Political Party or Tabloid Cheese?

Author: James Collins

CLEAR is a political party, or at least they would have us believe that.  After one bumbling attempt to run in a by-election, I suppose they have done the minimum required to actually hold that title.  Let’s have a look at something in particular that belies the notion CLEAR is a real party.

You know what a Page 3 girl is.  It’s the buxom, scantily clad woman on the third page of a low-rate tabloid newspaper.  They usually look something like this …

Papers which aren’t worried about minutia like journalistic integrity or human decency will throw a picture like this into their tabloid to draw readers who otherwise wouldn’t read a newspaper.  It’s a bait-and-switch.  You throw the knuckle-dragging, mouth breather set a little bone, and they throw a few pence at your crappy rag.  It’s like reading Playboy for the articles.

It’s just a sleazy marketing scheme for papers which aren’t worth the newsprint they appear on.  It draws the very notion of journalism into disrepute.  Journalism is supposed to be a search for truth.  The search for boobs is generally delegated to less classy mediums of publishing, like porno mags.

What does this have to do with CLEAR?

The latest crap out of the CLEAR camp is their new “Page 3 hottie” campaign.  If you check out the CLEAR Facebook page you will see a few pictures like the ones below.  Pictures of police officers surrounded by weed are posted up and then the handful of supporters on the CLEAR site comment on their appearance – like that is in some way relevant to the issue of cannabis prohibition.

Let’s go have a look at the page 3 girl from the Conservative Party website.  Or how about the Labor website, or even the UKIP?  Even the BNP doesn’t have a page 3 girl, what gives?

That is because however far left, right, or just plain ridiculous those political parties are, they are still political parties.  They don’t feature a page 3 girl, because they don’t have a page 3.  They aren’t tabloid newspapers looking to sell a couple of extra copies on the power of some young ladies perky breasts.  They are organizations who are focused on bringing political change through the electoral system.

Why does CLEAR have a Page 3 girl?

They aren’t really a political party.  Your donation will not be serving the purpose of lobbying Parliament or running in elections.  Who knows what it gets spent on; actually, their accounts are late in coming this year.  They will quote all sorts of reasons for that if pressed, the departure of certain key members of the executive being key to those, but those reasons are no excuse.

You can’t go to the tax people and tell them that you haven’t filed your taxes because your accountant quit his job.  Get a new accountant, do it yourself, find a way.  They don’t care; these excuses are irrelevant to them.  By the same notion the idea that CLEAR is hard-pressed to find a working executive is not a good reason for them to fail to publish their accounts.

Why am I making a deal out of a page 3 girl?  Well, mainly because it is absolutely absurd for a political party to proceed this way.  It isn’t proper protocol by any means.  Beyond that, it alienates potential supporters in the form of progressive women, and also men, who find this kind of exercise generally distasteful.  It’s a serious consideration, especially when the party already lives under the shadow of Peter Reynolds and his notorious misogyny.  It embraces the old-world notion that men are for thinking, and women are for being ogled at.  It’s sexist, backwards and cheap – all things which CLEAR will tell you they are not.

CLEAR was ridiculous and irrelevant enough in the first place, being a one-issue party.  Now they are doing their best to equivocate themselves with low-class journalism by posting page 3 girls instead of actually campaigning for cannabis.  It’s a cheap ploy to bring in supporters, and it isn’t working anyway.  Not only does this fail to get new supporters, it marginalizes those supporters who already forked over their membership funds.