“Labour isn’t working.” So runs the tagline over Saatchi and Saatchi’s famous 1979 election poster, one of the most significant advertisements of the twentieth century.  With its image of a dole queue snaking into the distance it contributed to the first of four consecutive Tory victories. 

In 2010, with another exhausted Labour government, the Conservatives have papered the country with their new posters. But in the first UK election with a fully fledged social media culture, the traditional political poster might have had its day. 

The Tories purportedly spent £500, 000 on the “We can’t go on like this...I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” David Cameron posters alone. The mockery which spontaneously and organically ensued is far more effective and credible than any counter campaign which Labour could have devised themselves. And of course, it cost them precisely nothing. 

On roadsides around the country, Cameron’s face has been adjusted by local daubers. In Hackney, a splash of shocking red writing tells him in no uncertain terms to take himself “back to Eton.” However, the website Mydavidcameron.com has been far more significant, and largely more mischievous than vitriolic. The site enables visitors to complete the posters with their own messages and to alter the Tory leader’s image. The funniest results are displayed by the website. 

The subsequent “I’ve never voted Tory before, but...” trio of posters immediately received the same treatment. Within hours of the new images being unveiled, #I’venevervotedtory became the UK’s biggest trending topic on Twitter. Social networks have opened up what Alistair Campbell dubs “a new communications landscape,” where anyone and everyone can share their opinions on politicians and their antics in real time and with minimal effort on their part. Obama’s campaign proved that social networking could be harnessed to facilitate the spread of real conviction. But it can also help satire to spread faster than wildfire in a paper forest.

We live in a cynical, digital age, where the average voter is not only disillusioned by politics but alert to the manipulations of the media and advertising.  The Tory posters are perhaps too sincere, too palpably keen to invoke a cult of personality around Cameron and to appeal to homey middle England.  In many ways, the giant head-shots and half-finished phrases practically cry out to be defaced. They are the marketing equivalent of a “kick-me” sign, too tempting even to those without an active aversion to Cameron.  Indeed, the Conservatives are refusing to take the joke personally, at least in public. Their press office said: “That’s just something that happens to posters. It’s nothing political.”

If you can see a bandwagon coming, it’s probably too late to jump on. Several rightwards-leaning websites have since attempted to redress the balance with rival poster websites, and Mydavidcameron.com founder Clifford Singer has announced that the site won’t be spoofing any more Conservative posters. Mr Singer explained: “The fact that the Tories are now trying to get in on the joke can only suggest one thing: we’ve reached our sell-by date.”