Following on from the previous post there's been no shortage of people willing to offer Andy Coulson, Cameron's new Communications guru, advice lately. And most of that centres around the need for David to ‘get angry’ or ‘passionate’ about the cause. A quick glance on most of the threads over on Conservative Home will illustrate the view among activists that the effort to come across as reasonable has been overdone and that some of the anger evident there and on other Tory blogs needs to be evident in the party's public pronouncements.
For me this couldn’t be more wrong. The notion that oppositions don’t win, government lose is no less true for being a cliché and so we shouldn’t seek to manufacture a sense of grievance where none exists or overstate any that does. It may be hard for tribal Tories (which I’m not) to accept but regardless of any tactics or policy initiatives we will only win power when public disaffection with Brown & Labour passes that difficult to track tipping point. For obvious reasons this isn’t an easy topic and I wouldn’t expect any senior party figure to verbalise it but what it we’re not there yet? In the decade before Labour took office we’d had race riots, poll tax riots, unparalleled hostility from the arts establishment & popular cultural figures all against a backdrop of serious in fighting and ill discipline in the governing party. That’s why the returns on Blair & Campbell’s Labour rebranding were far more immediate and substantial than those we’ve seen on Cameron’s project. I don’t think any serious and objective comparison between Brown under Labour in 2007 and the Conservatives under Major in 1997 could find many significant parallels and somebody, somewhere in the party should be acknowledging this.
The fact that this doesn’t appear to be happening has serious consequences in terms of our ability to recognise where the nation is in this continuum and perpetuates the still significant disjoin between understanding what’s important to the country as a whole as opposed to the politicos and party loyalists. The recent Redwoods proposals demonstrate this perfectly – the actual issues are sound and some of the proposals very promising but they represent the minutiae or detail of policy, the sort of thing we invest time in when we actually hold office. As a broad defining theme they’re at best useless and at worst counter-productive because there are no mass newspaper campaigns about burdensome business regulations or the excesses of data protection or H&S legislation, no mass marches on Westminster against the excesses of corporation taxes. We do get the odd nutty story about H&S absurdities (banning conkers etc.) and by all means we should paint ourselves as more pragmatic about these things than Labour but allowing a situation to develop where we’re linked to figures like £14bn of savings in the same sentence as Health & Safety regulations and protections for people facing redundancy feels like we’re failing the basic test of opposition. For every grassroots member who’s impressed with this there are fifty floating voters of the sort the Conservatives need to win over who are turned away.
I hope Cameron knows which body of opinion he will listen to.
For me this couldn’t be more wrong. The notion that oppositions don’t win, government lose is no less true for being a cliché and so we shouldn’t seek to manufacture a sense of grievance where none exists or overstate any that does. It may be hard for tribal Tories (which I’m not) to accept but regardless of any tactics or policy initiatives we will only win power when public disaffection with Brown & Labour passes that difficult to track tipping point. For obvious reasons this isn’t an easy topic and I wouldn’t expect any senior party figure to verbalise it but what it we’re not there yet? In the decade before Labour took office we’d had race riots, poll tax riots, unparalleled hostility from the arts establishment & popular cultural figures all against a backdrop of serious in fighting and ill discipline in the governing party. That’s why the returns on Blair & Campbell’s Labour rebranding were far more immediate and substantial than those we’ve seen on Cameron’s project. I don’t think any serious and objective comparison between Brown under Labour in 2007 and the Conservatives under Major in 1997 could find many significant parallels and somebody, somewhere in the party should be acknowledging this.
The fact that this doesn’t appear to be happening has serious consequences in terms of our ability to recognise where the nation is in this continuum and perpetuates the still significant disjoin between understanding what’s important to the country as a whole as opposed to the politicos and party loyalists. The recent Redwoods proposals demonstrate this perfectly – the actual issues are sound and some of the proposals very promising but they represent the minutiae or detail of policy, the sort of thing we invest time in when we actually hold office. As a broad defining theme they’re at best useless and at worst counter-productive because there are no mass newspaper campaigns about burdensome business regulations or the excesses of data protection or H&S legislation, no mass marches on Westminster against the excesses of corporation taxes. We do get the odd nutty story about H&S absurdities (banning conkers etc.) and by all means we should paint ourselves as more pragmatic about these things than Labour but allowing a situation to develop where we’re linked to figures like £14bn of savings in the same sentence as Health & Safety regulations and protections for people facing redundancy feels like we’re failing the basic test of opposition. For every grassroots member who’s impressed with this there are fifty floating voters of the sort the Conservatives need to win over who are turned away.
I hope Cameron knows which body of opinion he will listen to.
Labels: Politics
5 Comments:
In order to take advantage of the tipping point you have to get your message accross. With the TV remote to hand thousands of voters get very little political "news" - the doorstep still matters.
I wonder whether Tory activists are angry enough to do the foot slooging neccessary to win. Most of them have probably done quite well over the last 10 years or so, unlike Labour activists who were incandescent by 1997.
I `m not sure about that the Redwood initiative got quite a lot of press. I `m not sure what you are saying is imprtant to the country. Big Brother?
In short Newmania, yes - c*** like Big Brother is of far more interest to the people who's votes will ultimately decide the election than the naunces of corporate taxation.
That may be a damning insight into the state of our democracy but it's still probably true - which suggests that whatever the rights and wrongs of the actual policy, campaigning so vociferously on those issues just doesn't make electoral sense.
I`m not convinced about that reading C Thereare 8000,000 paid ourt of taxes and 5500,000 on benefits ( taxes) etc. I think they concerntrate pretty hard on the subject. My view has always been that there is an instinctual relationship between voters and the semiotics of politicians.
Still I`m usually wrong
Yes, the poll cited in the same issue as the Hames article reinforces what you say on how voters perceive Lib Dems. Hames' argument that the Lib dem vote is always contingent on the standing of the two big parties was also very relevant as good counter to Danny Finkelstein's article rubbishing Ming a week ago.
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