Reviewing politics
and culture since 1913

  1. Science & Tech
  2. Coronavirus
11 May 2020updated 06 Oct 2020 9:45am

Why the government’s “Stay Alert” slogan fails

By Samuel Horti

The reason the English government’s new slogan for tackling the coronavirus, “stay alert, control the virus, save lives”, is so confusing is because it is trying to do a minimum of six things, the New Statesman‘s political editor Stephen Bush writes today.

In his piece, he goes through each of those six messages that the government has tried, and failed, to roll into one, and argues that “a single slogan is not a load-bearing object for so many messages of varying complexity, some of which ought to be contradicted in different parts of the UK for different reasons”.

“The only way to have a clearer message is to deprioritise some of those things the government is trying to communicate,” he writes.

You can read the full piece here.

 

 

Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
The benefits of UK consulting go far beyond the economic
Energy storage must not be overlooked on the road to net zero 
Mental health: The productivity puzzle