The Labour Party, UK, had refused to run this proposed general election poster following concerns that it could be interpreted as anti-Semitic. The poster featured the Tory leader, Michael Howard, and the Shadow Chancellor, Oliver Letwin, who were portrayed as flying pigs. In fact, both the leaders appeared on the poster are Jewish and under Jewish law pigs are concerned an unclean and inferior animal. Following this fact, Labour members decided to not to move ahead with the campaign. However, the images appeared on the party’s website.
Conservative politicians and Jewish groups fiercely accused the advertisement for being anti-Semitic. However, the Labour Party defended the advertisement arguing that the poster was making a serious political point. Alistair Campbell, Labour’s former Director of Communications and an important strategist of the party’s 2005 general election campaign, afterward accepted responsibility for the adverts but refused to acknowledge that the advertisements were anti-Semitic ‘in any way, shape or form’. The campaign was designed by TBWA, London. The text of the advertisement read, ‘Britain is working. Don’t let the Tories wreck it again’.
Via Best Rejected Advertising
