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April 12, 2005
UK: Dog whistle politics
Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative Pary in Britain, is attempting to turn the electorate's focus onto strong Conservative issues such as taxation, crime and immigration. He is doing so by tapping into the murky politics of fear over crime and immigration:
The party's campaign slogan is, "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" It's the gypsy, asylum and immigration policies that are the nudge and a wink issues that contain coded messages. As Australians well know the aim of this kind of politics is to voice what voters are thinking implicitly, but not daring to say out loud, and then to hit them in the gut with fear.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at April 12, 2005 08:32 PM
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Comments
nice piece. i quoted you
Posted by: Deek at April 15, 2005 05:34 PM