You would have to have been up a mountain or down a very deep hole this past week to have missed the web sensation that is MyDavidCameron.com - a website given over to heavily doctored parodies of the Conservative party leader's own 'airbrushed' billboards.
If you didn't spot the URL spreading like wildfire on Twitter, you'll almost certainly have caught it in The Mirror or The Telegraph or The Daily Mail or The Times or The Standard or, well you get the picture.
It would appear the media love this story for a number of reasons:
- Politics has just got (marginally more) interesting and has rediscovered some wit and biting satire albeit an unexpected gift from the world of user generated content
- It gives them something to say, as depending on political allegiance they can either praise the return of grassroots political satire or bemoan the childishness / nastiness of the whole thing
- It's a very visual story and they can fill swathes of white space with cut and paste images, without credit or royalty
- Old Tories and New Labour can all agree that PR man David Cameron's misplaced faith in style over substance has come back to bite him on the proverbial - and what journalist doesn't like a bit of 'I told you so' every now and again? (Though let's not forget some commentators were quite glowing about the original launch of Cameron's poster campaign).
But could there yet be a sting in the tail? Could the Tory grassroots turn the guns back on Labour leader Gordon Brown?
It seems unlikely given a rich history of Tory wits that begins and ends for many with Jim Davidson, but that hasn't stopped one enterprising young Conservative blogger registering MyGordonBrown.co.uk (because MyGordonBrown.com was already pre-emptively registered by the MyDavidCameron.com lot... the scamps!).
We wait in anticipation for Round 2.
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