A little label that tells you everything..

Shortly after they won the recent general election on a massive majority, Labour announced they were changing the name of one of the government’s departments. This often happens when a new party gets into power – a signal of the structure and strategy behind their plan for running the country. What made this name change particularly politically significant was that Labour scrapped the Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (‘Leveling Up’ being the right wing Tories’ great battle cry) and replaced it with the less flashy, more homey, name of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. With the emphasis shifted to ‘Communities’, a concept everyone can get behind, and a commitment by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to ‘no more gimmicks’. In fairly short order, signs were ripped down, emails replaced and the department moved on to its next life. For Labour it is a simple but decisive signal that they are doing away with the rhetoric of the last government and all the baggage that carries, and bringing their own ethos to the table. The return to common sense and straight-forward politics echoes the wider messaging and personal brand of Prime Minister Keir Starmer (who himself has carried the legacy of his given name, reminiscent of the founder of the Labour Party Keir Hardie, into a life of public service).

Changing a name can come across as superficial, as if there is something slightly ‘not done’, even suspicious, about it. Boris Johnson was mocked for not using his first name Alexander as was former Tory Chancellor George (Gideon) Osborne. Changing your name can seem to be an affectation, a signal that the name changer is not genuine. Although the reasons people do change their names are myriad, and often tell the story of lives and histories which the names’ owner is seeking to shape for the better, or to move away from threat or trauma.

But names – the advert for the substance, are very powerful. They are the linchpin of brands, and they inevitably shape what a thing is and how it is perceived. On starting her mega beauty label Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow consulted a brand expert famous for advising some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies, who told her that single syllable words with a long double letter sound get traction most easily. Goop may seem babyish at first hearing, but the sound evokes the simplicity of a dollop of cream on one’s hand, and the devil-may-care cheekiness/ low level shock factor associated with many of the brand’s products – like vagina candles. 

Brands changing names, or having names in different markets, is a source of fascination, urban myth almost, that underlines the importance of language in cultural life. When the chocolate bar Marathon rebranded as Snickers (already its American name) in 1990, it symbolised to many the Americanisation of UK culture and the increased fluidity of cultural understanding between two countries. Elon Musk understood the power of changing a name to shock when he changed Twitter to X. The new nihilistic title seemed to represent everything that was doomed about the Musk take over of what had become a cultural institution. Yet Musk had the power to do this and so he did and, slowly, we have been forced to accept this change. Eventually the Twitter that it once was will likely fade from public memory. Perhaps we thought we owned Twitter as a social platform that formed part of public life, and this is his way of reminding us that we do not. And that he holds the power. 

Names and naming will always be associated with power. Nothing is more powerful than a parent choosing the name for the child that they will bear for the rest of their life; and place names have always been tied to ownership and culture. The renaming of cities and countries across the world was a fundamental part of reclamation post colonialism. Some cities – like Derry/Londonderry – have arrived more or less at a compromise of two names, a recognition of two perennially different cultures living side by side after a long period of difficulties, and perhaps an acknowledgment that this history can never be undone. Other places have two names acknowledged by different groups but not by one another, and all the hurt and vanished histories that represents hang waiting for recognition, and the complex dynamic between who holds the power and who does not.

And so now in the UK, Labour hold power and they (and we) are in the process of finding out the pros and cons of this new set of circumstances. A mostly moderate left wing government, they are unlikely to proceed to change place names with abandon, but the new Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is their reminder that the old guys are gone. 

August 2024