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Labour poster condemned as anti-Tory, anti-pig
4 Feb 2005
The Labour Party has been criticised for its latest batch of pre-election posters, which have been seen as unfairly attacking a minority group. The group in question, the Conservative Party, has responded angrily.
"These posters are blatantly anti-Tory," said the group's interim leader, Michael Howard. "They are tasteless and offensive. Members of the Conservative Party may make up only a tiny proportion of the British population, but that doesn't give Labour the right to ridicule them for political gain."
One of the posters featured the heads of Mr Howard and his colleague, Oliver Letwin, superimposed on pigs. "There is nothing more offensive for a pig than to be associated with the Conservative Party," said Douglas Ramsbottom, an East Yorkshire pig farmer. "Millie, my prize porker, was horrified when she saw this. I've been in her sty consoling her for the last two days."
"I haven't eaten or slept," he added. "I'm at my wit's end."
Labour's election coordinator, Alan Milburn, denied in a live press conference that the posters were anti-Tory, insisting instead that they were simply anti-pig on the grounds that pigs have certain mathematical shortcomings. "During the last election one pig even promised not to raise taxes or introduce top-up fees for students," he said. "They clearly have an innate problem with telling the truth."
At this point our reporter was interrupted by a phone call from Mr Ramsbottom, who informed us that Millie had become suicidal and he was trying to talk her down from the roof of his car in a Goole car park.
Sadly, after two hours of intense negotiations, Mr Ramsbottom said that he had had to deploy a sniper to remove the pig from his car roof after she threatened to explode a suicide belt. "Labour's persecution of pigs has gone too far!" he shouted as he was taken away by police.
Labour later said that it would no longer use the poster featuring pigs out of respect for Millie.
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