exposed

we all want to look our best, especially when it comes to be photographed or videoed.


so we can't really blame david cameron for putting his personal photographer and videographer on staff. he needs them to present him (and his family) in the best light. to show us all he is, indeed, just like me and you (albeit a very rich smug version of me and you).

c'mon admit it - if you could afford it you would have a photographer following you around catching you in that 'moment' (to use a term loved by henri cartier bresson), look there you are looking thoughtful (snap), here you are smiling and talking with a stranger (click), oh look at you run (snap, click, snap). all captured in stunning, sometimes airbrushed, colour or maybe just that moody serious black and white.

you know you would want it.

or imagine the videographer making everything look like it runs smoothly and well planned, all with added soundtrack.

see it sounds brilliant, and don't deny it.
you would do it if you could afford it.
oh hold on - if you could afford it.

one of the things that cameron loves to tell us (and i suspect that just as he gets all worked up with sam to play a game of m'lord and ladies, he whispers in her ear: "deficit") is that we are in a parlous situation, that public services have to be cut and that savings have to be made. if he tells us once, he tells us twice and just to make sure he tells us a third time.

as part of this he is quick to lambast the labour government for its profligacy.

so it is nice to know that while he is presiding over cuts and job loses he can find some public money to hire his own personal photographer and videographer, and because of the nature of their contracts the job didn't have to be advertised - not that i would have gone for it - not sure david cameron would have suited being pictured with a traffic cone on his head.

oh but he tells us he has cut the previous government's outrageous communication bill, so don't begrudge me giving two jobs to my mates, after all they make me look so good, so smug, so dave!

it is not like the cameron's couldn't afford to pay for them. or that the conservative party couldn't stump up the cash for them. after all who was paying for them before david cameron, so generously, put them on the public purse? now that the state is paying for them does that mean that the state owns the copyright on their work, will all monies paid to use their images go back to the state? (just wondering).

so next time dave is telling us all how hard it is and how we all have to make sacrifices to make ends meet just remember we are all in it together - even if most of us can't afford to appoint our own private photographer, after all who wants to see suffering and depression when we can look at airbrushed smugness.