Councillors were portrayed as characters from the ‘Carry On’ film series on a weekly’s front page after they received criticism from their local MP.
The Kent Messenger’s spoof saw five Maidstone Borough Council members and officers depicted as characters from the bawdy film franchise, after Maidstone and the Weald MP Helen Grant accused the authority of “carrying on” with its housing strategy regardless of the impact.
Mrs Grant was addressing an inquiry which is examining the borough’s local plan when she made the remarks.
The authority has proposed 18,560 additional homes in the borough between now and 2031 – though critics believe there is not enough infrastructure in place to cope with the influx.
Messenger editor Denise Eaton said: “The housing target is not a popular one and many feel the local infrastructure is not keeping pace with the scale of development.
“Helen Grant did a great job of reflecting the views of her constituents and we felt such an honest and frank approach deserved special treatment to bring it to the public’s attention.
“It’s our duty to engage, entertain and inform and hopefully this meets that criteria.”
In May last year the Carmarthen Journal also used the ‘Carry On’ series as the inspiration for a front page while reporting on internal troubles with Carmarthenshire Council’s Labour group.
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Eye catching, but always a debate about whether this detracts from serious journalism.
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I get uncomfortable with using music, TV or film references when the link is rather tenuous.
For example, I saw a fairly recent newspaper story involving a meerkat with the headline ‘Simples’, just because of the TV ads. It made no sense within the article whatsoever.
Likewise, you can use the ‘Carry On’ idea almost anywhere that there’s a dispute over something that is ongoing but it doesn’t mean you should.
I think it was the Lincolnshire Echo where I once saw it used to best effect. The then council leader was embroiled in a scandal over the route of a bypass and the paper ran a story about him claiming to have been persecuted by certain people. The paper used the ‘What a Carry On’ headline to show the farcical aspects of the story but it was supported by a mock-up of the leader delivering Kenneth Williams’ classic line from Carry On Cleo: “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!”. That worked much better, given the subject matter!
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