With the benefit of hindsight that looks an amazing ad.
Was it well received at the time. I barely remember it but was 19 at the time so spent my time not watching TV but going out and getting pissed with chums.
It was the most expensive ad ever made and no one understood it and few had heard of Apple. I was also getting pissed with chums I just happened to have been shooting a poster for Greenall at the studio next door and I was friends with the first assistant on the Ridley shoot so he asked me in to watch.
I know we don’t see eye to eye politically but I bet you’ve got some really interesting stories after your career. I remember chatting about that Mud album cover which was really interesting.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Re your last paragraph, if a car isn’t aspirational and is at root a transformation device then you just buy a BYD electric vehicle - why spend another potential £70k on a jag which might be no better? The answer is the badge, the history and the emotions.
It’s the same for all the old marques - people buying Electric Mercedes, BMW and Audi intent necessarily buying a better car than Tesla - they are buying a brand and image. Jaguar has run away screaming from what made people buy them and are now going to have to make some seriously amazing cars to attract those who would pay less for a Chinese EV or who would otherwise buy German.
I agree there are "anti-brand" values as well as "brand values". So a decision to buy in your terms a Chinese EV, or in my terms in 2018 a Skoda Superb not a VW Estate or an Audi A6 or a BMW 5 Series or a Mercedes something something is me embracing practicality, VW technology without being bent over for +£10k (VW) or +20k (Audi) for less value (ie smaller inside and I will be thought of as a dodgy driver), is also arguably an emotional-in-parts decision.
For me someone paying +£70k for a Jag or an Audi SUV which is unnecessary carries associations.
We know that these vehicles are more dangerous to other road users, due eg to sightlines and the extra damage they do. We have years of evidence about that.
It makes me think that the driver may be the type who will jump out and threaten violence if you tap on their window once to warn them they are driving dangerously close.
I expect a vehicle like that to have a higher likelihood of an unthinking, self-absorbed, unskilled fool at the wheel, who does not give a damn about anybody else.
Then there are perceptions about self-image and self importance, and the weirdness of identifying with a motor vehicles in an almost anthropomorphic way - which see in outraged "Don't touch MY car" reactions.
Someone who is not careful with their money - that is worldview and based around what wealthier people should be doing to steward their resources. Theologically see (for example) how theology in richer people who don't want to face any real challenges to their lifestyle morphs into "Health and Wealth" doctrine, or what is known as the prosperity gospel; imo that's no better than post-moderns who want a pre-digested baby food spirituality-mush (see Glastonbury) which is a comfort blanket, with no personal implications.
I should put one caveat there around the minority of people who need, or may feel they need - eg 4 kids needing more seats or child seat attachment points. They get a pass, or partial pass, from me.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
That's an expensive way to not achieve a lot. They must have run out of shorter range missiles.
Surely it's a not so coded message: this is a conventionally armed ICBM this time, but...
That’s exactly the point of it and probably the ‘retaliation’ for the ATACAMS.
We’re in a period where it is useful for both parties to demonstrate strength in their positions. It suits Putin very well to be doing the old “he might be nuts enough to send that nuke” routine again at the moment. Expect a lot of this over the next few weeks.
Well on the plus side Putin didn't feel the need to retaliate overnight to British missiles hitting targets in Russia. Which is something, I suppose.
It's perhaps a bit premature to declare Putin all talk and no trousers, again, but the supposed threat of a major missile attack that led to the closure of the US embassy came to nothing, unless it was connected to the first use by Russia of an ICBM.
The use of an ICBM is very notable in lots of ways. I wonder what motivated it?
My guess would be rapidly diminishing stocks of conventional weapons but that is maybe just my natural optimism shining through!
Unfortunately that doesn't quite fit. Russia had saved up a huge salvo of various missiles that they used recently. What does one ICBM add to that?
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
That's an expensive way to not achieve a lot. They must have run out of shorter range missiles.
Although, until it actually lands, you can't know whether "the mad fucker has actually done it - he's used a nuke..."
Probably some soiled undies whilst they were tracking it...
Probably a larger IRBM - the Russians never fell out of love with those.
The irony of the Cuban Missile crisis was that the Jupiter IRBM missiles in Turkey, which were upsetting Khrushchev & Co, were obsolete and being removed.
All down to Edward Teller. At Project Nobska he claimed that his lab would soon be building compact H bombs (due to the breakthrough for primary design). And that internal guidance was about to become super accurate (it was). Combined with high impulse solid fuel, this gave the US Minuteman and Polaris.
McNamara wanted to do a Jack Fisher - cut costs, get rid of the obsolete and unworkable, build the best in quantity. So he approved the scheme - thousands of Minuteman and Polaris missiles *and nothing else* for nuclear missiles (at this point they were talking about 10,000 Minuteman missiles). All the older and half developed systems and wacky stuff like nuclear powered bombers was chopped. Including the Jupiters.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
During the 1960s, programmes often used stock footage of a Jaguar going over a cliff. It is jarring once you notice, so you're probably better off not reading this.
The Sweeney generally shot all their footage. Some die hard do tours of the locations. Very few sadly exist. Although the pub in Night Out is still there.
The blown up helicopter from a Bond movie made a fair few appearance even in the timeless classic Dr Who story the Daemons.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVID, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
The Tories presenting themselves as fiscal hawks is going to require a serious makeover from the last government but there are going to be shed loads of votes in doing so as the consequences of this stupidity become apparent. Higher interest rates, lower growth, a decline in Sterling resulting in imported inflation and a steady rise in unemployment. We are in serious trouble.
I expect this government to be at least as unpopular as Harold Wilson's in 1967-69. I'd expect them to suffer their worst London Borough results since 1968, in 2026, lose the Sennedd, and have a run of horrible by-elections.
But, Wilson very nearly came back to win, in 1970. And, he might well have won, had he waited longer.
He expected to win and was ahead in the polls. What did for him was a Tory campaign focused on rising prices.
Catching up with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott. However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown. However, what you saw was what you got!
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Re your last paragraph, if a car isn’t aspirational and is at root a transformation device then you just buy a BYD electric vehicle - why spend another potential £70k on a jag which might be no better? The answer is the badge, the history and the emotions.
It’s the same for all the old marques - people buying Electric Mercedes, BMW and Audi intent necessarily buying a better car than Tesla - they are buying a brand and image. Jaguar has run away screaming from what made people buy them and are now going to have to make some seriously amazing cars to attract those who would pay less for a Chinese EV or who would otherwise buy German.
I agree there are "anti-brand" values as well as "brand values". So a decision to buy in your terms a Chinese EV, or in my terms in 2018 a Skoda Superb not a VW Estate or an Audi A6 or a BMW 5 Series or a Mercedes something something is me embracing practicality, VW technology without being bent over for +£10k (VW) or +20k (Audi) for less value (ie smaller inside and I will be thought of as a dodgy driver), is also arguably an emotional-in-parts decision.
For me someone paying +£70k for a Jag or an Audi SUV which is unnecessary carries associations.
We know that these vehicles are more dangerous to other road users, due eg to sightlines and the extra damage they do. We have years of evidence about that.
It makes me think that the driver may be the type who will jump out and threaten violence if you tap on their window once to warn them they are driving dangerously close.
I expect a vehicle like that to have a higher likelihood of an unthinking, self-absorbed, unskilled fool at the wheel, who does not give a damn about anybody else.
Then there's perceptions about self-image and self importance, and the weirdness of identifying with a motor vehicles in an almost anthropomorphic way - which see in outraged "Don't touch MY car" reactions.
Someone who is not careful with their money - that is worldview and based around what wealthier people should be doing to steward their resources. Theologically see (for example) how theology in richer people who don't want to face any real challenges to their lifestyle morphs into "Health and Wealth" doctrine, or what is known as the prosperity gospel; imo that's no better than post-moderns who want a pre-digested baby food spirituality-mush (see Glastonbury) which is a comfort blanket, with no personal implications.
I should put one caveat there around the minority of people who need, or may feel they need - eg 4 kids needing more seats or child seat attachment points. They get a pass, or partial pass, from me.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
A pal went to see it in Glasgow and said it was excellent (slightly to my surprise). He said all the performances were good but John Thomson was the standout.
Since it's Jags morning, trying to rebrand a shagged out old marque is like making love to a beautiful woman, be very careful if trying something a bit out of the ordinary.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
That's an expensive way to not achieve a lot. They must have run out of shorter range missiles.
Although, until it actually lands, you can't know whether "the mad fucker has actually done it - he's used a nuke..."
