a memorable one, thanks to the catchy showtune. I thought more about the ad than I did about Sandra Bullock, which is an obvious negative. But I can't help but feeling unclean after watching this spot. The UK Conservative political party is notorious (rightly or wrongly) for being "insensitive" to the makeup of British society. Now they're implying that Mr. Blair may not have the proper "face" to be PM. I find that to be terribly shallow.

The advertisement, the grins, and the smirks are courtesy conservatives.com .