In yesterday’s second part of the interview, Jo talked about how she entered politics and, subsequently, Westminster. Today, the conversation turns to Easter eggs and body image… The first part of the interview can be found here.
Throughout your time in office, one of your bugbears appears to be excessive Easter egg packaging. Seeing as Easter is upon us, I thought it would be an apt topic to discuss. At face value, this doesn’t seem a particularly important issue, but when you realise that the excessive packaging causes thousands of tons of waste each year, it clearly is a reasonable concern. You started campaigning on this in 2007 and have even named-and-shamed the main culprits. Has the situation improved in ten years?
I can’t pretend that I have done the Easter egg survey this year, but I did do it for several years. This came from concerns brought to me by my constituents about changes to bin collections, which is always a hot political potato. The Liberal Democrat council as it was, we lost control of the council largely on this issue, had decided to change from weekly to fortnightly collections but to increase recycling rates. People came to me with a very fair complaint that they found it frustrating when they went to the supermarket, brought home their groceries and found that there was huge amounts of packaging, much of which could not even be recycled. So I campaigned to reduce the excessive amount of packaging across different product groups and to increase the amount of recyclable packaging. Easter eggs appeared to me to be a particularly egregious example of ridiculous excessive packaging. This was a good example to use to highlight the broader issue and to get some national profile for it.
It was a kind of scientific study. We looked at different Easter eggs. We weighed the product and the chocolate then looked at the ratio of chocolate to packaging and highlighted the amount of wasted space. It’s not just about the wasted resources though. It’s about how many more Easter eggs can fit on lorries. The more lorries required, the higher the carbon emissions. We calculated how many more could fit on them if the excessive packaging was trimmed.
This not only applies to Easter eggs but many other different product categories. When you look at it that way, you can see that this waste has highly significant environmental impacts.
Despite certain sections of social media ridiculing the campaign, it was very successful. Every year we had national media coverage. I had manufacturers responding to that because they didn’t like being named-and-shamed in the national press. I remember when one of the leading manufacturers of Easter eggs challenged me and demanded I see them, so I kept one of their eggs and we had a meeting. When they arrived, I put the packaging on the table, showed them the egg and said ‘justify this to me. You can’t. It is ridiculous. It is a waste’. Actually, the manufacturer did change their behaviour, as did the others. They realised that they shouldn’t be indulging in that level of packaging.
It’s also important to get consumers thinking differently about the product that is being presented to them – whether it’s marketing or whether they are being ripped off in terms of a nice huge box but, when opened, not much chocolate. At the end of the day, you are buying an Easter egg for the chocolate, not the box.
MPs who campaign on what may be perceived as dull issues, such as the recyclability of packaging materials and environmental waste, should ask themselves ‘Okay, how do we make this resonate? How do we bring this into the public domain in a way that people can engage with?’ I think that’s important.
While doing my research, it was quite strange to see somebody surrounded by chocolate while looking so grumpy!
Indeed.
You have been, and probably still are, an avid proponent of the use of new technology in politics. In 2009, you predicted that ‘Within 10 years, electronic means of communication will be embedded in the way parliament and politicians do things’. Is this ringing true? If so, how have these new types of media changed politics, and what campaigns were you involved in to help make this happen?
This is an interesting one. I think it has rung true. Not every, but the vast majority of MPs are now using websites, social media and various other ways to communicate and consult with their constituents electronically. Sometimes you do hope change will come quicker, but it is now absolutely an established part of political communications. You just need to look at how many stories are broken on Twitter and how journalists are using it.
It was quite hard in the beginning. I was one of the earliest adopters of Twitter as an MP. I started tweeting way back in 2008. It was not appreciated by many fellow MPs. I had lots of them telling me that it was bad to have my device in the chamber and that tweeting there was somehow disrespectful. I used to live-tweet PMQs, for example, so my constituents would know what was going on without having to stop their day for half an hour. They could simply look on their social media feed later. In order to live-tweet PMQs , I needed to pay attention to what was happening. I needed to listen and then communicate it back to the people I represented. That’s actually pretty respectful compared to the behaviour of many MPs during PMQs.
Then there was the issue about whether electronic devices could be used in the chamber. Eventually, it was put onto a fitting that they could be. I campaigned for that. I also campaigned to be able to use little clips of the goings on in parliament and upload them to sites like YouTube. There was a ban on doing so, even on your own material. For example, I wasn’t even allowed to put one of my speeches from parliament onto my own YouTube channel, let alone upload it to social media. In those days, Twitter didn’t have the same multimedia capacities. Look at it now. People can see what’s happening in parliament because MPs often take a little 20 second PMQ that they’ve asked or upload an interesting exchange from a debate. By doing so, you make it available to people who would not sit and watch four hours of BBC Parliament.
