Peppa Snubs Labour

I was delighted to hear the news that the popular children’s cartoon character, Peppa Pig, had snubbed the Labour party by withdrawing from an election event at a children’s centre to promote Labour’s policies to support families. It certainly managed to ignite some playground style bickering between the incumbent government and the BBC; queue Mandy and some catty quips about the broadcaster twisting channel Five’s arm over the appearance and spoiling everyone’s fun. Ahhh diddums!

At first, my reaction was amusement but after further consideration, the idea of a hugely popular children’s character aimed at the under 5s being used for political gain was about as comical as the Hitler Youth movement. I suspect that Peppa, at only 5 years old herself, is pig ignorant of the ramifications her appearance might have had on her unsuspecting audience, but you’d think that her management would know better that to endorse a political event!

As a father, I have seen the effect that advertising has on kids first hand. Their minds are completely receptive to all kinds of subtle messaging, which makes Labour’s decision to invite Peppa to the event unfathomable and highly irresponsible. Whoever made the decision in the first place is either an idiot or a despot….neither of which is a great advertisement for the party.

So while I may have my reservations about some of the decisions the beeb makes, I am glad that they are willing to stick their oar in on matters regarding the impartiality of British programming. Long may they continue to do so!