Probably some soiled undies whilst they were tracking it...
DSPS would have tracked any launch. This is why it is very unlikely to be an actual ICBM. Fixed sites are known, and even a road mobile one has a unique signature (higher launch energy, for the weight).
If they had launched an ICBM, the US would have had the president in the air, on Air Force One, in minutes.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Nothing like the first Mini; had one in 1962.
My parents bought one in 1961; how basic and flimsy it seems now!
Catching with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott. However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown. However, what you saw was what you got!
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
I am not sure what the alternative is. Every tax rise is met with tears
The problem is every tax rise includes exemptions, with all those not being exempt believing they're being discriminated against.
So the poor get to keep wfa and the public sector don't get affected by increasing employers NI.
Labour should have gone for "we're all in this together".
Except after accepting all the freebies they couldn't.
And yes, the Conservatives also failed the "we're all in this together" test by exempting oldies.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
During the 1960s, programmes often used stock footage of a Jaguar going over a cliff. It is jarring once you notice, so you're probably better off not reading this.
The Sweeney generally shot all their footage. Some die hard do tours of the locations. Very few sadly exist. Although the pub in Night Out is still there.
The blown up helicopter from a Bond movie made a fair few appearance even in the timeless classic Dr Who story the Daemons.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
That's an expensive way to not achieve a lot. They must have run out of shorter range missiles.
Surely it's a not so coded message: this is a conventionally armed ICBM this time, but...
That’s exactly the point of it and probably the ‘retaliation’ for the ATACAMS.
We’re in a period where it is useful for both parties to demonstrate strength in their positions. It suits Putin very well to be doing the old “he might be nuts enough to send that nuke” routine again at the moment. Expect a lot of this over the next few weeks.
One good comment I heard from one of the Ukraine analysts lambasting media was
"Stop talking about Long Range missiles. A long range missile can go 5000km. These are short range missiles".
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Nothing like the first Mini; had one in 1962.
My parents bought one in 1961; how basic and flimsy it seems now!
I did have one of those with a heater! Had to change a tyre once and while I was doing so the jack slipped. So I lifted up the car just enough for my wife to right the jack and I carried on a finished the job.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
Catching with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott. However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown. However, what you saw was what you got!
I think that's a bit of a fantasy. By Ashdown's own account, Blair flirted with him prior to 1997 with a view to what might be needed if he had a small or no majority (the Lib Dems would've been a more reliable partner than the Bennite left), but that wasn't what happened in the 1997 election and Blair had no need for him.
Maybe Blair said, "Well, y'know Paddy, I'd love to offer PR but John won't let me..." But Ashdown knew that was bollocks. In the situation as it was after the 1997 election, it would've meant sacrificing hundreds of Labour MPs when Blair had absolutely no need of it to progress his agenda.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Nothing like the first Mini; had one in 1962.
My parents bought one in 1961; how basic and flimsy it seems now!
I did have one of those with a heater! Had to change a tyre once and while I was doing so the jack slipped. So I lifted up the car just enough for my wife to right the jack and I carried on a finished the job.
Ours had the heater. Couldn't survive in Scotland without it. But I still can't work out how we got three adults, a child, and a large Irish Setter in it.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
I am not sure what the alternative is. Every tax rise is met with tears
Catching with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott. However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown. However, what you saw was what you got!
I think that's a bit of a fantasy. By Ashdown's own account, Blair flirted with him prior to 1997 with a view to what might be needed if he had a small or no majority (the Lib Dems would've been a more reliable partner than the Bennite left), but that wasn't what happened in the 1997 election and Blair had no need for him.
Maybe Blair said, "Well, y'know Paddy, I'd love to offer PR but John won't let me..." But Ashdown knew that was bollocks. In the situation as it was after the 1997 election, it would've meant sacrificing hundreds of Labour MPs when Blair had absolutely no need of it to progress his agenda.
You may be right; I'm basing my post on what I recall from those days.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
You sure she didn’t get that wrong on her CV, too?
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Nothing like the first Mini; had one in 1962.
Which was why it was a new brand. But one that took the image from the past and updated it.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
You sure she didn’t get that wrong on her CV, too?
Well she was in the same academic year cohort as me, so I hope not but you cannot trust people who attended the University of Oxford, they produce chancers like Reeves and Jeffrey Archer.
Saying Rayner connects Labour with the chav class is exactly the kind of comment that shows the attitude of some Tories hasn’t changed.
She may not be a Prescott but she has an authenticity and genuinely interesting background that few politicians do nowadays. The same with Bridget Phillipson.
I know the Tories aren’t looking to connect with that kind of voter based on comments the other day which is fine but to actively repel voters and say you don’t want them strikes me as exactly where Labour went wrong in 2019.
I think SKS is in a lot of trouble and is edging towards being a one term PM but these kinds of attitudes make me question if the Tories are actually interested in winning or instead just shouting at the electorate.
I like Rayner. I think she’d be a far better leader than Starmer and she’d choose a much better Chancellor than the dreadful Reeves
They must be panicking in Labour HQ by now. The polling is terrible and now the economic data is trickling in and it’s scarily bad
They aren’t panicking in Labour HQ. They have years left before it is terminal. Anything else is wishcasting on the level of the left after the 2019 loss.
And much of this forum is totally of the view the government will surely collapse any day. It isn’t going to and Starmer isn’t going anywhere.
But is Starmer doing well. No.
Is Starmer doing terribly. Also no.
The second or third hand info I have is that Labour expect to have a pretty miserable 18 months as they try to get the unpopular stuff done early. Then they hope to see some results and be able to do more popular things.
I agree that Labour don't really seem to have a high profile equivalent (a male connecting to male working class/traditionalist Labour). Rayner fills a similar, in some ways, but different role.
FPT (and relevant to old two-Jags - wonder what he would have made of it):
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
How to totally annoy all of your existing customers, while also not attracting the new customers at which you’re aiming the advert.
The rebrand would have worked for a slightly punk/insurgent brand positioning Jaguar as a more fun, younger brand, taking on VW/Seat etc, or a bit like Smart, but I don't think it's classy enough if they're apparently taking the prices up, rather than down. The competition there is Audi, BMW, Volvo and it just looks a bit too flimsy and whimsical, to me. But what do I know? I wasn't in the market for a Jag before and I won't be now.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
In order to achieve peace, Mowlam had to persuade each side not to allow themselves to rise to provocations and outrages committed by the other side.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
"Access Care contacted Hampshire Police. But the response was not what they expected.
A police constable replied on 4 November with disappointing news. They explained that officers had "limited lines of enquiry" and that because Tracy had denied the allegation, they would need an "independent witness" to confirm the allegation.
They seemed to be saying that they would not investigate, adding that it would be deemed "not in the public interest" to send a police officer to interview Tracy in person at her home, despite having her address."
"Access Care contacted Hampshire Police. But the response was not what they expected.
A police constable replied on 4 November with disappointing news. They explained that officers had "limited lines of enquiry" and that because Tracy had denied the allegation, they would need an "independent witness" to confirm the allegation.
They seemed to be saying that they would not investigate, adding that it would be deemed "not in the public interest" to send a police officer to interview Tracy in person at her home, despite having her address."
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
"Access Care contacted Hampshire Police. But the response was not what they expected.
A police constable replied on 4 November with disappointing news. They explained that officers had "limited lines of enquiry" and that because Tracy had denied the allegation, they would need an "independent witness" to confirm the allegation.
They seemed to be saying that they would not investigate, adding that it would be deemed "not in the public interest" to send a police officer to interview Tracy in person at her home, despite having her address."
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
reading comment blogs other than PB, are we now getting a sense more and more people on the right are going over to Farage and Reform position, that NATO and EU expansion caused the unnecessary bloodshed and horror in Ukraine, and Labour are making yet another crisis escalating and prolonging it?
Are there any shifts in the backing government on Ukraine polling?
If there are, the Conservative Front Bench, which has got off to a strong start under Kemi in how they are positioning themselves on the side of every disillusioned voter, follows the voter shift to keep the clear blue water with Labour and not with Reform, Starmer won’t have the country’s backing for what he is doing - that would be a very dangerous place for government.
Looking ahead, surely we can only see Musk and Trump soon piling in behind Farage and Reform and lambasting Starmer on this? That could shift views, and put Labour in difficult place with its own people and the media,
Jaguar has the same problem Star Wars has: legacy brands with appeal to older men who remember them from childhood. They try to expand their appeal to a younger and/or more female generation and fail, pissing off their legacy fans in the process. They'll recover when they produce a product that re-appeals to to the legacy fans by mining their concerns: so basically the Jaguar Andor.
