If we look for insane political slights, we will find them – yes, even in M&S ads
Last weeks momentary insanity of a Christmas ad is a sign of our hyper vigilance against political slights, writes Eliot Wilson
Perhaps it is an inevitability of closely following politics, but there are occasions when I have to stop, just for a moment, and check that something is really happening, that I am not an unwitting participant in some student revue skit. These past few days it has been the turn of beloved purveyors of underwear and ready-made sandwiches, Marks and Spencer, to be in the eye of the storm.
Last Wednesday, M&S began its Christmas advertising campaign in earnest by publishing a photograph of an outtake from one of its TV ads. This showed actress Hannah Waddingham posing by the mantelpiece of a festively decorated dining room, wearing what is perhaps an expression of muted triumph, and in the grate of the cosy fire are some paper hats beginning to burn. If you have even paid that much attention to the photograph, well done and advance to go. You may even feel a spark of understanding—paper hats can be annoying, an obligatory sign of compulsory enthusiasm.
Then the world seemed to lose its mind. The paper hats are green, red and silver, which are almost the same colours as the Palestinian flag. (Or the flag of Kuwait, or Italy, or Hungary, or Mexico, or Burundi.) This similarity was clearly a slur against the Palestinian people and their cause, perhaps even an aggressive statement of support for Israel in the current conflict in Gaza. One Instagram user called the image “distasteful” while another remarked “That was 1000% intentional.” The Advertising Standards Authority received 40 complaints about the image.
The advertisement was filmed in August, so has no connection to the current conflict, but more plainly, some paper hats in traditional Christmas colours of red, green and silver have no connection with the Palestinian people. Red and green are colours traditionally associated with Jesus, while silver or white represent purity and light.
Any suggestion that the advertisement has political significance is nonsense, demonstrating credulous paranoia of a dauntingly high order. Setting aside the simple chronology that the filming took place in the summer, why on earth would a UK high-street retailer hide a carefully coded geopolitical message in its advertising?
Thankfully, the ASA showed no inclination to examine these absurd claims. Depressingly, however, M&S quickly withdrew the advert and apologised for “any unintentional hurt caused”. It seems a cringingly complete capitulation to a tiny fringe of the bizarre, but, pragmatically, I can see why M&S has decided to back away from the argument rapidly, comprehensively and with contrition.
We know why Marks and Spencer attracted this attention: the company is identified as Jewish. One of the co-founders of the firm in 1884 was Michael Marks, a Polish Ashkenazi Jew; his son Simon, Lord Marks of Broughton, ran the business from 1916 to 1964; the next three CEOs were Israel Sieff, his brother Teddy Sieff and his son Marcus Sieff.
This inference ignores, wilfully, that Marks and Spencer has been a public limited company since 1926 and is largely owned by institutional investors. The leadership left the hands of the founding families in 1984 when Derek Rayner, a long-term employee but a goy, became chairman and chief executive.
For knee-jerk anti-Semites it does not matter. M&S remains a Jewish enterprise. It bravely opened its first African branch in Tripoli in 2008, but the store was repeatedly harassed by the authorities. In 2014, anti-Israel protestors gathered outside the Marble Arch branch; just this summer, an agitator outside the store described it as “a symbol on our high streets of British collaboration with the racist, settler State of Israel”.
Joining the dots is not hard. The current conflict in the Middle East has caused a handful of deluded cranks to see what is not there because they know in their dark, cramped minds that Jews are both dangerous and insidious. They have expended minimal effort, but enough to cause a social media storm, and Marks and Spencer, harmlessly enough, has capitulated on this tiny thing. This time it is a laughable footnote, proof of the madness of (very small) crowds.
Minimal effort and this tiny thing, this time. If we all step back collectively its power is gone. But where is the red line? At what point will such a farrago represent a more plausible danger to free speech and thought, and the way our society stumbles forward? When do we say “enough”?