The ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ is on the front page of many newspapers, and at the top of most news websites today.

It may feel like it has got to this stage organically, but much of its success is due to an extremely strong marketing campaign from one organisation - Dignity in Dying - some in public, some less immediately visible, spending six figures on average each month to make it happen.

Whether you are for the Bill, or against it, it is worth knowing a little about how things like this work, and the influence of marketing on lawmaking in the UK today.

Here is a thread summarising just a few of the marketing tactics used to achieve this, from the outside looking in... Firstly: What is 'Dignity in Dying'?

- Dignity in Dying is not a charity, it is a limited company. They do not aim to make a profit - instead they aim to use the money they make (some of which is large donations, some a few pounds each month) to change the law

- Dignity in Dying used to be called the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, and changed names a number of times over their history

- In the last available accounts they spent over £100,000 average every month on campaigning to achieve Assisted Dying legislation

- They also have a ‘sister charity’ (Compassion in Dying). Many of the team, and the marketing experts on their boards, work across both of these organisations.

- At the same time Keir Starmer was elected PM, they appointed a new Chair who had worked directly with him for several years

- They are also behind much of the polling you see telling you how much people are in favour of Assisted Dying, and if you email the All Party Parliamentary Group on 'Choice at the End of Life', you are actually emailing Dignity in Dying

Without Dignity in Dying's work, it is likely the issue would not even be in parliament.

I went to take a look at the 'Palestine' protest in London today.

I guess I've seen more than 100 demos of one sort or another in London.

Most banners at this one were from either Socialist Worker, or 'Friends of Al Aqsa', which was formed by the optician @Ismailadampatel. I asked various people what the Socialist Worker/Palestine connection was and even some people carrying 'Socialist Worker' branded signs did not to know. The Socialist Party had various recruitment gazebos at the start of the route too, so I asked there.

Here is a very short thread on this news story, and how the story has become bigger than it probably deserves to be:

If you read the text the BBC put out here, it says "Public *asked* to swear allegiance to King Charles"

That's not quite the case... If you dig into it a bit, you find that strangely the news article itself switches the word 'asked' to 'invited'.

Those are pretty similar, but 'invited' is a slightly weaker word.

We decided to walk 'The Queue' today, but the wrong way: from the finish to the start.

Here is a short thread of photos, from the gates in front of Parliament Square back to the park in Bermondsey where people collect their wristbands to join the queue... The exit is actually an odd spot - people leave, get asked if they're ok by Samaritans (a nice idea), and have to either force through the crowds of Whitehall, or wait to cross to the relative quiet of the square.

On the value of proof reading, and unintended consequences:

There is an NFT project called Azuki. A month ago it would cost you around 34eth to buy one, which at the time was about $100k. Even at the current lows of the crypto market, they were selling at 25eth a few days ago... As the crypto market has hit a rough patch, one of the team decided to write an article to talk about ups and downs, and that the way out of a crisis is to keep building.

Obviously, they didn't get it proof read too widely.

What an inspiring person.

The fund has just passed £500,000 (plus gift aid).

justgiving.com/campaign/Bowel…

https://twitter.com/bowelbabe/status/1523747828493078528

This has now passed £600,000.

Worth reading the message, if you have not already.

The BBC has now run a day-long anti vaccination campaign. Possibly the most-viewed coordinated anti vaccination campaign in the world so far.

It centred around Novak Djokovic.

Here is a short thread on how it worked. They got an 'exclusive interview' with Novak Djokovic, the #1 ranked men's tennis player, and the only man in the top 100 who has not taken a covid vaccine.

Everyone who pays attention to tennis knows his stance, but he quickly falls out of the news outside of major tournaments.

Here is one of those topics that seems small, & gets zero wide media coverage, but affects everyone reading this tweet in a small way every day, and in theory happens 5,443,200,000 times every day.

You can see it here, as spotted by @lagringaeterna. Can you spot it?

(cont...) It's unnoticeable to most, outside those interested in search engines, but in that example:

Google have taken what the page is about ('Flu'), and rewritten it to what they *think* it should be ('Flu Vaccinations').

That seems small (other than perhaps re pro/anti-vax) but...

Here's the current status with the Extinction Rebellion protest on Long Acre & St Martin's Lane.

A handful of protesters stood on a giant pink table in the middle of the road.

Oddly, it was just the police, the protesters, and me. Everyone else has been kicked out of the area. There are tons of police in the area. I'd guess a few hundred. And it's all fenced off with temporary barriers.

The area is only a couple of hundred yards from one of the largest police stations in Central London, so fairly easy for police to come & go.