Is Star Wars unpopular amongst kids? It seems quite popular at my son's primary (including a couple of girls).
Yes, but the younglings like the films. The television output doesn't do as well. Hence the "Andor" analogy, which is about middle-aged men trapped in a dull, oppressive system and fighting against it.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
Fake news.
O-levels stopped in 1987. Rachel did GCSEs.
That's what's wrong with politicians nowadays, they all did namby-pamby GCSEs rather than proper O-Levels like what we* did!
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
Most cars are just about the same these days so branding is everything.
You need something distinctive. That’s what the first range of Minis did so well. It also helped the BMW really invested in plant Oxford. They also laid on cracking buffets
The new Mini was a marketing act of genius. A mix of old and new.
The story of it must be worth a book?
Although they took the "Mini" to the point where they are now the size of a small truck.
The later designs meandered - it was the initial offering that launched a new brand. The New Mini.
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Nothing like the first Mini; had one in 1962.
My parents bought one in 1961; how basic and flimsy it seems now!
We have a 1972 clubman estate. So basic. Not even a radio. Its fun, but my god its a shit creation compared to modern cars.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Re your last paragraph, if a car isn’t aspirational and is at root a transformation device then you just buy a BYD electric vehicle - why spend another potential £70k on a jag which might be no better? The answer is the badge, the history and the emotions.
It’s the same for all the old marques - people buying Electric Mercedes, BMW and Audi intent necessarily buying a better car than Tesla - they are buying a brand and image. Jaguar has run away screaming from what made people buy them and are now going to have to make some seriously amazing cars to attract those who would pay less for a Chinese EV or who would otherwise buy German.
I agree there are "anti-brand" values as well as "brand values". So a decision to buy in your terms a Chinese EV, or in my terms in 2018 a Skoda Superb not a VW Estate or an Audi A6 or a BMW 5 Series or a Mercedes something something is me embracing practicality, VW technology without being bent over for +£10k (VW) or +20k (Audi) for less value (ie smaller inside and I will be thought of as a dodgy driver), is also arguably an emotional-in-parts decision.
For me someone paying +£70k for a Jag or an Audi SUV which is unnecessary carries associations.
We know that these vehicles are more dangerous to other road users, due eg to sightlines and the extra damage they do. We have years of evidence about that.
It makes me think that the driver may be the type who will jump out and threaten violence if you tap on their window once to warn them they are driving dangerously close.
I expect a vehicle like that to have a higher likelihood of an unthinking, self-absorbed, unskilled fool at the wheel, who does not give a damn about anybody else.
Then there's perceptions about self-image and self importance, and the weirdness of identifying with a motor vehicles in an almost anthropomorphic way - which see in outraged "Don't touch MY car" reactions.
Someone who is not careful with their money - that is worldview and based around what wealthier people should be doing to steward their resources. Theologically see (for example) how theology in richer people who don't want to face any real challenges to their lifestyle morphs into "Health and Wealth" doctrine, or what is known as the prosperity gospel; imo that's no better than post-moderns who want a pre-digested baby food spirituality-mush (see Glastonbury) which is a comfort blanket, with no personal implications.
I should put one caveat there around the minority of people who need, or may feel they need - eg 4 kids needing more seats or child seat attachment points. They get a pass, or partial pass, from me.
I would have much more sympathy where they were blocking pavements.
I've made myself quite unpopular with some in the active travel niche by firmly defending on social media stiff gaol terms for Extinction Rebellion types, especially around clogging-up-infrastructure protests which impact eg ambulances.
I have full sympathy for this type of thing - the scratches are just desserts, but making it deliberate activism is crossing a couple of lines and walking some others (eg the auto-trigger monitoring cameras on Teslas). I'm sure there are people who do it (cf I know one person who removed an anti-wheelchair barrier by turning up with Hi-Viz, a wheelbarrow and an angle grinder), but you need to know your onions if you take that option.
A wheelchair user who was forced to risk scratching cars just to remain on the safety of the pavement posted a shocking video clip of his struggle and said: "Sue me." Transport rights campaigner Doug Paulley has shared his struggle trying to navigate cars parked on the pavement leaving just inches of space for disabled people to get past.
Catching with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott. However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown. However, what you saw was what you got!
I think that's a bit of a fantasy. By Ashdown's own account, Blair flirted with him prior to 1997 with a view to what might be needed if he had a small or no majority (the Lib Dems would've been a more reliable partner than the Bennite left), but that wasn't what happened in the 1997 election and Blair had no need for him.
Maybe Blair said, "Well, y'know Paddy, I'd love to offer PR but John won't let me..." But Ashdown knew that was bollocks. In the situation as it was after the 1997 election, it would've meant sacrificing hundreds of Labour MPs when Blair had absolutely no need of it to progress his agenda.
Labour manifesto 1997
"We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system."
reading comment blogs other than PB, are we now getting a sense more and more people on the right are going over to Farage and Reform position, that NATO and EU expansion caused the unnecessary bloodshed and horror in Ukraine, and Labour are making yet another crisis escalating and prolonging it?
Are there any shifts in the backing government on Ukraine polling?
If there are, the Conservative Front Bench, which has got off to a strong start under Kemi in how they are positioning themselves on the side of every disillusioned voter, follows the voter shift to keep the clear blue water with Labour and not with Reform, Starmer won’t have the country’s backing for what he is doing - that would be a very dangerous place for government.
So you're saying some bloke in the Mail is hyperbolically terrified of hyperbolic headlines on the Mail ?
The Mail has been declaring that nuclear war has been imminent since February 2022.
Jaguar has the same problem Star Wars has: legacy brands with appeal to older men who remember them from childhood. They try to expand their appeal to a younger and/or more female generation and fail, pissing off their legacy fans in the process. They'll recover when they produce a product that re-appeals to to the legacy fans by mining their concerns: so basically the Jaguar Andor.
Is Star Wars unpopular amongst kids? It seems quite popular at my son's primary (including a couple of girls).
Yes, but the younglings like the films. The television output doesn't do as well. Hence the "Andor" analogy, which is about middle-aged men trapped in a dull, oppressive system and fighting against it.
That's for the market of ex-Jag drivers with money to spare now?
Saying Rayner connects Labour with the chav class is exactly the kind of comment that shows the attitude of some Tories hasn’t changed.
She may not be a Prescott but she has an authenticity and genuinely interesting background that few politicians do nowadays. The same with Bridget Phillipson.
I know the Tories aren’t looking to connect with that kind of voter based on comments the other day which is fine but to actively repel voters and say you don’t want them strikes me as exactly where Labour went wrong in 2019.
I think SKS is in a lot of trouble and is edging towards being a one term PM but these kinds of attitudes make me question if the Tories are actually interested in winning or instead just shouting at the electorate.
I like Rayner. I think she’d be a far better leader than Starmer and she’d choose a much better Chancellor than the dreadful Reeves
They must be panicking in Labour HQ by now. The polling is terrible and now the economic data is trickling in and it’s scarily bad
They aren’t panicking in Labour HQ. They have years left before it is terminal. Anything else is wishcasting on the level of the left after the 2019 loss.
And much of this forum is totally of the view the government will surely collapse any day. It isn’t going to and Starmer isn’t going anywhere.
But is Starmer doing well. No.
Is Starmer doing terribly. Also no.
He’s the worst performing PM four months into the job since modern polling began, that counts as doing terribly.
Is he doing terribly according to the polling, yes.
Do I personally think he’s doing as terribly as that, no I don’t.
I know you and I agree on virtually nothing other than maybe HS2 and Cameron actually being a decent PM but I think even you don’t really think SKS’s position is unrecoverable.
The only way he recovers is if the economy miraculously turns around. He certainly can’t rely on charm, wit, charisma or even basic honesty. He’s a lying grifter and the public has decided they despise him
So he needs Reeves to do miracles with the UK economy. Four months in, does that look likely? What do the numbers say?
You are so delightfully short-termist sometimes.
"Four months" = LOL. Labour has a huge majority and the Starmer gamble is very obviously that he'll take pain now in order to hand out sweeties in 2028. I'm not convinced it'll work or that he has the chops to deal with the pain without fatal damage. But I do know that expecting to see it in lagging indicators four months after an election is economically illiterate madness.
He isn't taking the pain, he is inflicting it. He's increasing inflation, reducing growth, increasing borrowing, increasing the cost of borrowing and increasing unemployment.
