July 18, 2006

Fcuk liberty

Britain's freedoms have been steadily eroded by a succession of terrorism-related laws. This at least is the point of Rory Bremner's article about the decline of liberty in this country in last week's Sunday Telegraph (unfortunately unlinkable).
This isn't going to be a freedom and liberty polemic, because many other journalists and bloggers have commented upon how the new laws have been used to batter ordinary folk who are simply protesting.

Tony Wright: poor bugger
Trevor Beattie: clever bugger
No, what is noteworthy is how one protestor, a Leicestershire trader called Tony Wright, was fined £80 for "causing distress" by displaying T-shirts with the slogan "Bollocks to Blair".
Is the word Bollocks worse than the word Fuck?
Certainly there were plenty of complaints when French Connection UK morphed into FCUK. But seeing as it was only mere mortals who were offended, the official view seems to be that they could go fuck themselves.
FCUK was the idea of TBWA's Trevor Beattie, who was re-hired by the Labour government and produced their flying pig and creepy hypnotist posters for the 2005 election campaign.

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