Question

essay on attack is the best form of defense

Answer 1

“It’s either the opposition saying, ‘Time for a change’, or the government saying, ‘Britain’s great again, don’t let the other lot muck it up.’ The rest is just details.” And he’s ostensibly right. But while the strategies stay the same, the executions can vary wildly. When the Saatchis released their infamous Labour Isn’t Working poster in 1978, an incredulous Denis Healey publically accused the Tories of selling themselves like soap powder. An excited press reported on the spat, helpfully republishing images of the poster. The Saatchis had just taught Healey a golden rule of political advertising: always try to provoke the opposition into a reaction. Here are some of the others.

 On the warpath ... Tories attack in 1987. Photograph: The Conservative Party Archive/Getty ImagesHit first, hit hard and keep on hitting

Jeremy Sinclair was the Saatchi & Saatchi creative director behind the defining political ads of the Thatcher era. He cut his teeth taking on a floundering Labour government in the late 70s. “The unions were taking over and [James] Callaghan was weak. There was much to exploit,” he says. “We weren’t scared to be negative, we relished it. Our approach became ‘hit first, hit hard and keep on hitting’.” It was an attack plan that saw them mastermind three successive victories for Thatcher’s party. After Labour Isn’t Working was used for the 1979 election, they shot down Michael Foot in 1983 with a poster comparing the striking similarities between their election manifesto and that of the Soviet Union’s Communist party, under the headline: “Like your manifesto, comrade”. In 1987, Neil Kinnock stumbled in a TV interview, suggesting that a Labour government would resist a Soviet invasion with guerrilla warfare. Saatchis created a poster that featured a British soldier holding his arms aloft in surrender, under the headline: “Labour’s Policy On Arms”.

Answer 2

Attack is the best form of defencethe assertion that a pre-emptive strike is the most effective way of protecting oneself is recorded in this form from the mid 20th century, but in American usage the idea can be traced back to the late 18th century (‘It is a maxim, that it is better to attack than to receive one’).