If he was increasing pain, to get higher growth, keep inflation at target, reducing borrowing and the cost of borrowing whilst reducing unemployment, people might accept it.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
Fake news.
O-levels stopped in 1987. Rachel did GCSEs.
That's what's wrong with politicians nowadays, they all did namby-pamby GCSEs rather than proper O-Levels like what we* did!
*full disclosure: I did GCSEs
Prescott did O-levels, and his English is no better than what yours is.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
In order to achieve peace, Mowlam had to persuade each side not to allow themselves to rise to provocations and outrages committed by the other side.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
I agree that Labour don't really seem to have a high profile equivalent (a male connecting to male working class/traditionalist Labour). Rayner fills a similar, in some ways, but different role.
FPT (and relevant to old two-Jags - wonder what he would have made of it):
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
How to totally annoy all of your existing customers, while also not attracting the new customers at which you’re aiming the advert.
The rebrand would have worked for a slightly punk/insurgent brand positioning Jaguar as a more fun, younger brand, taking on VW/Seat etc, or a bit like Smart, but I don't think it's classy enough if they're apparently taking the prices up, rather than down. The competition there is Audi, BMW, Volvo and it just looks a bit too flimsy and whimsical, to me. But what do I know? I wasn't in the market for a Jag before and I won't be now.
This campaign is worse than Bud Light. As a mass market product, young people could easily buy Bud Light if they wanted to. On the other hand, Jaguar is a premium product. Your average new car buyer in the UK is 55 years old and that reflects the fact that people only tend to buy new cars when they have built up their wealth. Your average 20-something might like this campaign but they'll either not own a car or have a second hand one. I also agree with Leon that for something that claims "copy nothing", it's incredibly generic.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Re your last paragraph, if a car isn’t aspirational and is at root a transformation device then you just buy a BYD electric vehicle - why spend another potential £70k on a jag which might be no better? The answer is the badge, the history and the emotions.
It’s the same for all the old marques - people buying Electric Mercedes, BMW and Audi intent necessarily buying a better car than Tesla - they are buying a brand and image. Jaguar has run away screaming from what made people buy them and are now going to have to make some seriously amazing cars to attract those who would pay less for a Chinese EV or who would otherwise buy German.
I agree there are "anti-brand" values as well as "brand values". So a decision to buy in your terms a Chinese EV, or in my terms in 2018 a Skoda Superb not a VW Estate or an Audi A6 or a BMW 5 Series or a Mercedes something something is me embracing practicality, VW technology without being bent over for +£10k (VW) or +20k (Audi) for less value (ie smaller inside and I will be thought of as a dodgy driver), is also arguably an emotional-in-parts decision.
For me someone paying +£70k for a Jag or an Audi SUV which is unnecessary carries associations.
We know that these vehicles are more dangerous to other road users, due eg to sightlines and the extra damage they do. We have years of evidence about that.
It makes me think that the driver may be the type who will jump out and threaten violence if you tap on their window once to warn them they are driving dangerously close.
I expect a vehicle like that to have a higher likelihood of an unthinking, self-absorbed, unskilled fool at the wheel, who does not give a damn about anybody else.
Then there's perceptions about self-image and self importance, and the weirdness of identifying with a motor vehicles in an almost anthropomorphic way - which see in outraged "Don't touch MY car" reactions.
Someone who is not careful with their money - that is worldview and based around what wealthier people should be doing to steward their resources. Theologically see (for example) how theology in richer people who don't want to face any real challenges to their lifestyle morphs into "Health and Wealth" doctrine, or what is known as the prosperity gospel; imo that's no better than post-moderns who want a pre-digested baby food spirituality-mush (see Glastonbury) which is a comfort blanket, with no personal implications.
I should put one caveat there around the minority of people who need, or may feel they need - eg 4 kids needing more seats or child seat attachment points. They get a pass, or partial pass, from me.
I would have much more sympathy where they were blocking pavements.
I've made myself quite unpopular with some in the active travel niche by firmly defending on social media stiff gaol terms for Extinction Rebellion types, especially around clogging-up-infrastructure protests which impact eg ambulances.
I have more sympathy for this type of thing, but making it deliberate activism is crossing a couple of lines and walking some others (eg the auto-trigger monitoring cameras on Teslas):
A wheelchair user who was forced to risk scratching cars just to remain on the safety of the pavement posted a shocking video clip of his struggle and said: "Sue me." Transport rights campaigner Doug Paulley has shared his struggle trying to navigate cars parked on the pavement leaving just inches of space for disabled people to get past.
Mm. The new legislation from Holyrood about pavement parking is more constructive - though other councils need to follow Edinburgh in activating it in their areas. As Eabhal noted, lots of howling initially, now died down.
As for John Prescott. Wasn't impressed with that left jab that I don't think quite landed on mullet farmer boy and my recollection of him was that he was quite hypocritical when it came to all kinds of things he had previously said he was dead against. And wasn't he a shagger also.
So fine, he was a working class hero, but that doesn't or shouldn't get you too far in politics.
If my memory serves me correctly, Mo Mowlam was highly regarded, and talked of very warmly, by politicians right across the political spectrum in NI, from moderates on both sides to extremists on both sides. That suggests she did rather a good job.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
Fake news.
O-levels stopped in 1987. Rachel did GCSEs.
That's what's wrong with politicians nowadays, they all did namby-pamby GCSEs rather than proper O-Levels like what we* did!
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It wasn't an ICBM
An ICBM launch, for a start, would have had the US President on Airforce One in a scramble takeoff.
The DSPS satellites can detect such launches instantly - that's what they are for.
The energy signature of an ICBM is much, much higher than an IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) or MRBM (Medium Range Ballistic Missile)
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
Indeed.
Whether you think it's a bluff or ominous, it should be top of the list of PB discussions here, today.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
In order to achieve peace, Mowlam had to persuade each side not to allow themselves to rise to provocations and outrages committed by the other side.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
I was just thinking: the 'troubles' lasted for about thirty years, until around 1998. In four or five years time, there will have been 'peace' in Northern Ireland for the same length of time that the troubles lasted.
I know the peace is imperfect, that justice has often not been served, and massive gulfs remain in some communities, but that's something to be thankful for.
It was driven higher by public pay settlements. These are truly terrifying figures. They would be bad in a deep recession but they are being incurred when the economy grew faster than expected in the first half of the year and was flat for Q3. We are in what passes for normal times and yet we are borrowing like we were funding a major war. The decisions by Reeves and Starmer to increase public spending yet further in the budget are increasingly looking dangerous rather than merely stupid.
What's most terrifying is that we borrowed more this October than in 2021 during COVI, second highest on record after October 2020.
£150bn in extra borrowing and lower growth. Labour are going to bankrupt the nation, I don't think my prediction of requiring an IMF bailout is far off the mark.
Could we have dollar parity by the time Starmer and Trump are done ?
We almost had dollar parity in 1985. Bloody Labour.
‘Almost’ so we didn’t have dollar parity
1.054 in 1985 was the closest we've come to dollar parity, ever, despite being slap bang in the middle of the Thatcher government with North Sea Oil pouring out of, erm, the North Sea, and Rachel Reeves blamelessly revising for her O-levels.
Fake news.
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
Fake news.
O-levels stopped in 1987. Rachel did GCSEs.
That's what's wrong with politicians nowadays, they all did namby-pamby GCSEs rather than proper O-Levels like what we* did!
*full disclosure: I did GCSEs
Prescott did O-levels, and his English is no better than what yours is.
As per R4 this morning, he was dyslexic. Also included a lengthy, warm-hearted tribute from Gordon Brown.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
In order to achieve peace, Mowlam had to persuade each side not to allow themselves to rise to provocations and outrages committed by the other side.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It makes very little sense for Putin to go nuclear at the moment (let’s leave aside the fact that Uncle Xi will tell him not to).
He is currently making progress on the battlefield and he’s weeks away from being opposite a US President who wants to give him an off ramp.
What purpose does a nuclear launch serve right now?
No. What suits Putin at the moment is to give the impression that he’s ramping up to a nuclear crisis, because he will think that strengthens his hand in negotiations with Trump (“look at what I can do. My nuclear doctrine is already being breached. My ICBMs are ready” etc etc).
That doesn’t preclude the fact that there is an uncomfortable chance we really could have a nuclear crisis in 2025, particularly if Trump plays hardball and Putin isn’t having any of it, but we’re not at that point yet.
