November 18, 2007
Cleggheads and Huhnistas: what are they like?
Posted by Alix under Polly-ticks | Tags: Chris Huhne, Nick Clegg |I haven’t seen the full Politics Show yet, just the half-minute excerpt on the BBC website where the Calamity Clegg document was produced. So what follows may need revision when I’ve seen the whole thing. But at first sight, it ain’t pretty. It’s the first real blow my neophyte enthusiasm for the party as a whole has taken. And while I doubt it will turn me into a Clegghead, I’m highly disappointed in Huhne’s unintelligent behaviour.
But that exchange and the fall-out has crystallized my thoughts on what characterises a Clegg supporter and what characterises a Huhne supporter, and why, in the blogosphere anyway, they just can’t seem to get along.
Nick’s powers of empathy really served him well in that exchange. He knew instinctively to look wounded and let his emotion show on his face, and to roll his eyes at Sopel. There’s nothing particularly calculated about any of this. Note my use of the word “instinctively”. Nick is better at dealing with certain kinds of situation than Chris. Chris needs to literally learn himself some empathy - and like anything else it can be learnt. Instead, he blundered on and looked bad as a result, unnecessarily sledge-hammering and failing to knock the Calamity Clegg thing on the head, out of some misguided instinct to remain looking unconcerned. Bad call. The correct response would have been to look horrified and offer an instant fulsome apology for the use of emotive language in the title and distance himself from the contents, rather than associating his attack with it. He could still have said all the same things. My suspicion is that his campaign team had decided there had been too much agreement on Question Time, and his brief was to go out and highlight differences. On being confronted with the Calamity Clegg thing Chris should have softened this strategy for just those few minutes, and he didn’t.
Clegghead supporters have reacted to the spat on an emotional level. Their hero has been dealt an unfair broadside, and therefore takes the moral victory. Chris is not merely displaying unattractive qualities, he is actually a Bad Person. There is an uncritical assumption in the air that Nick won that exchange on the basis that Chris was being “nasty”.
On any rational analysis that isn’t the case at all. As other Huhnistas have already pointed out, Chris was being brutal, but Nick was - in the clip I saw anyway - being flimsy. His usual style, aptly described by a poster on a Lib Dem Voice thread, of feeling his way towards an answer served him well on Question Time, but it doesn’t serve him well when he is under sustained verbal attack. He never prodded back at Chris with the concise ten-word shot of anger the situation demanded. Because he just doesn’t communicate like that. He was “in the right” because he was the target of a poorly titled briefing document that ought never to have seen the light of day, and which will confirm the public’s worst assumptions about politics. But one day he’ll be the one on the backfoot because of some similar blunder - is he still going to look that flimsy, unable to articulate quickly and lethally under pressure?
And this brings us to the nub of it, because it is perfectly clear to me that half the blogosphere genuinely believes there is inherent value in Nick’s communication style, and the other half just doesn’t. The emotive, thinking out loud, feeling your way style that appeals to Cleggheads doesn’t appeal to me. I am drawn in by a disciplined delivery, an exposition of ”This is what I think, this is why”, like I am drawn in by an unforgivingly technical book on a subject I love. Sorry, but I just am. It’s the way I’m made. I am into systems, not into people.
Many Cleggheads (it goes without saying that I generalise hopelessly) are made differently. They are into people. They will see that moral victory as unquestioningly superior to any rational victory. The recurrent descriptions of Chris as “dry” and “boring” are as meaningless as descriptions of Nick as “waffly” or “lacking in substance”. All these labels just reflect the different preferences of the individual. Now, by all means shoot me down in flames, but my feeling from reading the blogs over the last few weeks is that some Cleggheads get positively indignant about Huhnista stances, and frequently display frustration with Huhnistas for not “seeing” what to them is the simple truth of Clegg’s superiority. And there do seem, by all reports, to be some rotten eggs in the Huhne basket, which I’m sure doesn’t help. Although having said that, I have actually been far more aware of a tidal wave of Cleggheads yelping about how nasty the Huhne camp are than I have been of the nastiness they’re talking about. But then I’m not on the inside, so maybe I’m just missing a lot.
