George Orwell
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5 ways this HMRC marketing tactic is not okay
1. This is not okay because despite it being a threat to tax dodgers, its imagery unambiguously accuses you. It’s aim as a piece of marketing is to deliberately make you feel paranoid. 2. This is not okay because it is intrusive. This tactic has been chosen to threaten you as you are about to embark on the…
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The HMRC campaign provokes more thoughtcrimes
So here is another HMRC campaign against tax evasion. First credit where credit’s due. This is less toxic than the previous campaign that infuriated me so much. The copy tone is less accusatory. They are closing the net on ‘tax dodgers’ rather than what was previously implied that they are closing the net on you personally. And of…
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Orwell’s writing rules
Prompted by a discussion on Start the Week on BBC R4 I re-read George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language. Embedded in this essay, which you can download free here, is some thoughtful and pithy advice for writers. Well worth revisiting. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least…
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oink!
Note to self: not everyone thinks marketing is big and clever. “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.” George Orwell
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 