As for John Prescott. Wasn't impressed with that left jab that I don't think quite landed on mullet farmer boy and my recollection of him was that he was quite hypocritical when it came to all kinds of things he had previously said he was dead against. And wasn't he a shagger also.
So fine, he was a working class hero, but that doesn't or shouldn't get you too far in politics.
Well, as Clarkson put it, the XJS was the Shaguar....
reading comment blogs other than PB, are we now getting a sense more and more people on the right are going over to Farage and Reform position, that NATO and EU expansion caused the unnecessary bloodshed and horror in Ukraine, and Labour are making yet another crisis escalating and prolonging it?
Are there any shifts in the backing government on Ukraine polling?
If there are, the Conservative Front Bench, which has got off to a strong start under Kemi in how they are positioning themselves on the side of every disillusioned voter, follows the voter shift to keep the clear blue water with Labour and not with Reform, Starmer won’t have the country’s backing for what he is doing - that would be a very dangerous place for government.
So you're saying some bloke in the Mail is hyperbolically terrified of hyperbolic headlines on the Mail ?
The Mail has been declaring that nuclear war has been imminent since February 2022.
No. I’m primarily looking at the comment columns, everywhere, and how so many now roll out Farage long held position on this, soon to bolstered by Musk and Trump unafraid to tear into Starmer and Labour on this escalation as being wrong approach.
Regardless of our own positions - which is how you framed your reply - the position of UK people could be on the move on this issue, is my point. We know the attack on Starmer over this is coming, will it chime with the British voters?
Of course, not just voter shift to “Farage was right all along” thanks to Musk and Trump ballistically support from another continent, but also because of war fatigue too is something that happens, and helps gives the argument win to Reform?
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
Perfume ads have been doing it for years. Decades in fact. The whole "copy nothing" "break molds" spiel is so cliched as to be meaningless.
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
On John Prescott. First of the core New Labour figures the public will remember to head to the pearly gates. I guess he was a little older than the others.
I guess they aren't remembered so well now, simply because they died a long time ago, but Robin Cook and Donald Dewar? Blair's first Foreign Secretary and the first First Minister of Scotland were seriously big beasts at that time and hugely influential. Mo Mowlam was also a big part of the Northern Ireland process.
Mo Mowlam wasn’t very popular inside New Labour though, she was completely cast aside.
Was I alone in thinking Mo Mowlam was rubbish? Her strategy appeared to be to pander to the extremists on either side - she massively strengthened the hand of the more, er, muscular strands of loyalism and republicanism and sidelined the pragmatists.
Doubtful if you get the Good Friday over the line without getting the majority of the IRA and UVF onside.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
In order to achieve peace, Mowlam had to persuade each side not to allow themselves to rise to provocations and outrages committed by the other side.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
I was just thinking: the 'troubles' lasted for about thirty years, until around 1998. In four or five years time, there will have been 'peace' in Northern Ireland for the same length of time that the troubles lasted.
I know the peace is imperfect, that justice has often not been served, and massive gulfs remain in some communities, but that's something to be thankful for.
It's a very good clip. And a great achievement that there is a degree of peace in the Province.
But successful as it was, it was still a can-kicking exercise with the hope (for those that want it) that demographics can take over from the Armalite as a force for change.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It wasn't an ICBM
An ICBM launch, for a start, would have had the US President on Airforce One in a scramble takeoff.
The DSPS satellites can detect such launches instantly - that's what they are for.
The energy signature of an ICBM is much, much higher than an IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) or MRBM (Medium Range Ballistic Missile)
"An ICBM launch, for a start, would have had the US President on Airforce One in a scramble takeoff."
Tests of ICBMs / IRBMs are preannounced precisely to stop this. "We are test firing a missile from this location; expect your satellite sensors to see a thermal bloom" style of thing.
My *guess* is that Russia told the US that they were going to 'test' a missile (whether ICBM or IRMB), and that led to the US's warning yesterday.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
“Up to the moment”
As others have said on TwiX, to be really radical and surprising they should have gone over-the-top on the Tory Britishness. In the car we see a beautiful white heterosexual British couple, young and wealthy and posh, maybe he’s in a Barbour or tweeds, she’s half naked and absurdly sexy, with dead pheasants on the back seat, maybe a working class guy doffing his cap as they motor past
THAT would have been genuinely daring - also funny - and got everyone talking - often in outrage - while also subtly playing to Jaguar’s few remaining strengths
Isn't their key market China these days?
No idea. I do know the Chinese love all that old fashioned posh Barbours-and-Bond Britishness. It is our brand. Our USP
Look how well BMW did with the rebadged Mini. Union Jack tail lights. Etc
That's the thing: even their new markets will want the British heritage and brand aspects of it; that's why Jaguar is distinct and why it sells.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It makes very little sense for Putin to go nuclear at the moment (let’s leave aside the fact that Uncle Xi will tell him not to).
He is currently making progress on the battlefield and he’s weeks away from being opposite a US President who wants to give him an off ramp.
What purpose does a nuclear launch serve right now?
No. What suits Putin at the moment is to give the impression that he’s ramping up to a nuclear crisis, because he will think that strengthens his hand in negotiations with Trump (“look at what I can do. My nuclear doctrine is already being breached. My ICBMs are ready” etc etc).
That doesn’t preclude the fact that there is an uncomfortable chance we really could have a nuclear crisis in 2025, particularly if Trump plays hardball and Putin isn’t having any of it, but we’re not at that point yet.
Yes it seems we're back to nuclear hyperbole with articles everywhere about how to survive a nuclear attack etc, etc. Would you want to?
Clickbait for the anxious and the fearful to be sure - no one is going to launch a nuclear anything anytime. There are protocols, back channels and all the rest of it to prevent anything other than an accidential launch.
As I've said on here many times, the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi all like the finer things of life - nice food, nice clothes, nice palaces and all the trappings of a lifestyle which ends with the first missile launch so it won't happen, not by design at least.
There are rules to this game, steps to the dance and the main one is no direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces - proxy conflicts are fine (not for those doing the fighting and dying of course).
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
Judging by that advert do you think that is going to be the case? The corporate rebrand suggests they are going to make cars for people who hate cars, a competitor to the Prius or Micra.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
“Up to the moment”
As others have said on TwiX, to be really radical and surprising they should have gone over-the-top on the Tory Britishness. In the car we see a beautiful white heterosexual British couple, young and wealthy and posh, maybe he’s in a Barbour or tweeds, she’s half naked and absurdly sexy, with dead pheasants on the back seat, maybe a working class guy doffing his cap as they motor past
THAT would have been genuinely daring - also funny - and got everyone talking - often in outrage - while also subtly playing to Jaguar’s few remaining strengths
Isn't their key market China these days?
No idea. I do know the Chinese love all that old fashioned posh Barbours-and-Bond Britishness. It is our brand. Our USP
Look how well BMW did with the rebadged Mini. Union Jack tail lights. Etc
That's the thing: even their new markets will want the British heritage and brand aspects of it; that's why Jaguar is distinct and why it sells.
And they've just trashed that.
Why is "British Heritage" sheepskin coats and cavalry twill trousers any more than Carnaby Street or God Save the Queen (J. Rotten version) or Sam Smith.
Yes, sad news about John Prescott, a link back to a Labour Party of another time. That Labour Party died in 1979 (so did the traditional Conservative Party of the patricians and the shires).
Oddly enough, there's probably a gap now for a socially conservative, patriotic party of what used to be called "the Left" (something like Wagenknecht's BSW in Germany).
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
Don't know. Part of why you buy a car is its image, brand and values, as well as its utility and price.
As for John Prescott. Wasn't impressed with that left jab that I don't think quite landed on mullet farmer boy and my recollection of him was that he was quite hypocritical when it came to all kinds of things he had previously said he was dead against. And wasn't he a shagger also.
So fine, he was a working class hero, but that doesn't or shouldn't get you too far in politics.
Well, as Clarkson put it, the XJS was the Shaguar....
Was that the one that "could snap knicker elastic at 50 paces?"
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
“Up to the moment”
As others have said on TwiX, to be really radical and surprising they should have gone over-the-top on the Tory Britishness. In the car we see a beautiful white heterosexual British couple, young and wealthy and posh, maybe he’s in a Barbour or tweeds, she’s half naked and absurdly sexy, with dead pheasants on the back seat, maybe a working class guy doffing his cap as they motor past
THAT would have been genuinely daring - also funny - and got everyone talking - often in outrage - while also subtly playing to Jaguar’s few remaining strengths
Isn't their key market China these days?