Both sides should recognise that neither opinion is fact. If you’re a systems-person or a people-person, nothing on earth can make you otherwise. There’s a phrase used in psycho-analysis for this and it’s “Pygmalion project”, after the play, where one person in a relationship tries to change and “improve” the other. Ultimately, we’ll get the leader we collectively want more, and I think that’ll be Nick, because people-people tend to outnumber systems-people (in the party as in the wider world). Which is fine because there are lots of positive reasons why Nick would make a great leader. They just aren’t reasons that recommend him particularly to me. So I’m not going to vote for him, however good he is at looking hurt (and I’m not saying that’s not an important political attribute, because it’s won him a lot of friends today and a vote is a vote). There is really nothing wrong with this view, and I am getting slightly fed up with the shrill insistence ringing around the blogosphere that there is.
Approved as Quite Interesting by Mr Stephen Tall
November 18, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Alix,
As an avowed “Clegghead” I think your post is very useful and perceptive and should be required reading by us all! The danger is that because we are all Lib Dems we assume we all have the same value base, that we are all motivated by the same things. That leads to a lot of misunderstanding when others say or do things we think are unacceptable and vice versa. You are quite right, opinion is not fact. However, the fact at the moment is that a document entitled “Calamity Clegg” did go to the Politics Show. As Colin Ross has pointed out it is very unlikely that this document was not sanctioned by Chris. Even if it wasn’t he could have apologised and moved on, rather than refer to what was in it, which he apparently didn’t know because he didn’t know it existed? Clearly I have already declared my support for Clegg, but my son (who was undecided) was extremely shocked by Chris’s behaviour. His perception was that Nick talked about why he would be a good leader and Chris talked about why he (Nick) wouldn’t as opposed to why he, (Chris) would. He didn’t appear like the dispassionate systems person at all. It is not about superiority at all, it is about who has the complete package to be a good leader. Whether that leader is a people person or a systems person, one thing is clear, they have to be able to be a good team player - I am not sure Chris’s behaviour demonstrated even a modicum of that today.
November 18, 2007 at 8:18 pm
There is a lot of sense in your analysis, although I think I am more of a Huhne type person myself; I am just resisting the halo effect that similarity-to-self has on one’s judgement of people.
I find it bizarre that anybody is attempting to compare Chris Huhne’s behaviour with that of “some of Nick Clegg’s supporters”. There are sober and shrill supporters on both sides, but the candidate should be compared with the other candidate.
In any sensible discussion of policy you have to take the other persons word for what they support and what they don’t. I’m not going to accuse Chris of wanting to privatise the army and nationalise the meat pie industry. Failing to meet this standard of civilised debate is damaging to the party, and reflects badly on Chris’s judgement. By all means he should ask the question, but it has been answered and he should move on.
November 18, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Whilst I am pained by what Huhne’s campaign team have done today and have docked him 5 points - it does also get me thinking about the effect of a Clegg victory. I fear Clegg is the party establishment patsy and I fear that the party establishment has done far worse over the past two years than Huhne’s team has done today. I remain however undecided.
November 18, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Hmm. I’m a systems person (a software engineer) but I don’t think that this correlates with views on the leadership (and I do generally try to keep an awareness of my biases). Perhaps I’m just being a self-hating systems person in imagining that we need a people-person in order to make the all-important ‘connection’ with the voters?
The problem with Clegg is that he hasn’t done enough to connect. His reputation as the ‘great communicator’ seems to exceed what he has actually achieved so far in the campaign. I hope I’m not immune to a stirring speech or an empathic flourish, but I’m not getting enough of a sense that Clegg will deliver these things reliably. It seems to be taken for granted that Huhne simply can’t, and as a result he doesn’t particularly try - he makes up for it by being very sharp on the details. Which would be great if it weren’t for the fact that, on almost every issue where he has taken a stand to distance himself from Clegg’s position, I’ve found myself disagreeing with him.
Of course, in my dream leadership contest scenario, the two candidates would be debating liberal philosophy in a three-day symposium, moderated by Socrates and with a studio audience comprised of every great liberal figure in history ranging from Beveridge to Martin Luther King to Friedrich Hayek and everyone inbetween. Sadly, my dreams are even more unrealistic than the hope that people can take sides without going completely loopy.
November 18, 2007 at 8:54 pm
As a Nick Clegg supporter, yes I am “into people” If you’re into politcs, then you should have an affinity with people. Its really a no brainer to suggest that we need a Leader who is “into people” We need their support and votes if we’re to succeed.
