I went to see Billy Bragg in August. Not canvassing, mind you. He’s one of a very few celebrities who doesn’t seem to have a house in my constituency. It was a gig at the Greenbelt Festival. He tried to play his entire first album in just nine minutes, but broke a string and had to talk instead (in the early days, I think he would have performed the next night as well without replacing the string).
What he talked about was why he was backing religion in general (Greenbelt is a Christian arts festival), because it was a bulwark against the single most destructive thing in society: cynicism and apathy. Which is really two things. But they’re obviously linked.
By the time you read this, the local elections are probably over. Right now, we’re in the thick of them. I was on the stump last night canvassing in a run-down part of town (where, paradoxically, house prices are still so high that first time buyers can’t get started, but that’s an issue for another time). The canvas card swiftly filled up with NV, NV, NV, NV, NV… (what do you mean you don’t know what NV means on a canvas card? Non-voting. Now get down to your local party HQ and volunteer for some canvassing!)
The reasons people give for not voting are varied: “No, mate, I know this councillor, and…”, “No, I asked for my bins to be fixed and it wasn’t done…”, “Vote for the politicians??!!??”, “You politicians never give me a straight answer—” (reply, “How many have you actually met”, answer “You’re the first one.”)
Ultimately, though, it boils down to the fact that they don’t trust us. To be fair, they probably don’t trust anyone. The notion that someone should want to help someone else out of pure altruism has been carefully drilled out of them.
As Bragg would put it (Billy, that is, though I’m sure Melvyn would agree), it comes down to cynicism.
Unfortunately, as Liberal Democrats, we are probably net contributors to cynicism, and it’s time we revised our approach. At least, that’s my view.
As far as political-micro-biology has been able to determine, there is no gene for distrust of politicians. Bacteriologists might speculate that there is some as-yet undiscovered micro-organism which is endemic to these shores, since people seem to be infected with it shortly after arriving — even Americans, who, in their native habitat, have a strong degree of natural immunity.
If, though, it really isn’t biological, political cynicism must surely be some kind of allergic reaction to a pollutant. My tests have determined that this pollutant is generated in three places. A small proportion of it is generated in the course of daily life, such as in conversations down the pub. A rather larger part is generated by the media. Regrettably, the vast majority of it is generated by politicians themselves. That is, by politicians ourselves.
We clearly have an important role to play — especially when in opposition — in exposing the misdemeanours, broken promises, woolly-thinking and general wrong-headedness of our opponents. And they with us, although they have a built-in disadvantage because of the greater inherent wrong-headedness of their cause.
However, alongside all the fair, targeted criticism, we – and they, but it’s we who are reading this, not they, and we need to put our own house in order first – do engage in a fair amount of the corrosive veiled accusation, ridicule and innuendo which is the carcinogenic muck which political cynicism thrives in. Actually, we probably engage in an unfair amount of it. There’s more than one Liberal Democrat who takes pride in never failing to kick a Tory when he’s down.
Let me get this straight in case you’re wondering. I really, really, really dislike the Tories. Their programme for society appears to me to be about advancing the advantage of the already advantaged, and letting the weak (and foreigners, unmarried mothers and the unemployed) go to the wall. The Tory dream of everyone being richer has been largely fulfilled over the past 50 years (except for the poor, but see the previous sentence), and yet people feel more miserable than ever before and there has been no increase in any of the things that make society a good place to live. David Cameron — for all his posturing — would be just like Margaret Thatcher but without the chemistry degree if he ever got in.
And I really, really, really don’t believe in Labour. New, Not-so-New, Old, or (as we will no doubt soon be reading) Labour Classic. Their aspirations are often things which I praise. Their approach to them, though, is so flawed that it will do little more than deprive us all of our freedoms for a chimera of supposed security. In the 80s it was job security, these days it’s security from terrorism. The rhetoric has changed, but the underlying greyness of the Labour vision really hasn’t.
So I am not remotely renouncing our right (and duty) to oppose and demolish.
But when we move into the realm of unsubstantiated allegation, weasel words, sly jibes, innuendo, and such like, then we contribute to the corrosive cloud of public distrust. It is unethical. It is destructive. And, what’s more, I believe it is counterproductive.
There’s a wonderful book called ‘the Political Brain’ which I want to recommend to every Liberal Democrat. It’s by an American, Democrat, psychologist, who has conducted a series of experiments to understand how people make political decisions, and, more importantly, to understand why the Democrats keep losing to the Republicans. A lot of what he says has real resonance for us.
