The Political Is the Personal

In their coarse, playground-taunting way, the chaps at the Home Office have always been fairly accomplished comedians; but they may possibly have surpassed themselves here. The Powellite Pantechnicon campaign, in which vans displaying a wogs-go-home message were driven around racially mixed areas, has attracted unwelcome attention from the sort of wog that begins at Calais. A designer named Fabien Delage claims that his font was used without permission or payment and, predictably, has expressed some annoyance at being associated with so uncompromising an instance of British pluck and gumption. The font, appropriately called Plane Crash, is free for personal use but requires a license and explicit permission for commercial use; so given that the Conservatives consider the country their own little toy, the defence will presumably be that the Powellite Pantechnicon campaign was as personal as anyone might wish.