Labour target cancer sufferers in new ad

nickmason

There are so many different aspects to this.

First - is this campaign acceptable (assuming it to be true, and legal). I'd probably say yes actually*, albeit in extremely poor taste. Surprisingly I agree with Ninky that there is some parallel in other focused campaigns; for instance students campaigning on tuition fees, or inded as she (?) points out the hunting lobby. The fact that most of this targeting is much more informal than this doesn't really matter... well sort, of because it comes back to the two assumptions above.

Are the claims in this true? Sadly not. Which is probably the most important thing here, but we're so used to untruths from politicians that nobody seems to mind. What happens is that, long after this furore, the completely unfounded meme, that NHS treatment of cancer is good under Labour but bad under future Conservatives, persists. That is the idea of these campaigns - they're SUPPOSED to cause a storm. Charities do it as well - which really is conflicted.

Was this legal? I imagine so. Although I don't know the details, it's pretty easy to get hold of a list of people who are receptive to a cancer message (you just buy it from a cancer charity). This happens all over the place; for a short while I worked for a company whose sole raison d'etre was to swap lists from different charities - they have a name in the trade "reciprocals" and are enormously successful. If - a big IF - they were genuinely raided from NHS records then that would, to my mind, be a scandal of Watergate proportions. (To be honest, it would actually be quite difficult to organise - although this is again a good reason not to have super national ID databases).

A further observation - I'm pretty involved in the Conservative campaign (as has now been paraded) - and to my knowledge we're not doing anything like this. I don't mean anything as cynical; simply we're not - again to use the jargon - overlaying this sort of info onto our mailings. I don't doubt people have thought about it - but it's just actually quite hard to do and even harder to do right. The closest I'm aware of is some campaigning using Mosaic to identify postcodes where a higher proportion of traditional conservatives might be found. For campaigners it feels like a silver bullet, but, having worked in this side of marketing for charities for some years now, I'm not convinced and indeed I rejected a proposal to use it, down my neck of the woods, at a campaign meeting on Friday.

* Just to clarify - I think it's unacceptable on a moral and taste basis. But I don't see there to be a precise hurdle for this; it's not a black or white issue - one person is offended to different degrees from another. To some extent there's a parallel with freedom of speech. I do see the principle of targeting as acceptable.

Graham_Devon

ninky wrote: »

they have not used private information.

if you are worried about an invasion of privacy do you go and tell your story to the daily mail or whatever?

How do you know that they have not used prvate information?

They HAVE targetted using personal information. Whether they tried to target cancer suffererers, and what now seems families of cancer sufferers is another matter. But to send 250,000 leaflets out is targetting. It's looking for a group of people, otherwise, how did they decide these 250k people would get it, and others wouldn't?

There is also a huge difference between unknowingly having your information used to target you, and through your own free will, divulging your own personal information.

I cannot actually believe you are now using the argument that someone talked to the papers as a reason as to why the data protection aspect isn't an issue. Not sure if your just winding up now or what?

Not long ago you created a whole thread about a facial expression of David Cameron when talking about gay rights or something. A simple facial expression which upset no one and caused no offence had you scoffing about the toffs, the nasty party, the no compassion party etc. Yet this leaflet, which HAS caused upset and offence.... well thats absolutely fine?

nickmason

What happens is that, long after this furore, the completely unfounded meme, that NHS treatment of cancer is good under Labour but bad under future Conservatives, persists. That is the idea of these campaigns - they're SUPPOSED to cause a storm. Charities do it as well - which really is conflicted.

This article, last year, around the time of Derek Draper, might illustrate the point:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6094124.ece

And that includes some in the media. On the one hand, as one victim of hostile Downing Street briefings puts it: “If somebody at No 10 is saying that Harriet Harman is having a mental breakdown, journalists are justified in running it.” On the other hand, as another victim of Mr McBride’s sees it: “It takes two to tango – you need McBride and you need the flopsy-bunny journalists who will just take the line.” I think they should be clearer about where the line is coming from, and why.
Do you see what I did just then? I placed in your head the creeping falsehood that perhaps Ms Harman might be having a mental breakdown; because if someone has suggested that No 10 might be saying it, then perhaps No 10 is saying it, and perhaps it is saying it because it might be true?
And you will remember, long after you forget everything else in this article, that someone once told you that Harriet Harman was mentally ill. And that is precisely how the poisoners operate.

tomterm8

Graham_Devon wrote: »

How do you know that they have not used prvate information?

I would have thought the correct question is... how do you know they have used private information... and is there any evidence that, if they have, the private information was obtained illegally?

