Time2 Watch the Election Campaign

When it comes to branding, British political parties are generations behind those in the US – no small mercy, by the look of this Barack Obama watch  – so there is no history of official campaign watches to fall back on. But that doesn’t mean we can’t put watches to faces or political histories.

Let us consider New Labour, which was created by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown less as a reaction to the conservatives than to its own antecedents as the party of the poor and the downtrodden. “Not any more we’re not” might well have been their first campaign slogan. This was now the party that, in Peter Mandelson’s famous words, was suddenly “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. So, for them, perhaps a 201-carat Chopard, complete with three large heart-shaped diamonds amidst literally hundreds of others and a snip at $25m. Beat that you toffs!

The Tories, of course, are no longer the Tories either, after David Cameron started hugging hoodies and going to work on a bike – albeit with a chauffeur-driven limo trailing behind. This may no longer be the nasty party, but it’s not that easy to picture as all touchy-feely either. Perhaps a Jaeger Lecoultre Reverso would allow them to have it both ways.

The Lib-Dems are also going through something of a makeover, though they would doubtless insist – like the rest of them for that matter – that nothing has changed. They are, for instance, right on the money as far as the economy goes and what we need to get out of this fine mess. For Vince Cable, an Omega Seamaster, “The Watch the World has Learned to Trust.”

Finally, and as a special gift to all those MPs now departing the Commons for the last time after being caught with their hands in the expenses box, we would offer a parting gift. A Swatch. As the company’s ads once put it: “You have a second home. Why not a second watch?”