St Albans activist helps David Cameron fire up his Quattro

A YOUNG political activist from St Albans has emerged as the brains behind a controversial Labour poster campaign. Jacob Quagliozzi, 24, was one of over 1,000 Labour supporters nationwide who entered the competition to design an election poster at the o

A YOUNG political activist from St Albans has emerged as the brains behind a controversial Labour poster campaign.

Jacob Quagliozzi, 24, was one of over 1,000 Labour supporters nationwide who entered the competition to design an election poster at the offices of Saatchi & Saatchi, Labour's advertising agency.

Jacob, who studied politics at Leeds University before taking a job at David Copperfield fashion store in St Albans, poked fun at Conservative Leader David Cameron with his pre-General Election poster by portraying him as Gene Hunt, the politically incorrect TV detective from the 1980s series Ashes to Ashes.

Jacob's poster, which was first unveiled in Essex over the course of the Easter weekend, superimposes Mr Cameron's face on the body of DCI Hunt who is leaning on the body of his Audi Quattro, and reads: "Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s."

But much to Labour's surprise, Jacob's design backfired within hours of its release when the Tories revealed their own version of the poster, which keeps the same image of Mr Cameron and adapts DCI Hunt's catchphrase, "Fire up the Quattro. It's time for change."

Mr Cameron said that he was "flattered" to be compared with the anti-hero DCI Hunt and a Tory source told a national newspaper on Monday that the poster was exactly the sort of rebranding that Mr Cameron needed to make him look cooler.