I think those campaigns were the right thing to do, and I’m glad that electronic communication and digital methods are being used to try to increase engagement. Obviously, there are downsides to social media engagement. There is a ridiculous amount of abuse online particularly towards MPs who are women, gay, black or Muslim. There is a dark side to the internet, but it can also be used as a great force for engagement. I think it’s moving in that direction in terms of how parliament engages with it as an institution, which is a positive.
I appreciate you haven’t been in frontline politics for a couple of years, but, in your opinion, are there any improvements still to be made?
Losing my seat was an improvement in terms of the online abuse I received. It was like someone had turned off a tap, which was astonishing. It was a constant wallpaper part of the job. It’s clearly not an acceptable situation if we say to those who put themselves forward for elected office that they just have to put up with abuse. If that’s the cost of doing it, it certainly undermines the ability of elected representatives to really engage online.
Are you suggesting the likes of Twitter should be regulated?
Most sites are regulated in some way and most have some element of community standards. Twitter have made some improvements, but there’s more that can be done. In the same way that we wouldn’t think it acceptable if you were an MP holding your surgery in a shopping centre and a mob came and started shouting in your face, and therefore disturbing your interactions with other constituents. This is exactly what online abuse does when you get these Twitter mobs. You are trying to read messages from genuine constituents in between a stream of abuse and bile. The real danger then is that you are unable to engage with the people you are there to represent because often the abuse isn’t from constituents, it’s from elsewhere.
Another one of your many campaigns has been on body image. Most notably, against the ‘cult of ultra-thin’, which was often portrayed as a positive in the press. You listed an extensive array of problematic behaviours associated with this and the negative side effects they produced. Your, and other similar campaigns, were prominent in the news several years ago but not so much nowadays. Does this mean the problem is solved?
No. To be fair, I think there is still quite a lot in the news about it, although not necessarily associated with my name. Moves to improve body image are still an established part of government policy. The advertising industry has taken some significant steps in the right direction regarding this issue. Just before I became a minister, their own think tank did an interesting report called ‘Pretty as a Picture’, which was about young women and their response to overly retouched adverts. This helped to change attitudes in industry. They followed up with a fascinating research report on how different ethnicities are portrayed in adverts. Subsequently, companies like Lloyds and others made an argument for thoughtfulness over casting positions, rather than assuming by default the cast would be young, white and incredibly thin. It can now be seen through their advertising imagery the different ages, ethnicities, body sizes and family depictions being used, and it’s not always a nuclear family. The latest Credos report analysed the pressure on young men and boys, and how they felt when seeing various types of images. It aimed to equip them with the tools needed to navigate that environment. The report also encouraged companies to think differently about the images they use. The Advertising Standards Authority is now undertaking a major project on gender stereotyping in adverts. It’s exploring whether or not the rules need to be changed. I got them to change the rules back in 2010/2011 on the level of retouching that was acceptable.
There is still a huge amount to do, but it’s now being taken seriously by industry. There is movement in the right direction.
Who is your political hero?
I think Shirley Williams is hard to beat. She’s just amazing. Everything that she’s achieved and the clarity with which she’s able to articulate ideas leads me to think that she really is pretty hard to beat.
Can you expand on that a little?
In her career, she has affected huge change in the education system. The work she did on supporting comprehensives has left a lasting legacy on our country. She achieved political office, as an MP and as a cabinet minister, at a time when there were vanishingly few women in political life. That achievement in itself is not to be underestimated. She was a founding member of the SDP. This was an incredibly bold political move and was not an easy one for someone to do, and yet it was so important to the health and reinvigoration of the liberal voice in British politics through the merger of the Liberals and the SDP. She has been a constant voice of reason and thoughtful reflection, and has such an effective way of communicating. Over decades and decades, she has campaigned on a huge array of subjects including nuclear disarmament and improving our foreign affairs, and she has an enduring interest in not only education but also the NHS. For example, the work she did around the Health and Social Care Bill during the Coalition.
She really has got it all.
In tomorrow’s excerpt, Jo talks about her work on equality issues…
* Rob May is a Political History PhD student and Lib Dem activist.
One Comment
The plastic bag tax seemed trivial when it was announced, but it has been very effective.
This may be the best place to post about the waxworm, admittedly not a Lib Dem achievement yet, but potentially a useful way to deal with plastic waste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxworm
Will the Greens agree? What will the government do?