31) If the name fits, wear it.
Today the England cricket team are running about the hallowed green swards of Lords – or should that be sward in the singular? – with Waitrose emblazoned upon their shirts and sweaters.
Some crusty old fogies, probably most of those who insist on going to the home of cricket in panamas and blazers and those ridiculous MCC pink striped ties, may feel that this is vulgar commercialisation and the selling out of our national birthright. And I, though flatly rejecting all accusations of crustiness myself, have some sympathy with this point of view. There’s something so blatant, so unapologetically exploitative about sticking your name on a sportsman’s shirt. Pity the humble fan. You may flatly disapprove of the people who are sponsoring your team, but what choice do you have? You come to support Arsenal but you find you’re cheering for a team flying the Emirates flag whether you want to or not.
Notwithstanding these misgivings, I think the England cricket team seems like the perfect choice for Waitrose. These days cricket is not for the masses and neither is Waitrose. But I wonder if Waitrose is a perfect choice for English cricket? Does it really want an image of comfortable middle-classness? What about the workers? Have the people who run cricket given up on them entirely?
Waitrose, of course, is the food arm of the John Lewis Partnership. And being a partnership – and thus supposedly more employee friendly than your usual business giant – John Lewis is often held up to be the model of capitalist egalitarianism, if there can be such a thing. That’s why, I think, the name ‘John Lewis’ seems a fraction less middle class than ‘Waitrose’. And that is probably why Chuka Umanna felt able to say that if Labour wants to win again it must get the ‘John Lewis vote.’ He was derided in some Lefty quarters for saying that but imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d said that what Labour needed was the ‘Waitrose vote’. He’d have been laughed out of the party. The difference between one set of brand values and another can be surprisingly subtle.
Anyway, all this has led me to wonder who might sponsor who, if sponsorship spread from sport to politics. (It seems unlikely perhaps, but even thirty years ago who would thought that Manchester United would have Nike all over their shirts?) With the Labour Leadership election under way and likely to be in the news for several months, this is an obvious opportunity for sponsors to get some valuable publicity.
If you’re wondering where you would put the sponsor’s name, you could make the politicians wear baseball caps like golfers and tennis players, or you could embroider it on their clothes like they do on snooker players’ waistcoats. Undignified? Possibly. But not as undignified as having to wipe egg off your face - sometimes literally - or squirm before Jeremy Paxman.
With Chuka no longer in the frame, I suspect John Lewis might go for Yvette Cooper. Just the fact of being a woman makes her quite zeitgeisty – always an attraction for a sponsor – and she has more name recognition than Mary Creagh or Liz Kendall. Not only that but she’s such a good fit for them. She looks exactly like the sort of person you see in John Lewis all the time; quite respectable and rather dull. Ultimately that might make her a winner – it worked for John Major.
For Mary Creagh I have a couple of suggestions. One would be ‘Weightwatchers’. She seems, from the little I’ve seen of her, to be quite trim so she would project all the right brand values for them. And it solves the ‘how do you find one answer that works for the rabid Scots, Ukippy Northerners and selfish Southerners?’ problem. There are fat people everywhere so ‘Weightwatchers’ would appeal - or not appeal - equally to deep fried Mars bar scoffers, chip butty addicts, and the Brie and Cabernet brigade.
However, one of Ms.Creagh’s problems is lack of name recognition and that is made worse by the fact that the unfamiliar spelling of her name leaves you slightly uncertain about how to pronounce it. That cries out for something that rhymes. (Creagh, if you didn’t know, is not pronounced as a gutteral ‘creeachh’ as you might expect, but rhymes with the letter A, as in Cray fish.)
So how about Nescafé sponsors Mary Creagh? It’s consumed more or less universally so shouldn’t be a problem anywhere; although I suppose it is possible some of those Ukip-prone northerners are averse to pronouncing it in the French way, in which case the rhyming wouldn’t help. Still, they probably think Nescafé is dangerously European so it wouldn’t cut any ice with them anyway.
For Liz Kendall, I’m toying with the idea of a beer. I think the choice of a beer for a woman would be very modern. It’s radical and, by traditional standards, counter intuitive. And isn’t that exactly what Labour needs at the moment? The problem is that it that needs to be a proper British beer – lager is just too German – and there is nothing I can find that fits the bill. Instead, I think Liz should have three separate beers for three different areas. ‘Directors Best’ from Courage in Staines, for the affluent South; a beer from the Barnsley Brewing Company called ‘Shut thi Gob’ to appeal to the Northern voters who’ve switched to Ukip; and for Scotland, something called ‘Sheep Shaggers’ which is brewed in Aviemore.
Finally, we come to Andy Burnham and he, of course, already has a sponsor: Len McCluskey. My strong advice to Andy would be to find a clause in that contract that allows him to break it immediately. (Remember what Len did for dear departed Ed.) It might not do Andy any damage in the Leadership vote, but come the next general election, Len McCluskey’s name on his baseball cap will be the kiss of death.