The Independent uncovered the 'UK Government' had set up a website 'On the Move', posing as a non-government site, to dissuade migrants from coming to the UK (independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…)

Here is a short investigation to figure out what may be going on behind the scenes: (The Independent article is by @LizzieDearden. She talks about it here:

https://twitter.com/lizziedearden/status/1421381544510361602

)

The website address - 'migrantsonthemove.org' - was registered on the 16th April last year (remember 'April'), a few weeks after lockdown began.

I went to the Marble Arch Mound today. It cost £2 million to build, and today was launch day, but it was still quite quiet.

Here is a short thread with info.

First, the original plan drawings and the marketing description do not quite match reality. These plans never match reality, but it feels like they could probably clean the area up a bit.

It also seems the team who planned it perhaps designed it in Winter and forgot about the trees already in the area, which change the impression of it vs the plans.

People often ask "what are they protesting about?" about lockdown/vaccine protesters.

The answer is: A whole mix of things. And they seem to believe a whole mix of things.

Here are some examples of signs, rather than the wide crowd shots you usually see.

@DavidVidecette Hi, David, I think your impression of the geography of the office is incorrect.

Here is the CCTV in the office. Note the planter on the balcony outside, the brackets on the wall, the shelf beneath the brackets, the red fire 'break glass' point between the windows... @DavidVidecette Compare those vs the same elements in this shot of Matt in an office.

Note the coat stand here, with hi vis hanging on it. Note the door there.

That would place the CCTV in the red circle here.

In case you're wondering where 'One Britain One Nation Day' has come from:

It's not a government campaign. It's run by a guy called Kash Singh. He trademarked it in 2005, when he was a policeman.

It's sprung to attention because the Department for Education tweeted this today. Various Twitter commentators positioned it as "Boris Johnson's" strategy, and claimed it was organised by the "Union Unit".

It is not Boris Johnson's strategy, and the overall idea has been around since 2005, so obviously not created by the (2019/20 founded) Union Unit.

What do these 2 big 'culture war' stories this week have in common?

1. M&S launches new underwear range 'inspired by George Floyd'.
2. St Paul's Girls' School no longer using the term 'head girl' because it's 'too binary'.

The answer is, oddly, neither is quite what it seems. The 'George Floyd Underwear' story: The Daily Mail tweet that popularised the idea he 'inspired' it is below.

If you open the image, you can see the DM tweet says 'inspired by George Floyd' in quotes, as if M&S said that. But the article itself does not contain that quote at all

A few weeks ago, there were a couple of popular tweets declaring that the "mad umbrella shop" and "mad sailor shop" in London had survived the pandemic.

It is with regret that I report that the "mad sailor shop", Arthur Beale's, is closing, one of the oldest shops in London. If you've ever passed the shop, you've probably noticed the sign says "Established Four Centuries".

Nobody knows exactly how old it is, but there is a card in the British Museum from 1791 showing it was already a well-established business at that point.

Here is another example of a viral story that is not really a story at all:

The Royal Yacht, The Telegraph, The Independent, and Prince Philip.

I'm sure most people realise, but here is a short note on what's actually happened...

https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1381259805436870656

In the tweet above, The Independent ask:

"Would you like to see a £190million Royal Yacht built as a memorial to Prince Philip...?"

You'll note: The question is in a form that is easy to quote tweet, adding an angry comment, without any need for anyone to visit the article.

The whole "Prince William is world's sexiest bald man" says "Google study" thing.

I'm sure most people realise what's happened, but in case not, here is a brief explanation:

This is the headline on the version of the story that's been shared the most (from the Independent)... That's quite a neat headline, as it makes it sound like the study is *by* Google, when obviously it isn't.

They back that up in the text with this note.

The study was 'using Google'.

With Thorntons closing all 61 stores, being able to generate demand online is hugely important.

As you can see from this chart of Google searches for their brand name (text search), basically over the last 18 months Hotel Chocolat have 'eaten them alive' online. It's peak 'easter egg' season, so not a great time for this news to come out.

Thorntons rank #2 in Google organic search for 'easter eggs' in the UK but they're not particularly visible as competitor ads bump them down a fair way.

SEMrush, the SEO tool, has filed to go public. Here's the S-1: sec.gov/Archives/edgar…

They spent $54 million on marketing last year, for revenue of $125 million.

(gross profit $95m, net loss $7m) They state they have 67,000 customers. Divide $125 million profit by 67k and that would mean average $155 per customer per month spend.

(nb this ignores growth over the year, just total revenue divided by current customer numbers)

Saturday Night, Leicester Square. Coventry Street.