No idea. I do know the Chinese love all that old fashioned posh Barbours-and-Bond Britishness. It is our brand. Our USP
Look how well BMW did with the rebadged Mini. Union Jack tail lights. Etc
That's the thing: even their new markets will want the British heritage and brand aspects of it; that's why Jaguar is distinct and why it sells.
And they've just trashed that.
Why is "British Heritage" sheepskin coats and cavalry twill trousers any more than Carnaby Street or God Save the Queen (J. Rotten version) or Sam Smith.
It's all British Heritage.
Sam Smith isn't British Heritage.
But either way that ad had none of what you highlight; it literally said: copy nothing.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
Perfume ads have been doing it for years. Decades in fact. The whole "copy nothing" "break molds" spiel is so cliched as to be meaningless.
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
It's an advert that would have been edgy in 2004 not in 2014 and definitely not in 2024. It's in fact so mundanely DEI that it barely registers except in the sense that one feels as thought the consultancy firm JLR hired is full of *****.
reading comment blogs other than PB, are we now getting a sense more and more people on the right are going over to Farage and Reform position, that NATO and EU expansion caused the unnecessary bloodshed and horror in Ukraine, and Labour are making yet another crisis escalating and prolonging it?
Are there any shifts in the backing government on Ukraine polling?
If there are, the Conservative Front Bench, which has got off to a strong start under Kemi in how they are positioning themselves on the side of every disillusioned voter, follows the voter shift to keep the clear blue water with Labour and not with Reform, Starmer won’t have the country’s backing for what he is doing - that would be a very dangerous place for government.
Looking ahead, surely we can only see Musk and Trump soon piling in behind Farage and Reform and lambasting Starmer on this? That could shift views, and put Labour in difficult place with its own people and the media,
According to Ipsos in the last 15 months support for the Government's position on Ukraine has dropped 4 points to 54% and opposition to it has risen 3 points to 17%. That really isn't much movement.
Support is down a fair but from the peak of support in February 2023 when it was at 68% with opposition at 11%. But still overall opposition to British support for Ukraine is still only at aroun 1 in 6 people.
Conservatives are still most supportive at 81% so not much chance of them forming a new policy on this.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
Perfume ads have been doing it for years. Decades in fact. The whole "copy nothing" "break molds" spiel is so cliched as to be meaningless.
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
And yet....and yet....we have been talking about nothing else (imminent nuclear Armageddon notwithstanding) on PB, of all places. It is the talk of Twitter. Everyone is talking about Jaguar. More fool you (and @Leon) if you are not meta enough to understand (surely you are) that it might be referencing those "cliches" you just listed in order to create a post-modern "what would you do to create a new ad" ad.
Do you work for the agency that lost out to these guys? Seems you have far stronger thoughts on it than others, even Casino, and he is as we speak dusting down his sheepskin coat.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
Judging by that advert do you think that is going to be the case? The corporate rebrand suggests they are going to make cars for people who hate cars, a competitor to the Prius or Micra.
That'd be my guess too, as I've said below the ad is absolutely crap.
But I'm wary of judging the quality of the car on the quality of the ad. Luckily (or at least hopefully) Accenture aren't in charge of designing the car.
My point is that in the unlikely event the car turns out to be brilliant, the crap ad will be quickly forgotten.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
If the cars are amazing, then it might work. A high risk punt by them.
When did JLR last make a jag that was amazing ? The eighties.
The one that Morse used to drive.
The old jaguar was also the go,to car for the villains in the sweeney. Always getting smashed up after a car chase after a blagging with Regan shouting ‘shut it you slags’
During the 1960s, programmes often used stock footage of a Jaguar going over a cliff. It is jarring once you notice, so you're probably better off not reading this.
The Sweeney generally shot all their footage. Some die hard do tours of the locations. Very few sadly exist. Although the pub in Night Out is still there.
The blown up helicopter from a Bond movie made a fair few appearance even in the timeless classic Dr Who story the Daemons.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
Perfume ads have been doing it for years. Decades in fact. The whole "copy nothing" "break molds" spiel is so cliched as to be meaningless.
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
It's an advert that would have been edgy in 2004 not in 2014 and definitely not in 2024. It's in fact so mundanely DEI that it barely registers except in the sense that one feels as thought the consultancy firm JLR hired is full of *****.
Fantastic new jaguar ad. Outraged old white blokes who use string-backed driving gloves is exactly the reaction they wanted I'm guessing.
They are trying to reinvent the brand (think Orange, which everyone laughed at until they didn't) and are using up to the moment images and memes.
What the cars are going to be like goodness only knows.
“Up to the moment”
As others have said on TwiX, to be really radical and surprising they should have gone over-the-top on the Tory Britishness. In the car we see a beautiful white heterosexual British couple, young and wealthy and posh, maybe he’s in a Barbour or tweeds, she’s half naked and absurdly sexy, with dead pheasants on the back seat, maybe a working class guy doffing his cap as they motor past
THAT would have been genuinely daring - also funny - and got everyone talking - often in outrage - while also subtly playing to Jaguar’s few remaining strengths
Isn't their key market China these days?
No idea. I do know the Chinese love all that old fashioned posh Barbours-and-Bond Britishness. It is our brand. Our USP
Look how well BMW did with the rebadged Mini. Union Jack tail lights. Etc
That's the thing: even their new markets will want the British heritage and brand aspects of it; that's why Jaguar is distinct and why it sells.
And they've just trashed that.
Why is "British Heritage" sheepskin coats and cavalry twill trousers any more than Carnaby Street or God Save the Queen (J. Rotten version) or Sam Smith.
It's all British Heritage.
Sam Smith isn't British Heritage.
But either way that ad had none of what you highlight; it literally said: copy nothing.
It did - and that was the joke that was being played on you. Perhaps.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It wasn't an ICBM
An ICBM launch, for a start, would have had the US President on Airforce One in a scramble takeoff.
The DSPS satellites can detect such launches instantly - that's what they are for.
The energy signature of an ICBM is much, much higher than an IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) or MRBM (Medium Range Ballistic Missile)
Ukrainian media are reporting it as an RS-26, which according to Wikipedia has a range of ~5,000km - just enough to be classed as an ICBM, albeit short of the distance from Western Russia to the Eastern US.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It makes very little sense for Putin to go nuclear at the moment (let’s leave aside the fact that Uncle Xi will tell him not to).
He is currently making progress on the battlefield and he’s weeks away from being opposite a US President who wants to give him an off ramp.
What purpose does a nuclear launch serve right now?
No. What suits Putin at the moment is to give the impression that he’s ramping up to a nuclear crisis, because he will think that strengthens his hand in negotiations with Trump (“look at what I can do. My nuclear doctrine is already being breached. My ICBMs are ready” etc etc).
That doesn’t preclude the fact that there is an uncomfortable chance we really could have a nuclear crisis in 2025, particularly if Trump plays hardball and Putin isn’t having any of it, but we’re not at that point yet.
Yes it seems we're back to nuclear hyperbole with articles everywhere about how to survive a nuclear attack etc, etc. Would you want to?
Clickbait for the anxious and the fearful to be sure - no one is going to launch a nuclear anything anytime. There are protocols, back channels and all the rest of it to prevent anything other than an accidential launch.
As I've said on here many times, the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi all like the finer things of life - nice food, nice clothes, nice palaces and all the trappings of a lifestyle which ends with the first missile launch so it won't happen, not by design at least.
There are rules to this game, steps to the dance and the main one is no direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces - proxy conflicts are fine (not for those doing the fighting and dying of course).
The Daily Star today says a lot more places in vaults have been sold at £150000 a time.
What’s your plan for when the four minute warning sounds, Stodge?
With all these modern missuls do we even get 4 minute warning for one last orgasm and choccy bar 🙁
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
I wasn't very kind about the ad - on aesthetic / style it feels to be following "United Colours of Benetton" or "FCUK" 2-3 decades later, and so is quite derivative. I may have missed something.
But for me the idea that a Jaguar is aspirational and worth investing emotion in is ridiculous on its face. A car is at root a transport appliance, nothing more. It needs to be safe, and comfortable, and may be nice to drive - none of that is worth obsessing about or wasting time for the expression of pride. I'm more emotional about my fridge.
Jaguar as a brand does command some loyalty and emotion. But it is nostalgia rather for anything they have done in the last 30 years.