November 18, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I don’t agree with all of your analysis in this article, but I do think there is a lot in your point that people’s preferences for Huhne or Clegg does at least in part reflect different things they are looking for in a leader.
November 18, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Merel, yes and no, we need to persuade people, we need their votes, but to a large number of people, policies matter, and Huhne just comes across with a better grasp of them.
Clegg’s a nice guy, thought that when I met him. I think Huhne’s less ‘nice’. But I don’t do nice, and I don’t want nice, I want useful and effective, and I just don’t think nor see Nick being effective, unfortunately. I want him to be, I want him to be as strong as he can be, but Huhne is still beating.
But then, I’m also a systems person, and I find myself agreeing with Alix again. I don’t think either would be a disaster, but I do think Huhne will be better, he’s got to take on, and beat, Brown, and Brown is a systems and substance man. Cameron and Blair both do the emotive thing, and I really think voters, especially our target voters, are fed up with it. I may be wrong, but I want to engage with a debate on the issues, why we’re distinctive, not why we’re nice.
November 18, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Ironically by this analysis the Huhn-ites are more like Ming and the Clegg-ites more like Kennedy.
And there is some truth in this - which is also one of the reasons why I think Clegg will be a superior leader.
Oh, and I would consider myself a rationalist rather than an emotional person - but I still do really struggle to understand how people cannot see that Clegg is a superior product to Huhne
November 19, 2007 at 12:04 am
There may be a pattern here - I’m also a systems person (my day job is teaching computer programming at university), and I see the contest very much like the other two declared systems people here.
Sorry, but it seems to me that Huhne is the real thing - he’s enthused by politics and policy, he wants to get things done. Clegg knows what he needs to say to look and sound good, but the more I hear from him, the more he seems to be coming across as a smooth actor speaking the lines, rather than someone who’s deep down engaged with it.
The result is that Huhne is dancing around like fury, because he knows he knows the stuff much better than Clegg, and that Clegg really hasn’t made the impact that was promised when he was put forward for us as the obvious next leader. But, like many clever people, Huhne just can’t resist pushing the argument just that bit too far, and that doesn’t come across well. We know, in particular from US presidential elections, that when there’s a lot of personality issues in the choice, the clever guy often loses out to the less clever guy who has managed the more folksy image.
Huhne needs to calm down, for sure. I think he’s won the argument, now he needs to win the competition.
November 19, 2007 at 12:19 am
Linda - many thanks, I am pleased if I have successfully done my little bit for world peace! I entirely agree with you about how Chris should have handled it, as I have said above.
It suddenly occurred to me after I had written this post what must have happened. That briefing document accidentally went out to the Politics Show with the “work in progress” title on the top of it. It has now, I understand, been published by Team Huhne with a far more innocuous title. Perhaps this whole furore can be put down to who had what memory stick. If that is what happened, Huhne’s reaction looks even more confused and does his intelligence even less credit.
Joe, I actually had you in mind while writing as a notable counter-example to my splendid theory! I entirely take your point about how to have a progressive policy discussion. This may well be something I need to think about again when I’ve seen the full show.
Meral, I think you’ve missed my point. There’s no innate advantage to being a people-person or a systems-person. Both types exist, and politics needs to serve both. As I said in my post, people-people outnumber systems-people, so the chances are Nick will be elected, and that will likely serve us well because the country is going to have the same people/systems proportions. But what you’re saying actually implies that systems-people’s opinions aren’t worth considering, which I’m sure is not really what you mean.
I’ve had it put to me that I ought to be voting Clegg on the basis that I can see he has the broader appeal. I don’t agree because to not vote for the candidate I actually prefer will be to artifically undermine his popularity. Lest I sound like too much of a robot however (bear in mind that I may say I am a systems person, but I have just spent four hours leaping around Ally Pally singing my little heart out and almost crying with musical joy) I will add that I like Nick as much as anyone, and I think if/when elected he probably will grow into the role and my misgivings will lessen.
Dominic - why not try and convert me?! If there’s one thing systems people are suckers for, it’s a well-structured argument.
Mat - thanks for tarting my blog on LDV!
November 19, 2007 at 12:43 am
* shrug *
What Mat said. Especially .
In day to day life I consider myself more of a people person than a systems person, but when it comes to running the country? I want someone who can think his way round the details and make clear and rational decisions, which Huhne patently can.
