Central Office of Propoganda closed
The Central Office of Information (COI) has closed it’s doors after 65 years.
Is this because it is no longer necessary to dictate to the public who they should lead their lives? Is it because the government has finally woken up to the fact that the public can pretty much run their own lives, in fact did so for millenia before the invention of government?
No. None of the above.
The Central Office of Information has been closed down because it now the Distributed Offices of Information (DOI). Instead of one central department issuing public safety adverts it is now a multitude of different departments. So we have the NHS issuing Smoke Free adverts. We have the Health Department producing films about the dangers of eating too much. We have the railway department financing adverts about the dangers of ignoring railway crossing signals.
Instead of the single office we will now have seven offices of information. All of them continuing to produce scary films that if they had to be put past the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) would fail at the first hurdle. You had kids that were scared of the Daleks and hid behind the sofa but they grew up and realised it was just fantasy. The COI films managed to scare kids for life, mostly based on very rare cases of harm such as the irrational dangers of young kids driving a tractor off a hill.
Do we really need any government office of nannying fusbucketing information? Life is full of dangers and most of the population are intelligent enough to understand the risks. And those who aren’t (the minority), aren’t going to be listening to the information. All it does is create a climate of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) which is a negative feedback process. Remember the AIDS films with the toppling monolith? This FUD alone probably counters any potential positive aspects of public information films.
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April 4, 2012 at 15:09 -
The CoI was pretty tame stuff. Those who remember the old MoI and services productions will know they could be really scary. The ones about personal hygiene terrorised the nation. Of course there were others, notably from the GPO. “Nght Mail” for example had us all terrifed that the mail bags could be dropped and lost.
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April 4, 2012 at 15:23 -
Life is full of dangers and most of the population are intelligent enough to understand the risks.
That was true 20 or so years ago, I’m not so sure about it now after all the nannying the state has done coupled with the HaS stupidity.It would appear the distribution of the DOI is just a way of increasing the number of public servants on the sly.
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April 4, 2012 at 19:13 -
Remember, just a day or so ago we had a woman who didn’t realise petrol vapour was potentially explosive!
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April 4, 2012 at 21:08 -
QED. There’s obviously a need for an urgent COI film to alert the population to the otherwise-unreported dangers of decanting explosive liquids in a domestic kitchen while the cooker is blazing away. I’m surprised they hadn’t done one already – clearly they were under-funded, shovel more of my money their way immediately.
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April 7, 2012 at 11:35 -
Time to wheel out a reference to honest reporting about the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide. Just go and have a look at what this nasty substance is capable of, and then mount a campaign to have it banned in the EU as part of REACH.
http://dhmo.org/ .
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April 4, 2012 at 16:01 -
Here’s an area where substantial savings of our money could be achieved.
All government departments should be prevented from having expensive tv commercials produced (Income tax returns, tv licence renewal, etc.) and revert to the previous method of issuing public service announcements consisting of a printed notice on screen accompanied by a simple voice-over.
Huge savings to be made. Will it happen? Fat chance !
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April 4, 2012 at 16:22 -
As our lustrous* PM is ex-PR, not a chance – His mates in the industry might suffer.
* well, he’s not illustrious and his head’s shiny
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April 4, 2012 at 16:28 -
“Do we really need any government office of nannying fusbucketing information?”
Yes, unfortunately. A campaign to remind people that petrol is highly inflammable is necessary after two recent avoidable accidents. Another campaign reminding people that chainsaws are expertly designed and constructed to cut things up might save a few accidental amputations annually. However, given the denseness of the target audience only a soap opera storyline would work.
As for accidents being a recent development, I was less impressed by Louis Braille inventing his raised dot writing and reading system than by him blinding himself by careless use of a knife. It encouraged me to learn how to use one safely (“health & safety gone mad” or “doing it properly”?).-
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April 4, 2012 at 19:39 -
“Do we really need any government office of nannying fusbucketing information?”
Yes, unfortunately
– No, we don’t, all we’re doing is circumventing natural selection and dumbing down the species as a result. If you’re too stupid to survive the world, you’re too stupid to breed.
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April 4, 2012 at 23:33 -
So whereabouts do you have your DNR tattoo to inform medical staff of your treatment preferences? Or have you arranged for a friend to lump-hammer you after any injury needing more than an Elastoplast?
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April 5, 2012 at 14:35 -
Dear Brian, Some foolish woman (yes she’s paid an horrific price for said stupidity) must have filled up her car dozens of times at a petrol station, seen umpteen hazard signs plastered all over the forecourt and pumps, and yet, AND YET still did what she did…
What we need is a public health warning on the dangers of politicians. A disgusting, cynical Liebour MP blamed Francis Maude personally for the above incident(???!!!) and demanded his immediate resignation – and these people think they are superior to us common folk…
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April 5, 2012 at 15:24 -
Dear Humble Observer, I agree with you about the opportunism of politicians. Why do they only act in a statesmanlike bipartisan fashion when they are whitewashing the dishonesty of their colleagues.
As for that poor lady’s lapse of judgement, that can happen to the brightest and best trained – undercarriages are retracted on the apron, full flap is applied at the wrong time and the wrong engine is shut down more often than nervous passengers ought to know.
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April 4, 2012 at 16:33 -
Ivan @ 15:23
“Life is full of dangers and most of the population are intelligent enough to understand the risks.”
And those who tried to cross a railway line when the level-crossing gates were closed & the “train-coming” lights were flashing were either successful or received a Darwin Award. And in the latter circumstance wouldn’t subject Network Rail to a hefty fine for their own stupidity.
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April 4, 2012 at 20:45 -
Isn’t Propaganda, the proper ganda?
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April 4, 2012 at 22:57 -
To be fair, I did drive my tractor off a cliff the other day. If only I had seen the video…
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April 5, 2012 at 14:41 -
I once cut my fingernails way too short (luckily they grew back), there was no warning on the chainsaw advising on it being inappropriate for such tasks…
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April 5, 2012 at 15:01 -
C’mon guys. Without ‘Protect and Survive’ we wouldn’t have known to put an old door against a wall, beneath which we would be safe from nuclear Armageddon.
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