DNA and means

Right, back in the saddle as it were. A while ago I tore a tendon and caused a small fracture in one of my fingers playing rugby that has made typing at least awkward if not all that difficult hence the silence.

In terms of party policy I feel there are always two types of policies. There are things we simply believe in, that are part of the party's dna (see how I'm working in the title here) and are advocated for their own sake. For the Lib Dems the easiest example of this would be civil liberties, we believe they are a good thing in of themselves and therefore advocate them.

The second type is an 'objectives' policy, namely policies that we support because we believe they will have good outcomes. This covers a fairly wide variety of policies from the economy to health etc.

Of course it's more complicated than this (it always bloody is) as ways and means intertwine with each other, inform each other, and generally muddy the waters in a very unhelpful way. But it's always there, really why something is being advocated is a greater insight into a political philosophy than what is being advocated.

It's also a shifting point. It is hard to change a value that you (or your party) believe is inherently right. Once it is made into a means to an end then you can adjust it in ways you claim better achieves that end. If you're a leader of a party that has a policy of high tax rates for the sake of greater redistribution of wealth then it's hard to credibly argue that lowering the top tax rate is in line with that. It's just a u-turn.

If you first shift your argument that high tax rates are for the sake of raising high revenue then the headline policy hasn't changed, and the alteration is a detail if not just a change of emphasis. It's hard to raise passion about the change in philosophical reasoning for the same policy that you already had. Emphasise the importance of actual policy, what you actually want to do. The trick's half done in plain sight, but although people notice they don't care.

Then you can make the headline policy shift to a lower top rate tax and your line is clear, you want high tax revenue, your aims haven't changed you've just found a better way of achieving them. Flip the script and play up what you believe in as important, and that should be the trick done.

That underplays the obstacles of course, the faster you have to do it, the more awkward the particular political issue, and most importantly people trying to stop you are the fun obstacles a carefree leader attempting to rewrite his party's principles runs into. The whole point is to attempt to avoid any comparisons between stages 1 and 3. a=b b=c but if a and c are put next to each other then they're going to explode in a messy cloud of u-turn accusations.

A blank sheet or a bare canvas

Much is often made of Ed Miliband's alleged (and I use the word because I don't want to get into the area of the truth of the allegation or not) lack of policies, particularly on the economy. The blank sheet of paper that is so often referred to.

This is neither a surprising or bad tactic for him. It's very hard to sustain interest or a narrative over any length of time particularly in opposition because there's little to sustain it. It gets stale very quickly however good it is. It's an obvious point, but you can't spell news without NEW. Anything he launches now will fade and become played out well before the next election, not to mention if the situation changes it won't fit the situation as well and changing it will open him up to charges of flip-flopping.

Secondly he doesn't want to talk about Labour's economic policy because that comes dangerously close to talking about Labour's economic record and he really wants to stay away from that at all costs. When it's the economy he wants to do nothing but attack the Coalition and the current state of affairs, always on the attack. A foggy policy is one that's hard to hit.

He's got the basic theme which is less cuts and more stimulus and needs no more than that, particularly in the modern era of politics (the long decline of long speeches in favour of soundbites has leaned politics towards this notion). Specific policies just give the coalition to hit. There's a quote I've seen attributed to several people is

"The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague."

and what is politics but advertising. Ed will and should stay away from getting anywhere near specific about what he should do. At least until a general election is in the foreseeable future when he can start putting things together and be seen to be offering an alternative. An alternative that can be painted new as Ed's policy with no questions of altering past policy. If asked he can point to the vague statements and say "I've argued for more stimulus".

If you believe in the honourable contest of ideas, principled arguments, and alternatives being offered then you'll be disgusted at this tactic. If you're interested in politics you'll acknowledge the sense of it (and that Ed is very far from the first to tread this path).

Received this email today


Dear colleague

This email provides IMPORTANT INFORMATION about events at the Birmingham conference.

Please click on the link below.


http://www.etelligent.uk.com/etelligent/published/LIBDEMSFEDERAL/siteFiles/resources/english party flier.pdf


See you in Birmingham !