One of the the crucial experiments demonstrated that when faced with an attack on their own preferred politicians, voters went through a series of rationalisations which resulted in strengthening their confidence in their candidate, even when it was blatantly obvious that their candidate was wrong! Although actually uncovering the skeleton in the closet really does work (it worked especially well for Richard Nixon), allegations on their own do not.
More importantly, he goes on to explore the language of passion, and how the earnest-sounding Republicans have been able to exploit it, despite being ‘in the wrong’ on many of the issues which are key to American voters.
If I could persuade Liberal Democrats up and down Britain of one thing, it would be to be people of passion and to put appeals to cynicism behind us. Oh, yeah, that’s two things. Yes, we should oppose, debunk, and demonstrate the inadequacies of our opponents’ policies, words and actions. But I believe it’s time to leave behind the sneering, vilifying and the cheap shots.
Let’s stand tall with Billy Bragg (oops, and with religions as well) in reducing our cynicism-footprint in the run up to the Europeans and the next General Election.
* Martin Turner is Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum.
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28 Comments
Go Martin Go! Obviously you’re right about Labour’s aspirations and Billy Bragg. And you’re certainly right about the Lib Dem contribution to corrosion and cynicism.
You’ll not change it though, sorry. It is there in the constitution. “Weasel words are us” it says, though it must be said it is naturally expressed in riddles.
Nice piece, Martin. And I agree with you, except I’m not so keen on the religion thing; but then you know that!
What I will say about religion is that it has one hell of a narrative!! 🙂
I haven’t read the book that you refer to but I suspect that series of rationalisations is perhaps a strong narrative winning out over the attacks. Certainly until Obama came along the republicans had the stronger narrative in the US. They may still now.
Anyhow, I agree we need an overarching narrative on why to vote Lib Dem rather than a series of tactics that attack our opponents until we can slip in and take their place.
I will also say that the apathy that the perception of politicians as untrustworthy is one reason why we don’t attract enough women to stand for council, parliament etc. It’s not because we don’t have enough (45% of Lib Dems are women) but many are less likely to want to engage in adversarial politics. It’s not that they can’t play the game, it’s that they don’t like the rules. I know I don’t like them.
(Yes, yes, I know all about Margaret Thatcher…I said many women, not all women).
I can’t be bothered with apathy. But I suspect Martin you need to follow your own advice when accusing the Tories of letting the weak go to wall. If they really were so cartoonishly villanous they’d be easier to beat.
What he talked about was why he was backing religion in general (Greenbelt is a Christian arts festival), because it was a bulwark against the single most destructive thing in society: cynicism and apathy.
Really? Got any evidence for that? Or is it just based on “faith”?
The New Scientist has recently published a collection of 24 “Evolution Myths” one of the ones it debunks is that “Accepting evolution undermines morality” and in so doing it cites a recent study which demonstrates that most secular societies have lower rates of murders, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies, etc. (pdf).
I’m willing to add another for further investigation: secular societies in general have higher turnouts than religious ones. Contrast the US (turnout: 47.5% in 2006) and Iran (turnout: 59.8% in 2005) with the Netherlands (80.4% in 2006) and Denmark (86.6% in 2007).
I’m not claiming that religion is a cause of apathy, but I am certainly arguing that to claim the opposite is crass and without foundation. Some would even go so far as to say that to make such claims is an act of cynicism. Physician, heal thyself.
What [Bragg] talked about was why he was backing religion in general, because it was a bulwark against the single most destructive thing in society: cynicism and apathy.
Ah, so he wasn’t backing religion because he considered the various claims of religion to be true.
Good article. I suspect the problem is to do with how people perceive “negative campaigning”. It’s one thing to point out another party’s faults, either in terms of their policy or even their candidate, but maybe some people take it further than this and read “negative” as “nasty”. Is there a debate we could have about naming and shaming, do you think?
I am continually astonished at the assertions of eg Chris Paul and various other trolls around and about the place that the Lib Dems are prone to dirty tactics because I’ve never come across any, but I daresay they’re rambling on about something 😉
Why do I feel that the words “John Leech” are galloping confidently but misguidedly in the direction of this thread…
I would broadly agree with this piece, Martin, but could I just add that we as Lib Dems have over the years built ourselves up an icon of cynicism. It is, alas, the dear old Lib Dem bar chart. Shed that, and exhortations that “X can’t win”, and we’d do more to reduce the cynicism of our campaigning than any other single act.