Jaguar is a brand that trades on its name and it’s heritage, E-Type for example, but has made largely bland, generic, cars for many years. I worked on X100, X202, X350, X760 and X761 and the driving force behind all of them was not style or innovation, unlike some of the Range Rover range, but cost. Everything as cheap as possible. They were effectively rebadged Fords for a while too.
It is a shame Dura Ace no longer seems to hang out. I am sure he would have a lot. Ore to say on their cars.
Well, not really. I bought an XE in 2017 and absolutely loved it.
Jag did really well with their 2013-2019 marques.
The solution is to not get a Jag next time. Vote with your wallet and don't support companies that clearly hate you anyway.
I won't. I'll be emailing my dealership to tell them that this morning.
"Jag" seem to thing they'll be opening up a whole new market here, and so pissing off their existing base doesn't matter.
Chortle. They are so so wrong.
Out of interest, if the new Jag turns out to be the best car since the E type when they unveil it, a powerhouse, a work of art, a car that says *I have arrived* would you still refuse to buy it?
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
And on that criterion the Jaguar ad has been a stonking success.
I'm sure Bud Lite marketing execs had the same sentiment early on during their controversy.
Bud lite is also carbonated piss.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
If I may be so bold, I'm guessing that you are in the 0.001% of early adopters and open to, and au fait with new trends and whatnot.
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
Perfume ads have been doing it for years. Decades in fact. The whole "copy nothing" "break molds" spiel is so cliched as to be meaningless.
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
It's an advert that would have been edgy in 2004 not in 2014 and definitely not in 2024. It's in fact so mundanely DEI that it barely registers except in the sense that one feels as thought the consultancy firm JLR hired is full of *****.
Best vehicle I have ever owned was a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, it was basically a sports car on a 4x4 floorplan.
Jeremy Clarkson once said when you put your foot down in that it felt like somebody was putting their hands down your pants and having a good old rummage, he wasn’t wrong.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a conventionally armed ICBM this morning, marking the first combat use of an ICBM in history.
Why isn't Leon all over this? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a demonstration by Russia to show that their ICBMs work.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
It makes very little sense for Putin to go nuclear at the moment (let’s leave aside the fact that Uncle Xi will tell him not to).
He is currently making progress on the battlefield and he’s weeks away from being opposite a US President who wants to give him an off ramp.
What purpose does a nuclear launch serve right now?
No. What suits Putin at the moment is to give the impression that he’s ramping up to a nuclear crisis, because he will think that strengthens his hand in negotiations with Trump (“look at what I can do. My nuclear doctrine is already being breached. My ICBMs are ready” etc etc).
That doesn’t preclude the fact that there is an uncomfortable chance we really could have a nuclear crisis in 2025, particularly if Trump plays hardball and Putin isn’t having any of it, but we’re not at that point yet.
Yes it seems we're back to nuclear hyperbole with articles everywhere about how to survive a nuclear attack etc, etc. Would you want to?
Clickbait for the anxious and the fearful to be sure - no one is going to launch a nuclear anything anytime. There are protocols, back channels and all the rest of it to prevent anything other than an accidential launch.
As I've said on here many times, the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi all like the finer things of life - nice food, nice clothes, nice palaces and all the trappings of a lifestyle which ends with the first missile launch so it won't happen, not by design at least.
There are rules to this game, steps to the dance and the main one is no direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces - proxy conflicts are fine (not for those doing the fighting and dying of course).
The Daily Star today says a lot more places in vaults have been sold at £150000 a time.
What’s your plan for when the four minute warning sounds, Stodge?
With all these modern missuls do we even get 4 minute warning for one last orgasm and choccy bar 🙁
Your best bet in a nuclear war is to be vaporized in the first exchange.
Comments
For me someone paying +£70k for a Jag or an Audi SUV which is unnecessary carries associations.
We know that these vehicles are more dangerous to other road users, due eg to sightlines and the extra damage they do. We have years of evidence about that.
It makes me think that the driver may be the type who will jump out and threaten violence if you tap on their window once to warn them they are driving dangerously close.
I expect a vehicle like that to have a higher likelihood of an unthinking, self-absorbed, unskilled fool at the wheel, who does not give a damn about anybody else.
Then there are perceptions about self-image and self importance, and the weirdness of identifying with a motor vehicles in an almost anthropomorphic way - which see in outraged "Don't touch MY car" reactions.
Someone who is not careful with their money - that is worldview and based around what wealthier people should be doing to steward their resources. Theologically see (for example) how theology in richer people who don't want to face any real challenges to their lifestyle morphs into "Health and Wealth" doctrine, or what is known as the prosperity gospel; imo that's no better than post-moderns who want a pre-digested baby food spirituality-mush (see Glastonbury) which is a comfort blanket, with no personal implications.
I should put one caveat there around the minority of people who need, or may feel they need - eg 4 kids needing more seats or child seat attachment points. They get a pass, or partial pass, from me.
We’re in a period where it is useful for both parties to demonstrate strength in their positions. It suits Putin very well to be doing the old “he might be nuts enough to send that nuke” routine again at the moment. Expect a lot of this over the next few weeks.
The irony of the Cuban Missile crisis was that the Jupiter IRBM missiles in Turkey, which were upsetting Khrushchev & Co, were obsolete and being removed.
All down to Edward Teller. At Project Nobska he claimed that his lab would soon be building compact H bombs (due to the breakthrough for primary design). And that internal guidance was about to become super accurate (it was). Combined with high impulse solid fuel, this gave the US Minuteman and Polaris.
McNamara wanted to do a Jack Fisher - cut costs, get rid of the obsolete and unworkable, build the best in quantity. So he approved the scheme - thousands of Minuteman and Polaris missiles *and nothing else* for nuclear missiles (at this point they were talking about 10,000 Minuteman missiles). All the older and half developed systems and wacky stuff like nuclear powered bombers was chopped. Including the Jupiters.
https://www.youtube.com/@Sweenealogy
Catching up with the early birds, I know, but RIP John Prescott.
However for me there's one blot on his escutcheon; but for his 'firmly' expressed opposition, Blair might very well have brought in PR in 1997, after his discussions with Paddy Ashdown.
However, what you saw was what you got!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04lx461wnno
The one big mistake was not having an electric one in line up in 2005.... They even had prototype conversions that were built for a film.
Went to so many shows in my student days and early 2000s.
No peace process is perfect but its mainly worked even in the face of Brexit.
If they had launched an ICBM, the US would have had the president in the air, on Air Force One, in minutes.
So the poor get to keep wfa and the public sector don't get affected by increasing employers NI.
Labour should have gone for "we're all in this together".
Except after accepting all the freebies they couldn't.
And yes, the Conservatives also failed the "we're all in this together" test by exempting oldies.
I've always felt that what you say in your marketing doesn't actually matter that much. The product does the talking. All marketing does is make people aware of the product.
"Stop talking about Long Range missiles. A long range missile can go 5000km. These are short range missiles".
We have swallowed many Russian propaganda lines.
Had to change a tyre once and while I was doing so the jack slipped. So I lifted up the car just enough for my wife to right the jack and I carried on a finished the job.
Just so good still
One of the saddest things was the trailer with John Thomson as Roy on his own for the Fast Show night on U.K. Gold. I saw it on YouTube.
What did I say Roy
You saw it on YouTube.
Maybe Blair said, "Well, y'know Paddy, I'd love to offer PR but John won't let me..." But Ashdown knew that was bollocks. In the situation as it was after the 1997 election, it would've meant sacrificing hundreds of Labour MPs when Blair had absolutely no need of it to progress his agenda.
And memory, as we know, can be a lying jade!
Rachel Reeves would have been revising for her O-levels in 1995 not 1985.
🍿🍿🍿
I agree that Labour don't really seem to have a high profile equivalent (a male connecting to male working class/traditionalist Labour). Rayner fills a similar, in some ways, but different role.
FPT (and relevant to old two-Jags - wonder what he would have made of it): The rebrand would have worked for a slightly punk/insurgent brand positioning Jaguar as a more fun, younger brand, taking on VW/Seat etc, or a bit like Smart, but I don't think it's classy enough if they're apparently taking the prices up, rather than down. The competition there is Audi, BMW, Volvo and it just looks a bit too flimsy and whimsical, to me. But what do I know? I wasn't in the market for a Jag before and I won't be now.
(Obviously, this has not been achieved in the Middle East, where the alternative strategy of complete military victory is being pursued. Even if this works, the Northern Ireland way would have been cheaper, more humane, and probably longer-lasting.)