Nick’s “permission for lip to wobble, sir?” impression of Hugh Laurie as George in Blackadder Goes Forth may well have been genuine hurtness, but that is a FLAW in a politician, not an attribute.
November 19, 2007 at 7:30 am
By the way, I’ve always suspected that systems-people are overrepresented in the Liberal Democrats, and this is why the other parties tend to end up stealing our ideas.
I also find it hard to dismiss Clegg as a ‘people person’ as though this implies that he’s incapable of systematic thought. Yes, he isn’t doing a very good job of systematically explaining his views right now, but he has written plenty of policy material in the past. He may simply be calculating (correctly?) that people don’t want to hear systematic policy discussion in public. This paper is a systems person’s dream; you don’t get much more wonkish than arguments for reform of the EU. In fact, I suspect that only in the Liberal Democrats can Nick Clegg be considered insufficiently intellectual - compare with the Conservative choice of Cameron and Davis, for example.
I think that Clegg feels a bit like the ‘have it all’ candidate - brains and personality - whilst Huhne offers a more limited but more focussed (including in the Lib Dem sense of the word!) candidacy. We know what we’re getting with Huhne, but Clegg has the potential to do more in the long run. Of course, he’s still young enough to stand again next time…
November 19, 2007 at 8:32 am
Alix,
An extremely perceptive post. Like you, I’m a systems-oriented person and don’t find Nick’s conversational style very appealing. I’m not sure, though, that there are more “natural” Nick supporters than Chris ones in the party.
Chris should appeal more to the instincts of those who understand that concise, focused argument is a valuable political technique, especially on TV and radio, and recognise his skill in this. I suppose also that the committed and experienced activists appreciate this more than the less active members, but it doesn’t automatically follow that non-members who might support us or vote for us will prefer Nick’s chatty/rambling style. Since this assumption is the basis of the Cleggite suggestion that he will appeal to a wider group of voters, your post (and indeed the whole leadership chat on the blogosphere) demonstrates that this argument is a house built on sand.
I like Nick as a person, but that doesn’t make me feel confident that he has the answers to important public issues. He has done little during the campaign to convince me otherwise. At the end of the day, a leader has to lead, not just be likeable. I don’t think the Politics Show helped Chris at all, but it hasn’t changed my vote.
November 19, 2007 at 8:44 am
[...] an interesting postscript to this story I saw this post on the subject of Cleggheads and Huhnistas. The conclusion? Cleggheads are People People and Huhnistas are Systems People. Even (or [...]
November 19, 2007 at 11:25 am
Many thanks for the plug, Rob - plainly I should try being cold and emotionless more often! Agreed re Nick & intellect - I find it just as irritating when he is dismissed as being without substance as when Chris is dismissed as being dry. It was his supporters whom I was, broadly and with disclaimers, characterising as people-people (and of course saying that all ducks quack is just asking for a whole bunch of chickens to stand up and protest that they have a perfect right to quack as well @ 14 ;-)) I think Joe draws out this distinction rather nicely - we shouldn’t be imputing bloggers’ qualities to the candidate they favour and I didn’t make this clear enough.
I have no difficulty at all believing that Nick is proper whizzy-bang clever and a good systems-thinker, but I think we agree he hasn’t been showcasing that of late, probably because, rather as you imply, he has calculated that he can do without my vote if he picks up five others to replace it. Fair enough. Derek raises the interesting possibility that this is a miscalculation. I doubt it, but since the assumption you describe is received wisdom now, we will see before long…
November 19, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Interesting article. First time I have read this blog as I am bored at work at reading LibDemBlogs, but i certainly will be back.
The question I would ask is how many of the armchair members will be affected by the Huhne’s dodgy dossier, and could it really affect the outcome? Shame their isnt any real polling to get our teeth into. In my humble opinion the official complaint from the Clegg team will annoy Huhne defs: the “all is fair..” defence. But it will make sense to the softs/undecideds likely to percieve the issue as one of fair play.
From talking to local party members in my area, I think the media coverage, perhaps even blog coverage, of this election has grossly exaggerated how many Lib Dems have made up their minds. Perhaps the BBC coverage will tip the balance.
November 19, 2007 at 7:05 pm
[...] Cleggheads and Huhnistas: what are they like? on Alix Mortimer’s The People’s Republic of Mortimer blog. A rather balanced take on the latest [...]