Totally agree Andy. “X cannot win here,” is a disastrous slogan, not least because by the same token, the Lib Dems “cannot win” a general election – at least not in one bound.
Andy,
I disagree about the bar chart. Absolutely nothing cynical about showing that, er, actually we *can* win here. The local Labour and Tory party are very keen to say that a vote for us is wasted. The bar chart is the simplest and most effective way of showing that’s not true.
The Tories and Labour love nothing more than to shout that we can’t win, and the media happily repeat it parrot-like and so I’d love to see any MP or councillor win where at least part of his/her campaign wasn’t given over to showing that a vote for him/her is not wasted (even if not by bar chart).
Now, I think there are some dodgy bar charts and I don’t think they should be used. But you can put whatever you want on your leaflets as long as it’s clearly marked and not misleading.
On the subject of misleading literature – for example, our Conservative MP recently put round a leaflet on mock House of Commons paper (ie says “House of Commons” at the top, but it’s not) with a supposed “report” of his activities and included the claim that he did not call for his own salary to be almost doubled *before Parliament*.
Oh no, he didn’t say it in the chamber, but he *did* argue for an increase before the Senior Salaries Review Body and in a press interview immediately afterwords said he thought MPs should earn nearly double what they did. The implication in his leaflet is that the reports of his views on MPs’ salaries were lies. Now that’s misleading.
I think Alix is right; pointing out the bad things about another party or candidate’s views is fine. Nasty is not.
Pointing out that actually you can win in an area is fine. Pointing out that it’s unlikely that a third party will win in an area is also okay. Chris Paul doesn’t like it because it works and because he needs to oppose it to fit with the very simplistic binary view of politics that many Labour/Tory members have to hold (otherwise their heads might expload?): that the only valid political viewpoints are Labour or Tory. People who purport to hold other viewpoints are opportunistic and nasty – and they try to grab onto any scant evidence to back this up.
I’ll tell you; if I was a cynical opportunist in my neck of the woods (and all parties have them!) I wouldn’t be a Lib Dem.
On the binary view of politics: at the London count I overheard Labour counting agents discussing the fact that people “won’t risk a protest vote” when the Tories might get in, and Labour councillors discussing the demographics of wards turning against the Tories (and in favour of them). Whilst there’s an element of truth in both, taking people’s votes for granted like this just reinforces why I could never be in the Labour party.
Regarding the bar chart, there are bar charts and there are bar charts. Much of the time the main purpose of a bar chart is to point out that we can win here; given that the standard tactic of our rivals is to argue the exact opposite they can be the very antidote of cynicism. “X cannot win here” isn’t exactly the opposite of cynicism but where it is true it is usually in tightly fought elections with relatively high participation rates. If we didn’t use them as a tactic, there’d be a lot more cynicism out there, and we’d have a lot fewer MPs.
There are of course those examples where people use extremely dodgy statistics on their bar charts. That certainly is cynical, but does it lead to cynicism? Doubtful.
What is a bigger factor in my view is the commodification of politics. That is, to reduce voting for parties down to a range of specific benefits to the individual. For example, we’ll save you £X in tax, we’ll give you £Y in benefits, we’ll build/block Z road. All parties do this to an extent, but Labour’s cynical approach to tax has shown the limits of it. Brown’s decision to scrap the 10p rate does indeed benefit the majority of voters, but it was so transparently unfair to the minority of badly paid workers it blew up in their face.
Caseworking is another example of this, and here the Lib Dems are most guilty. We have turned MPs into super-councillors sorting out local problems and councillors into an amalgam of social worker and ombudsman. We send out the message that it doesn’t matter what your councillor/MP believes in, it is whether they are “hardworking” or not.
That’s one of the reasons why we get screwed in PR elections. It leads to burnout. And it encourages the view that you only need to bother with politics if you have a complaint or a problem that needs resolving.
A fascinating thread.
We – all parties – have candidates with shopping lists of policies instead of something to believe in. Votematch played up to this in the Mayoral election. What kind of buses do I want? The kind that I can get on and they go somewhere. Bah.
And we – all parties – seem to believe in a world where government can generally fix the big problems that we face. We might not explicitly promise to fix them, but we talk positively about it, for all the right reasons, and then we are surprised when people think that politicians never deliver.
These are good reasons for apathy and you have to dig deep in politics to get past them. Most people have better things to do.
I’m not sure you can blame Vote Match for Boris Johnson’s policy on bendy buses! As a tool, it can only ever reflect what policies parties actually have but as it happens there were plenty of examples of policy statements that were more about values than personal gain. Our decision to include a statement on inter-racial marriage was an explicit example of encouraging people to focus on values as well as specific policies, for instance.
Billy Bragg had better not come to the rural parts of Ceredigion then! Turnout in the local elections in my ward was 52%.
Joe is right. We live in a complex world where the ability of politicians to directly control the way we live is much less than it used to be in the past. The job of politicians these days seems to be the people who sit in the front and get all the blame. Our real masters these days are the big businessmen, not the politicians, but the businessmen sit in the background and let those of us fool enough to put ourselves forward for public election take all the flak. Much of the problems of current society are the flip-side of the social and economic freedoms we enjoy.
An interesting angle on what I said Matthew, but I don’t think businessmen have much control either. We have a society that is largely organic rather than designed, and that is a good thing, because it serves many competing needs rather than a few.
But this leaves us with a problem – it is much easier to imagine and advocate designed solutions than organic ones. Organic solutions are less political anyway. So politicians – and business leaders for that matter – have this focus on designed solutions, and can therefore lack perspective.
Worse, those who don’t care about a problem will talk up unspecified organic solutions as an excuse for doing nothing.
So it is hard to show your values without promoting interventions – leading to the current problems of the micromanagement/target culture of public services and legislation for headline-grabbing purposes. When this doesn’t do any good, cynicism is understandable.
An interesting article. I wonder what the book would read now after the advent of the Obama campaign which is certainly a passionate and hopeful campaign. Doing the vision thing is definatly important but you have to do it in a way which makes people relate to what you are saying. The reason fear has worked so well for the Republicans (and our own politicians) is that it is something people feel in a post-9/11 world.
In terms of what is negative and nasty I think the recent Edward Timpson thread on here provided a concrete example of what is too far. In football it is called ‘playing the man not the ball’ something that is only permissible when there is something about that man that directly does bear on suitibility for office.
Politics is at it’s best when it is connecting to people and inspiring them with ideas about how their own lives can be changed not just by their own action but by what the state and government can do for them.
I agree with you entirely. Politics is very competitive, and all political parties are guilty of cynicism, even the Labour party Chris!
Read the “Theory and Practice of Community Politics” by Gordan Lishman and Bernard Greaves. It is all about Liberal principles and one of which is “Community Politics is not about winning elections”.
I often think that the electorate do not share our obsessions of one party getting one over another. I notice the way some activists who got excited about the Ken-Green-Brown pact as though that would sink them for our benefit are now claiming that the Greens benefitted from that after all (at GLA level).
In this case Alix I’m agreeing with the poster that the Lib Dems campaigns I’ve come across are unerringly negative, miserable, whingey and to be blunt fibby.
In this instance I’m not calling all this “dirty tactics” though the lies obviously are and these include exaggeration, taking credit for others’ work, wonky bar charts, misrepresenting survey data (e.g. “81% of 7500 residents think X” – translation, about 20 people think something not entirely unadjacent to X), saying you’ve reported things you haven’t etc.
The old trick of not commiting anything edgy to writing and flip flopping on doorsteps is a speciality. All parties do this to an extent but it is taken to extremes – IMO – by Lib Dems.
The poster’s view is the LD negativity and misery are corrosive and I agree.
Sometimes such campaigns do work – as do other approaches – and I do admire the campaigning skills of some key Lib Dems in our region. But I feel they are often employed to get elected and pull the wool rather than to assist residents. Which means those skills can be in the service of a game, a franchise, hubris and wages.
And there are some for whom dirty tactics are a bye word and they should in my view be exposed for this.
Perhaps I could just clarify my comments on bar charts. Of course I have no objection to simply showing that we can win, despite what the opposition might say. But by far the most bar charts that I have seen have been ones designed to win us tactical votes. “Labour can’t win here” – the implication being that we’re your best bet to keep the Tories out – for instance. I think this is obviously a good tactic in the short term, but it only plays up the idea that the Lib Dems are a middle of the road fudge party and gives people the impression there aren’t really any good ideological reasons to vote *for us* rather than *against them*. In this way, many Lib Dem bar charts turn a Lib Dem vote into a cynical attempt to avoid something worse, not something people feel positive about.
Interesting thread,
Joe , I think you are on the money there. IMHO the rise of cynicism and BNP / UKIP is partly down to peoples perception of a lack of power over their future – Then seeking to blame immigrants/foreigners/Europe for global troubles – Like food, petrol prices , jobs moving abroad.
Europe does have a democratic deficit but the real power is the WTO and its goals. Unfortunately when the euro elections come to the boil (next year?) this will be the elephant in the room.
The fallout from ever increasing growth Vs finite resources and climate chaos will be even more cynical people and real pain to our voters and third world deaths.
Time for some honesty about the choices of the world from all politicians.
sorry for rambling – its been a long day!
I’m not sure it is helpful to insult the non-voting public by calling them apathetic when their non-participation in elections and the political process is merely a reflection of their personal choices.
Cynicism often fulfils the positive function of providing a balancing check on fervent belief so I can’t be too negative about that either.
I’ve always found that the distaste and generalised distrust of politicians stems from the public response to political failure as it impacts (or doesn’t impact positively) on our lives. So I’d prefer to campaign for more (personal and social) responsibility by educating people about the benefit that participation has and the satisfaction it provides when success arrives.
We need to point out that the level of failure correlates identically will the level of illiberalism in official policy.
Politics isn’t about having an easy life but making a better life.
Well said Martin.
However, I am slightly disturbed by the direct relation to religion.
I am religious myself. However I do not think one has to be religious in order to be ethnical and have high standards and integrity.
Don’t you agree?
I must agree with the points above re passion and that ‘Community Politics is not about winning elections”.
There is a clear example of this from the recent local elections. A candidate from the Green Party (Rob White) only missed out of kicking out the Labour candidate for Park Ward in Reading by 20 votes. Rob is someone who is passionate, committed and appears to do what he believes to be right not just to get elected. This is so different IMHO from the sitting Labour group in the ward. A few years ago their regular leaflets about what they were doing in the local community seemed to show commitment to ‘doing the right thing’. Recently however, it all seems to be about presenting themselves in the best possible light and kicking their opponents. It’s a subtle but telling difference that us humble voters pick up on.
People didn’t vote for Rob because he’s a Green. It does NOT signify that the Green Party as an organization is close to a breakthrough in the ward. People voted for Rob as a positive choice – someone who appears driven, positive and committed. Rob has been standing for election for many years and growing his support each time. He should be in next time and is a great example of how cynicism can be overcome at a local level.
(And before the comments come in, I have no link to the Green Party or Rob whatsoever. Just a straightforward non-aligned voter with enough interest to browse political blogs from time to time.)
As someone involved in the Lib Dem campaign in Park ward, I can tell you that whatever it might look like, the Green Party were treating that ward as a regional target and shipping all kinds of outside help to try and win it. Furthermore, Rob White is a consumate PR operator – just witness his appearance in nearly every edition of the Reading Post since New Year.
Whether or not he genuinely holds his beliefs (and I am sure he does), every press stunt, interview and piece of literature has been designed solely to win that seat. Greens are politicians like everyone else on the ballot.
Even from where I am I heard about the Green effort in Reading’s Park Ward and I have to agree with Benjamin on most points.
Rob White is an ambitious career-orientated eco-socialist, but his PR leaves something significant to be desired – and so does his speaking ability.
The Green Party’s Park Ward campaign was concieved and run as a protest against the drift and failure of Reading’s Labour administration over the past few years, by positioning himself as a TruLabour left-winger and pushing the line “85 votes to go” over ANY real policy – because he presented himself as the closest thing to a positive choice did not make him one!
The question now rises how long he can keep the protests up now that RBC has turned NOC for the next two years. We shall judge whether this half-serious candidate believes in community politics by seeing whether he has got any staying power – maybe it will prove a lucky escape for the unfortunate residents.
Interesting to read all the comments.
We stuck with the approach of attacking what the Tories do, rather than just being nasty about them, in Stratford upon Avon for the council elections. And, what do you know, we picked up five seats, the sixth biggest Lib-Dem gain in the UK, and the largest gain against the Tories.
You know what else? The Tories have accused us of ‘misbehaving’ and even (though it was withdrawn as soon as it was said) of ‘lying’. We did ask them to clarify which of our claims they thought was erroneous, but they declined.
Which brings me to my other point: if you imagine that by fighting clean rather than fighting dirty we will somehow avoid mud being chucked at us, then you’ve sort of missed the point. I could point to a famous figure who was an exact victim of that, but all you people who come out in a rash whenever you see the ‘R’ word would get very upset.
BTW, all you people who do come out in a rash at the ‘R’ word, come and find me at the next party conference. I would be very pleased to have a conversation with you.