I’ve just submitted an article for the ‘Youth 100’ for this year. I’m honoured to have been asked to contribute to the publication, still regarded as a national expert on youth issues. Having spent most of my career working with or on behalf of young people I am constantly exercised about how we as a party connect with them. Post tuition fees – how do we once again become the party of choice for young people?
It’s not easy, but I think the popular brands I’ve been reflecting on this week have some lessons for us. Among other things, they understand their target audience, they know what they want or need. They have a story to tell and they tell it, it makes sense and young people can relate to it. They get what it says on the tin – if they didn’t they’d walk away. They often have short attention spans and any company wishing to gain and keep their attention needs to ensure their message remains salient. Big brands know that the messenger is key – someone like the young person or someone they aspire to be. They understand the psychology of young people and use it to their advantage. We may find that distasteful but if we ignore the fact that 97% of thought is unconscious, we ignore a vital means of communication. As a party we take pride in our rationalism, committed to evidence based policy so we can’t always understand why when people get the facts it doesn’t always make a difference – this has been particularly noticeable in the way we have tried to justify and explain tuition fees.
So what should our response as a party be? First, we need to get our own house in order – not only telling our story clearly but also demonstrating through our behaviour that we can be trusted. Then we need to be clear who our target audience is. If we are saying we are the party to challenge the status quo and vested interests, if we think power and resources are unequally distributed meaning some people will have to relinquish some of their power and resources – a wishy washy attempt to appeal to all with fail miserably. There are some people who will never vote for us, however much we compromise, And we know that young people in particular are more attracted to principled politics, to ambition and something more radical. We then need to think about both the message and the messenger to appeal to those who we believe should be our core voters. What is the story we are telling our young people? Does it have integrity in the sense that it reflects what we say are our values? Does it offer something they want? Is it salient? Is it ‘cool’? If not, why not?
Last week I took part in an ‘Uprising’ event in Luton – subsequently the organiser emailed me saying
Much of the my voice my vote cohort got Lib Dem when they took two different policy before party quiz (one being quiz which asks you questions and then gives you a % of how much aligned you are to each party, and another where it presents each parties policy on health,education etc, and asks you to pick which on you agree with without knowing which party said what). Before the night, many young people I had spoken too had lost a lot of faith with the party due to Nick Clegg, but now due to your contributions during the debate are now facing headaches and are more open to voting Lib Dem in the future.
That response, coupled with the 3 students who stayed behind to talk to me at Euro hustings because they thought I was ‘so cool’ encourages me to believe that our party remains the natural choice for young people – let’s once again make our party one they can be proud to be a part of.
* Linda Jack is a former youth worker and member of the party's Federal Policy Committee.
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8 Comments
Linda makes some good points. It is important that the party addresses the issue of how we deal with younger voters. Many of our policies are popular with the young. We need to manage our decoupling from the coalition in a way that addresses the opinions of these voters. There are many that are not happy with the coalition, but they are not necessarily happy with Labour and the Conservatives either. Also UKIP don’t seem that popular with the young. We need to make the best of the constraints we have set ourselves, and it is good to see these issues being looked at.
Ms Jack – It is great to see someone give this matter some thought. Really all political parties (stress, all) have basically treated the young with contempt. Fees was the nadir, and it will be very, very hard to come back from that. I know that the LDP attempt to shift the issue from debt to access is taken basically as an insult and I would very strongly suggest a cease and desist message goes out.
There is much to praise in this article – I particularly like the idea that real effort is put into actually contacting the young on their terms (not just online) and I like the idea of putting real thought into the message and its delivery. Certainly this talk of ambition is to be welcome. OK, now for the but.
Too many in active politics seem to take a view that youth politics is about hopey-changey idealism. Youth politics is not all that different really to the interests of the older. What is the holy trinity of a liberal society – wages, homes, savings. If liberalism in the sense of a genuine autonomy is to mean anything those three are out-and-out essentials. Given that fees directly impacts on secure homes and ability to save one can see the damage that caused. Thatcher didn’t do hopey-changey, her signature was the right to buy. Great for those that got it, not so great for everyone else. Of course this might not be easy for any party, I get that. It may mean for example the LDP swallowing very hard on immigrant labour undercutting the young.
But to my mind the key to youth politics lies not in some tub-thumping idealism, but in the plain-old things that are needed to allow people to live a meaningful liberal life. A system where the young are handing 40% of their wages over to pay the landlord’s mortgage and pension is not liberal.
So yes – a real effort at message, but let’s not forget that the young’s interests are not far removed from everyone else’s.
It’s good that Luton continues its historic role as a wellspring of liberalism.
I have long supported the view that 16 & 17 year olds should be able to vote. The view of opponents that at such an age young people, despite being consumers of services like education and health, aren’t mature enough to be involved in the political process was completely blown out of the water during the Scottish referendum debate.
I for one was very impressed by the media contributions and interviews given by so many young first time voters as they debated the issues. I hope Lib Dem activists in Scotland are out there now signing them up!
Interesting that the organiser of the event should have said —
” ….Before the night, many young people I had spoken too had lost a lot of faith with the party due to Nick Clegg…”
People say that sort of thing to me all the time. Today someone said — ” So Alex Salmond has built up his party to have a majority in the Scottish Parliament, he achieved a referendum in which 44% voted his way. Amongst young people 71% voted his way. But he has resigned because he thinks that was not good enough.– so when will Nick Clegg resign?”
Reasonable question I thought. Not sure what the answer might be.
If 16 year-olds are going to be given the vote, will they also be allowed to purchase alcohol and cigarettes?
@Tsar Nicholas
So let me get this right, you think 16 year olds are mature enough to sign up to join the army and fight to protect our countet but not mature enough to have an opinion on who to vote for
mmm. .. that makes me question your jusdgement and question whether you can be trusted with a vote
Thanks for all the feedback and also the challenge from Little Jackie Paper. I don’t disagree with you, I guess in a short piece it isn’t very nuanced, but of course you are right – and I am one, having spent most of my life working with young people, to warn against assuming they are any different from any other humans! There are differences due to culture, environment and experience. I was at an event on young people’s attitude to money last week with Martin Lewis, and I had to raise concerns that the message was ‘young people are hedonists and spend without thinking” yes, some are, but research we did at the FSA 9 years ago showed a much more nuanced reality – reflecting far more our common humanity. So, to get back to what I said about culture, environment and experience – when I was a teenager we were not exposed to the level of advertising/designer brands’/access to credit that there is today. Culturally, ‘cool’ was the tie-dyed T-shirt that you made yourself, and having grown up when in order to buy something you handed over cash, rather than handing over a card and then getting cash back as well as all your purchases…………..What this research last week showed though that was interesting , was how experience – sometimes including regrets about money choices, impacted on behaviour as young people reached their mid twenties. Oh and politically, for students ‘cool’ was Marxist -Lenonism!