The Sweet Shop and The Rumpus Room work together to create an interactive civil liberties campaign for The Pet Shop Boys

:: 22 july 2009

We recently came across a civil liberties campaign that was recently worked into a Pet Shop Boys song. It explores contemporary media, utilising multi broadcast channels, and invites participation.

Neil Tennant, Pet Shop Boys: “The idea is that it’s sung from the point of view of the authoritarian New Labour-style government. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear” is always used as a justification for ID cards. What we object to about ID cards is that they’re intelligent cards with a data strip that can link to a central database containing personal information, which may be shared with America; when you say you don’t want that, they always say that if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to hide. But I think we all have a right to privacy. I feel it’s a move that suggests we have to justify ourselves to the state before the state will trust us, and I think it’s for us to trust the state and not the other way round. I think the government has to win our trust, not us win their trust. We put the lyrics on the website earlier this year when there was a fuss brewing about ID cards, and Chris had phoned me up to say that some junior minister had used the word “integral” in defending it. There was a big article in the Evening Standard about the song. But the song has got a wicked kind of humour as well. It’s meant to be someone giving a speech really, madly justifying all of this, with a lot of energy behind.”

Chris Lowe, Pet shop Boys: “It’s quite authoritarian, the music.”

We don’t necessarily agree or disagree with the subject matter, but we do think it’s a clever idea and a fantastic way of using media to communicate a message. Check it out here: