According to the response on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, people have actually been crying at this. Genuinely shedding real life tears. Can you believe that? It's a television advert. And you're crying at it?! Pull yourselves together! You'll find you get a lot less emotional watching it if you bear in mind that it's been cynically calculated to make you spend as much money as possible.
Even worse, however, is John Lewis' appropriation of Christmas. This article in The Telegraph declares that "today sees the start of the countdown to Christmas: the launch of the John Lewis Christmas advert". No, it doesn't. We already have a 'countdown to Christmas' – it's called Advent, and it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day (this year, that's 30th November). And with its traditions of lighting candles, singing songs and baking cakes, Advent is considerably more festive and more community-spirited than an unashamed attempt to squeeze more money out of consumers by tugging on their heartstrings.
I shall be expanding on this at a later time, but when my political party sweeps to power next May in a landslide election victory, our flagship policy will be to double corporation tax on any company who puts out a Christmas advert before the last week of November. If John Lewis decide to pass that increase on to their customers, they may find their Christmas marketing campaign doesn't bring it quite so much profit any more.
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