Don’t let Rishi ruin it! Let’s make political slogans great again

From the inspiring to the ridiculous, campaign phrases are a difficult art to master. Sean O’Grady puts some recent rallying cries to the test

Is this really the slogan for the next Tory election campaign? (EPA)

This hasn’t been a vintage year for many things, despite the Lionesses’ best efforts, and least of all for political sloganeering.

As we toddle towards probably the last party season before the general election, something seems to have gone badly wrong with the copywriting. Forced to announce his green policy retreat because of a leak, Rishi Sunak has also revealed his new party slogan: “Long-term decisions for a brighter future ”. Not only is this a mouthful, but it contains a hyphen and a rather long word and thus doesn’t fit on a podium very well. It looks as cumbersome as it sounds, and suggests a communications team that doesn’t know what it’s doing. It is a long way from recent classics such as “Get Brexit done” and “Build back better”. There is an art to phrasemaking, and it’s a difficult one to master.

Why is ‘Long-term decisions for a brighter future’ such a clunker?