A police constable replied on 4 November with disappointing news. They explained that officers had "limited lines of enquiry" and that because Tracy had denied the allegation, they would need an "independent witness" to confirm the allegation.
They seemed to be saying that they would not investigate, adding that it would be deemed "not in the public interest" to send a police officer to interview Tracy in person at her home, despite having her address."
https://news.sky.com/story/the-bizarre-story-of-a-fake-carer-and-what-it-says-about-the-uks-care-industry-13257237
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRdBm_dAXbE
Or have they received instructions that lying on your CV is not to be investigated?
O-levels stopped in 1987. Rachel did GCSEs.
If the new Jag turns out to be a lean, mean, driving machine, will all be forgiven?
I personally don't care about whether the ad is 'woke' or not, it just seems stale and cliched. But sometimes you get bad ads for good products.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14106589/Im-terrified-brink-nuclear-war-hopeless-Government-provoking-Putin-pushing-button-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html
Are there any shifts in the backing government on Ukraine polling?
If there are, the Conservative Front Bench, which has got off to a strong start under Kemi in how they are positioning themselves on the side of every disillusioned voter, follows the voter shift to keep the clear blue water with Labour and not with Reform, Starmer won’t have the country’s backing for what he is doing - that would be a very dangerous place for government.
Looking ahead, surely we can only see Musk and Trump soon piling in behind Farage and Reform and lambasting Starmer on this? That could shift views, and put Labour in difficult place with its own people and the media,
*full disclosure: I did GCSEs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-67300847
I would have much more sympathy where they were blocking pavements.
I've made myself quite unpopular with some in the active travel niche by firmly defending on social media stiff gaol terms for Extinction Rebellion types, especially around clogging-up-infrastructure protests which impact eg ambulances.
I have full sympathy for this type of thing - the scratches are just desserts, but making it deliberate activism is crossing a couple of lines and walking some others (eg the auto-trigger monitoring cameras on Teslas). I'm sure there are people who do it (cf I know one person who removed an anti-wheelchair barrier by turning up with Hi-Viz, a wheelbarrow and an angle grinder), but you need to know your onions if you take that option.
A wheelchair user who was forced to risk scratching cars just to remain on the safety of the pavement posted a shocking video clip of his struggle and said: "Sue me." Transport rights campaigner Doug Paulley has shared his struggle trying to navigate cars parked on the pavement leaving just inches of space for disabled people to get past.
Doug said the incident happened on Friday, August 25, outside Selly Oak Station, where he had travelled to see friends. He said he was finding his way around by using Google Maps but the road was busy.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/sue-me-moment-defiant-wheelchair-27604081
"We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system."
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml
The Mail has been declaring that nuclear war has been imminent since February 2022.
If he was increasing pain, to get higher growth, keep inflation at target, reducing borrowing and the cost of borrowing whilst reducing unemployment, people might accept it.
Russia's deterrence credibility is in tatters. It has repeatedly promised massive retribution and repeatedly failed to deliver said retribution when it's rhetorical red lines have been crossed. Ukraine has occupied sovereign Russian territory for months, which still strikes me as unthinkable that a non-nuclear power should occupy part of the territory of a nuclear power.
Russia has chosen this moment to show that its ICBMs work. This is crunch time now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me4pCBLd-DM
To say an ad like that, featuring what appears to be a range of genders in striking tones, doing weird-ass things, and which is visually sumptuous and nothing particularly to do with the thing it is supposed to be advertising, is "stale and cliched" I think is pushing it a bit. It is, as we have seen by the reaction to it on PB this morning, a complete mind f**k to 83.5% of the population.
So fine, he was a working class hero, but that doesn't or shouldn't get you too far in politics.
That suggests she did rather a good job.
An ICBM launch, for a start, would have had the US President on Airforce One in a scramble takeoff.
The DSPS satellites can detect such launches instantly - that's what they are for.
The energy signature of an ICBM is much, much higher than an IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) or MRBM (Medium Range Ballistic Missile)
Whether you think it's a bluff or ominous, it should be top of the list of PB discussions here, today.
I was just thinking: the 'troubles' lasted for about thirty years, until around 1998. In four or five years time, there will have been 'peace' in Northern Ireland for the same length of time that the troubles lasted.
I know the peace is imperfect, that justice has often not been served, and massive gulfs remain in some communities, but that's something to be thankful for.
So they got used to the six figure lifestyle. The nice house in the posh area. The new Range Rover in the drive.
The wives wouldn't let them go back to violence. Who would pay for the school fees, the mortgage and the holidays then?
He is currently making progress on the battlefield and he’s weeks away from being opposite a US President who wants to give him an off ramp.
What purpose does a nuclear launch serve right now?
No. What suits Putin at the moment is to give the impression that he’s ramping up to a nuclear crisis, because he will think that strengthens his hand in negotiations with Trump (“look at what I can do. My nuclear doctrine is already being breached. My ICBMs are ready” etc etc).
That doesn’t preclude the fact that there is an uncomfortable chance we really could have a nuclear crisis in 2025, particularly if Trump plays hardball and Putin isn’t having any of it, but we’re not at that point yet.
Regardless of our own positions - which is how you framed your reply - the position of UK people could be on the move on this issue, is my point. We know the attack on Starmer over this is coming, will it chime with the British voters?
Of course, not just voter shift to “Farage was right all along” thanks to Musk and Trump ballistically support from another continent, but also because of war fatigue too is something that happens, and helps gives the argument win to Reform?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Irish_general_election
Granted it's quite novel for a car company to market itself in this way, but think about ads that have broken moulds and been genuine WTF moments. The Sony Bravia exploding paint ads (pretty heady stuff for 2006) or the Cadbury's Gorilla (2007) were genuinely standout.
What about this ad stands out? It's a bunch of people dressed like extras from Zoolander faffing about on screen while cliched phrases appear in text. Nothing about it feels new, and everything about it feels like a paint by numbers ad following a brand strategy that says 'our old customers are dying off, we need to create something that appeals to a different audience, what about the type of people who buy expensive handbags and designer clobber like that? maybe we can be the brand for them'.
It's an ad that borrows every imaginable high fashion cliche possible while saying absolutely nothing. But it is certainly not envelope pushing.
But successful as it was, it was still a can-kicking exercise with the hope (for those that want it) that demographics can take over from the Armalite as a force for change.
Tests of ICBMs / IRBMs are preannounced precisely to stop this. "We are test firing a missile from this location; expect your satellite sensors to see a thermal bloom" style of thing.
My *guess* is that Russia told the US that they were going to 'test' a missile (whether ICBM or IRMB), and that led to the US's warning yesterday.
And they've just trashed that.
Clickbait for the anxious and the fearful to be sure - no one is going to launch a nuclear anything anytime. There are protocols, back channels and all the rest of it to prevent anything other than an accidential launch.
As I've said on here many times, the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi all like the finer things of life - nice food, nice clothes, nice palaces and all the trappings of a lifestyle which ends with the first missile launch so it won't happen, not by design at least.
There are rules to this game, steps to the dance and the main one is no direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces - proxy conflicts are fine (not for those doing the fighting and dying of course).
It's all British Heritage.
Yes, sad news about John Prescott, a link back to a Labour Party of another time. That Labour Party died in 1979 (so did the traditional Conservative Party of the patricians and the shires).
Oddly enough, there's probably a gap now for a socially conservative, patriotic party of what used to be called "the Left" (something like Wagenknecht's BSW in Germany).
But either way that ad had none of what you highlight; it literally said: copy nothing.
Support is down a fair but from the peak of support in February 2023 when it was at 68% with opposition at 11%. But still overall opposition to British support for Ukraine is still only at aroun 1 in 6 people.
Conservatives are still most supportive at 81% so not much chance of them forming a new policy on this.
Do you work for the agency that lost out to these guys? Seems you have far stronger thoughts on it than others, even Casino, and he is as we speak dusting down his sheepskin coat.
But I'm wary of judging the quality of the car on the quality of the ad. Luckily (or at least hopefully) Accenture aren't in charge of designing the car.
My point is that in the unlikely event the car turns out to be brilliant, the crap ad will be quickly forgotten.
(2 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPlCpbLVg0o
https://x.com/porsche/status/1859293440422363642
What’s your plan for when the four minute warning sounds, Stodge?
With all these modern missuls do we even get 4 minute warning for one last orgasm and choccy bar 🙁
Jeremy Clarkson once said when you put your foot down in that it felt like somebody was putting their hands down your pants and having a good old rummage, he wasn’t wrong.