Once upon a moon I wrote scathingly of the twat-in-blue-shirt voter we have lost to flimsy Tory tax “policy”, and was quite rightly corrected by Rob Knight to the tune that it might actually be (whisper it) not entirely twat-in-blue-shirt’s fault that he doesn’t know what our tax policy is. It’s the old story: we’ve got the policy, we just don’t got da message.
I recall blogging sunnily on the subject of message back in the primaeval early history of the People’s Republic, and then I stuck the whole subject of communications in the huge box room in my head with the sign on the door saying “More reading required”. More reading is generally the answer to everything in the People’s Republic (except the easy, obvious, boring stuff like earning a living, forming functional relationships with other human beings and all that other window-dressing jazz). Well, I haven’t done any more reading, but I have done some more talking. Specifically, on the comments thread following Nick Clegg’s Guardian piece yesterday. The exchange, shorn of interspersing madness, was as follows. I appear in the guise of a blue porcupine:
blueporcupine November 22, 2007 8:36 PM
Ryan – that tax outline is party policy, as approved by the membership at conference in September. The policy documents (if you’ve got the stomach for it!) are on the party website. It’s moved as far forward as it’s ever going to move without y’all vote for us
I don’t know of any Liberal Democrat not implacably and vocally opposed to ID cards. Nick Clegg has said that if it comes to it he’ll personally refuse to register and go to court if necessary.
I didn’t get the final ringing endorsement I was after. I’d like to think that RyanBerks has withdrawn to some mountain retreat with a year’s supply of rice and a copy of Fairer, Simpler, Greener to reflect on his political allegiance, but actually I’m sure he has just been distracted by a thing. Howsobeit, a tiny, shuffling millimetre of progress was clearly made. Winning hearts and minds, one blood vessel and nerve cell at a time, style of thing (hey, it’s as good as any other slogan).Â
And all this gives me pause for thought, because there are always a goodly proportion of comments attached to these broad spectrum appeal pieces that make a similar plea to RyanBerks’ “stop being so bland”. Rather than trying to evolve one single, simple message for allcomers (which a prospective party leader writing on Comment is Free must perforce do), we should be true to our localist nature and evolve different versions of the same message to answer the questions posed by difference audiences. My uber-rational, dry exposition clearly had some impact in this case, but wouldn’t in all.
Of course, you can’t manufacture a range of these messages easily without an agreed central repository of message-fodder, and therefore I commend you with renewed enthusiasm to the Lib Dem Voice Wiki project, and shall even be commending myself to it just as soon as I understand what it is.
November 24, 2007 at 12:41 am
I had a similar experience recently on a local forum – a poster was railing against our tax policy and instantly backed down once I explained what our policy actually is.
Would that we could have such one-on-one contact with each and every voter; absent that we will have to have some broader emotional message that actually does the same job without all that pesky point and counterpoint.
November 24, 2007 at 7:48 am
Ah, the year spent upon a mountaintop contemplating the merits of local income tax. If only modern life were not so distracting, we’d all have time for such important contemplation (I should point out here that I became distracted half-way through my first sentence, setting off on a Wikipedia odyssey through Byzantine history via Mount Athos. I wonder if I can get treatment for Wikipedia addiction on the NHS yet?).
I think you’re right, we need to have core principles which we illustrate differently for different audiences. Most people aren’t going to be within our existing frame of reference. So, we need to recognise that there are many audiences beyond our own narrow political community, and that talking to them is not straightforward. If you can figure out how to talk to these audiences, you’re a smarter person than I am (being on the receiving end of my particular brand of liberal evangelism tends to leave people feeling rather scared).
I suppose that this is where the wiki comes in, harnessing the wisdom of crowds and all that. Individually, we might all be scary political cranks, but collectively we can speak the myriad tongues of the Great British electorate. All we need to do is stay focussed on the task in hand…
My, the Battle of Kleidion is really interesting… *twitch*
November 25, 2007 at 10:36 am
It’s like Nick Clegg said at the Manchester hustings – many people vote with their gut feelings about parties rather than a proper understanding of the policy differences. Both Labour and Tories have a highly developed (but often wrong) “gut factor”. We don’t. We need to develop it!!
December 18, 2007 at 11:27 am
[...] worse calumnies every day than anything any activist opponent would consider realistic. I’ve blogged before about how a simple supply of information can really make a difference to someone’s perception [...]
March 17, 2008 at 10:23 am
[...] their view of us informed for the better, that would be an immeasurable victory. A few whiles ago I blogged about an example where a very simple and factual posting from me on a public thread appeared to [...]
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December 28, 2009 at 12:07 pm
People are not exactly stupid. it is that vitually everyones’ world view or paradigm of the structure of our 17th century system of parliamentary democracy is all they know and understand. Although everyone can see that our political systems of administration are no longer “fit for purpose” in this 21st century age of exponential rates of change and complexification. Even the top policy advisors of all the main political parties are trapped in their own paradigm and world view.
January 17, 2011 at 2:39 pm
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May 6, 2013 at 12:08 am
@dolly2010 Your comment show that you precisely understand what I am on about. And that is why the country is in the mess it is in. Our politicians, bankers and economists have the same degree of understanding that you have.