The Membership Team


-------------------

I do wish people would send out emails that don't look suspiciously like marketing scams. If I hadn't been able to find references to the email address on google I'd have deleted straight off rather than try the link.

'New' Politics and the Parties

As I said I'm not the first to recognise this and the parties are working hard to exploit it, so I thought I'd do a short look into their setups.

First the Lib Dems

It's a fairly standard list of campaigns with links and thumbnails, nothing special really (I can't say I rate the general Lib Dem site much, to busy and difficult to navigate, particularly in terms of policy. Click on the link on the left and it offers you a hundred different places to go for different purposes and results, just needs simplifying heavily). Then you need to go through secondary links to open PDFs to find the info. The banners on the right easily available to add on the sidebar of blogs are the best part and the only really good idea within it.

Second the Conservatives

Same basic idea as the Lib Dem one, just much better presented (as the site is in general, particularly the policy section, an easily available summary on a simple web page with an in-depth link. The social networking links are a major plus since as I've said I think these'll come to be major driving forces in organisation.) The 'What you can do' section within each campaign section is a good idea if slightly limited.

Lastly, Labour. Also LabourSpace

I kept it until last because (despite all the criticism Labour's web efforts get) I think it's the best and most interesting of the three. The Labourspace seems to reverse the focus of party campaigns. Rather than them being official party campaigns and inviting people to support it. The structure is for campaigns to be started easily and people to try and recruit supporters, with the most popular ones being brought to the attention of party bigwigs and possibly taken on as official party policy.

The caveat to this is that I've no knowledge of how it works in practice and how much far up popular campaigns can go. Ed Miliband appears to be on there a fair bit, make of that what you will. But whatever the practicalities the concept at least is interesting, a more direct form of how parties can potentially become more grass roots influenced as I mentioned in my last post (namely if there are pre-existing factions looking to use them as tools to achieve their aims)

The 'New' politics

I've seen this mentioned by others but I think it's worth repeating.

Politics is undergoing (or has undergone, depending on how you measure such things) a fundamental shift in emphasis, from broad movement politics to single issue campaigns.

What has caused this splintering is an interesting question. You can see factors of it in a general disullusionment in politics and in particular politicians. Single issue campaigns don't ask you to sign up to a particular ideology, or believe in a particular person, etc. In short there's a lot less trust required. And I don't if you've noticed, but trust in politics and politicians has reduced recently.

The second major factor would be social networking sites. Facebook, and twitter particularly, but the other ones as well. The quick spreading of popular campaigns and the ease of joining them (one click and you're part of a group backing something) means being (however minimally) politically active is easier than it ever has been. That is not to say that many of these movements can actually achieve much on their own. A large facebook group is nice but has little direct influence.

What is allows is for those with more influence in the world of politics to use them as a tool. An extra piece of the narrative to keep a story running a bit longer, or an extra way to prevent a politician from dismissing it as unimportant.

Take today with the Alan Duncan gaffe (for anyone reading this after a fair amount of time has passed, I probably need to specify which one, it's the "MPs living on rations" thing he said to the journalist (from the magazine that'd previously dug a £ sign in his garden during the expenses scandal) that he'd invited to Parliament. On BBC News it was reported as "David Cameron has said he apologised and no further action needed" (paraphrased) but it mentioned ConHome as running a survey saying he should go.

In the era of strict party discipline the media is going to increasingly look to sites like ConHome or bloggers who the party has less control over for dissenting voices (and the media loves dissent in the ranks). With the added bonus that it's harder for leaders to shrug off apparent criticism from ethereal 'grass roots'.

The supposed grass roots revolution will happen, but I doubt it'll go exactly as predicted. We're not going to head towards some sort of direct democracy or grass roots control etc. I don't think there's much bite in these movements in terms of what they could or will actually do in terms of traditional methods of exerting influence, but the bark will be enough, the need to be perceived as not ignoring the grass roots that applies the pressure.