I would guess that the first questions answer is yes, and the second answer is no, simply because you can buy this kind of data reasonably cheaply and legally (they seem to have been targeting postcodes with high cancer rates).

Maybe a third question is, why should it be possible and legal to buy this kind of information?

Possibly a fourth question is, is the information in the leaflet wrong?

My feeling is the answer to the fourth question is 'it is misleading', in which case that should be the bigger scandle?

Graham_Devon

tomterm8 wrote: »

I would have thought the correct question is... how do you know they have used private information... and is there any evidence that, if they have, the private information was obtained illegally?

I would guess that the first questions answer is yes, and the second answer is no, simply because you can buy this kind of data reasonably cheaply and legally (they seem to have been targeting postcodes with high cancer rates).

Maybe a third question is, why should it be possible and legal to buy this kind of information?

Possibly a fourth question is, is the information in the leaflet wrong?

My feeling is the answer to the fourth question is 'it is misleading', in which case that should be the bigger scandle?

And the fifth overiding question is...

Should the information, although maybe legally obtainable, have been used to scare a certain section of the population by the current government?

tomterm8

No, I don't accept that. I think it only makes sence to target campaign information to people who are affected by the policy - if done in a legal way. The second people can censor information and points of view because it might upset someone, is the second we get nearer a dictatorship.

Is the information truthful? That's what I want to know. If it is truthful, then the public interest is, I feel, served best by publishing it.

If it is untruthful, then Labour are lying fecturds, as I have said on this forum about another issue.

nickmason

tomterm8 wrote: »

I would have thought the correct question is... how do you know they have used private information... and is there any evidence that, if they have, the private information was obtained illegally?

I would guess that the first questions answer is yes, and the second answer is no, simply because you can buy this kind of data reasonably cheaply and legally (they seem to have been targeting postcodes with high cancer rates).

Absolutely. Interestingly, if anyone has actually received this, they do have a right to ask the Labour party where it got their address from and how they were selected. Which might be very interesting, although as I have mentioned, I suspect the story is much more mundane - you'll probably find you didn't tick the box saying "please don't pass my details onto other interested partner organisations"...

Maybe a third question is, why should it be possible and legal to buy this kind of information?

There's an ongoing ruckus about this. The DMA (direct marketing association) is from memory the largest trade body in Europe, and continues to defend its turf. Yup, that's lobbying by another name.

Possibly a fourth question is, is the information in the leaflet wrong?

My feeling is the answer to the fourth question is 'it is misleading', in which case that should be the bigger scandle?

I agree entirely with this. Some clever communications guru has worked out that if you have two contentious elements to a message, only one can be rebutted at a time.

ninky_2

[QUOTE=vivatifosi;31790911}
I'm not against targets per se and hope that we don't go back to those times - under the tories who should be ashamed - where people routinely waited for over a year for a hip operation while experiencing absolutely no quality of life. However we do need to question what we're measuring and why. I don't know if anyone else has read "Blood Sweat and Tea", the blog of a London paramedic, but he states that their target is to get to a patient within the time, not to save lives. Therefore if he struggles through traffic for 15 minutes, gets to a patient and manages to resuscitate them, that is classed as a failure; whereas if there's no traffic, he gets to a patient who lives, then that's classed as a success.

[/QUOTE]

but the target of how quickly paramedics get to patients is a more important target as it improves the chances of survival massively. although a paramedic may take it personally they shouldn't as if they follow their training whether a patient survives or not is often beyond their control. but response times will improve the survival rates. i'd also like to see an improvement in teaching of first aid skill - in germany first aid is taught in schools from kindergarten for example.

ninky_2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

How do you know that they have not used prvate information?

They HAVE targetted using personal information.

there's a massive difference between private information and personal information. as nickmason points out it is not hard to get personal information and private companies and charities use this all the time.

i get mailshots about car insurance renewal. i get mailshots about yacht insurance and sailing related matter. i get mailshots from charities related to causes i've donated to. similarly when i log into facebook targeted adverts come up. is this an invasion of privacy or just marketing? a leaflet through the door does not publicise your private affairs to others. going to the newspapers to complain about it does. so maybe those who complained were politically motivated too? just a thought.

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

so maybe those who complained were politically motivated too? just a thought.

Or maybe it's because they didn't want to be reminded of having cancer....

You fail to see/accept that the subject matter is different from direct targeting yacht insurance to people interested in yachts.

If a member of your family was stabbed to death, would you feel upset if the Conservative party obtained names of violent crime victims and sent you a flyer, addressed to you personally, suggesting that they were tougher on knife crime than Labour?