Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Have you heard the GOOD NEWS about Haringey branding?
Since I am sure that Mr. Stanton would be supremely indifferent to a call for God to bless him, I don’t suppose I would be going against my principles to issue such a plea, because he has bequeathed to me nearly half an hour of good solid fun in his request to Haringey for details of the ‘rebranding’ which was recommended last October.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/haringey_new_logo_rebranding...
As you will see, these were furnished to him by the "feedback review officer", an employment category which in itself conjurs up images of what you might be forced to appraise on the pavement outside a kebab joint on a Saturday night.
Anyway, I scraped through the bigger bits and discovered that Haringey is not only "edgy" but it is not in fact a place. According to the Brand Guidelines is is an Attitude. So, not a borough, then. We are the Attitude of Haringey. According to the Collins Dictionary, an attitude is at best a physical orientation and at worst a hostile manner. Judging by the colour of the letterheads and signage it is also permanently in a red mist. From ID cards to care homes, all is red—including the cards that Councillors have to hand to their parishoners. Even the LibDems have to hand out red cards to people, so whatever it is and whoever hands it to you: STOP THAT AT ONCE!
Apart from the graphics, there are also instructions about language. Employees of the Attitude of Haringey are urged to “create energy with short sentences” rather than being “staid, stuffy or formal” (note the use of three words meaning the same thing, right after the request for brevity) and to write as if talking to a good friend. Oh us cuddly folk at Haringey Attitude. We are just so ….LOVABLE.
But the best is probably in the letter heads.
There are two versions for use with the residents, customers …um… Good Friends. The letterheads come in “good news” and “bad news”. Surprisingly, someone has realised that the bouncing buffoonery that now spells out the name of our borough in a font which looks as if a serial killer has scrawled it on the wall in blood, might not be the best thing to put on the top of a letter telling your dying grannie that she is about to be locked out of her flat by Haringey Social Services. I am impressed by their sensitivity. Good news letters, btw, have the bouncing bloodstain at the top of the page, while the bad news ones have “Haringey" in black and at the bottom of the page, so as not to associate our edgy Attitude of Haringey with anything negative.
Since the Attitude now has double designs of stationery, instead of just the one, this means double the number of trees turned into pulp to communicate council wafflings. Oh, and all of us Council Tax payers have double the expense, of course, Which theme should they use to give us *that* information?
That, by the way is not the end of it because there is special stationery for use only within the Council—good news, bad news and something called a “partner” letterhead which has its own category. All of these add to the different stacks of stationery to be printed and wasted but by this time I have lost count of the multiples. You’ll have to work out the trees for yourselves.
Sod the trees, though. It’s the council workers I feel sorry for. Can you imagine the nervous stress of trying to decide in which category they should form their communications? Can you imagine the discussions over every letter to determine whether it qualifies as good news or bad news?
Even with committee discussions about the right stationery dragging on into the small hours, there will still be problems because any fool knows that good and bad news is often a matter of opinion. The continued printing of "Haringey People", for instance: good or bad? A ten-day rock festival in Finsbury Park: good (wow! free music for over a week!) or bad: (how the hell do I get the kids to sleep)? Permission for your neighbours to build a huge and looming loft extension: bad (there goes the light) or good (great! that means I’ll get permission for my basement swimming pool)?
Perhaps some sort of mnemonic would be useful. As they (almost) recite in Full Metal Jacket — “this is for sober-speak and this is for farces, this is for Kober’s clique and — “ ….oh shucks, I can’t think of a rhyme for the rest of it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lydia R on
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"Progress is rather like The Bow Group in the Conservative Party..."
I stand corrected, then.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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My pleasure
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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William Hoyle: instead of attacking former Councillor Stanton, I'd like to know what you think about Haringey's Brand Guidelines. Have you seen them?
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Some of this stuff is a real challenge to parody, but I think Lydia's made a great start. Other's may also see the humour or pathos here.
That the Council chooses to spend on this … while at the same time, makes severe cuts to social services. I'm not saying that they're equal amounts. The Council keeps going on about tough decisions: but how tough was it to elect to spend on this tripe?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Isn't the branding thing what Joe Goldberg does for a day job? Maybe they got a discount that was too good to refuse?
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John, yes I believe that the Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Social Inclusion and Sustainability has claimed to be a "Brand Strategist".
The Agency commissioning (brand strategy and visual identity) …
[amount was] £40,000.
See here under Costs (pages five and six).
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Some money is split into budgets before the council can spend it, e.g. the Tottenham Regen budget, and if that applies in this case then Joe is a hero for spending something locally that might otherwise have gone back to the government to pay off our debts/reduce the money supply. If not...
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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John, there's no heroism involved in wasting other people's money. On JoeGo's vanity nonsense or anything else. Nor have I heard any indication that this particular budget was from external funds which would be returned if unspent.
Do you have information to the contrary?
In any case, there are a range of ways in which money can be spent for useful purposes rather than last minute shelling-out to exhaust a budget head. One way is to have a few "bottom drawer" projects which are costed and ready to go. Money can also be spent on budget 'A' to free up more for budget 'B'.
They are working to a fantasy about regeneration, John. In all likelihood it's quackery. Magic beans. Snake oil.
I would mind less if they set up each project as an "experiment" and were clear and explicit about the assumptions behind it; the causative chain; and the criteria for success or failure. I fully accept - and I expect you do too, that we learn as much - if not more - from experiments which fail. But only provided they are tested by rigorous independent external evaluations.
But as we've seen with Cllr Gideon Bull, even asking some sceptical questions results in a trial for high treason.
Last night we went to see The Patriotic Traitor at the Park Theatre. Excellent! (They have various concessionary pricing schemes -including one for locals.) It centres on the relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Philippe Pétain. We see a younger Pétain at a staff college before the first World War explaining why it was stupid to send infantry holding "intelligent bayonets" against machine gunners with "blind bullets". And later, Pétain as an old man dismissing the young de Gaulle's argument to his friend and superior officer that the Maginot Line would fail.
Thankfully, in local government, failure to learn rarely causes death. Although in Haringey it has. Very publicly. Apparently without any learning from the chumpocracy now leading the Council.
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Hang on Alan "They are working on a fantasy about regeneration". You were one of them!
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Initially I had and kept an open mind about Claire Kober and her allies, Michael.
But after the 2011 Tottenham Riot it soon became clear to me that Haringey was being run by red-rosetted Tories. Whose "Plan for Tottenham" with its enthusiastic support for the Lipton Report would be far more destructive than the riot.
I have since, first privately and then publicly, in meetings and online, offered an increasingly detailed critique of these plans.
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But I thought you voted in favour of the demolition and redevelopment scheme at Wards Corner. Have I got that wrong?
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