In a week or so’s time, the Lib Dems will have a new leader – either Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne will have succeeded Ming Campbell. Lib Dem Voice is inviting party members to tell us what you think should be his top priorities. First up, is noted Lib Dem blogger, Paul Walter…
Without doubt, the priority for the new leader is to have an almighty media blitz in the first 100 days: Visits, interviews, tours, articles….you name it, the new leader should suddenly appear everywhere 24 hours a day for 100 days.
Can’t be done? Oh all right then, but it should be done as much as possible. If the new leader appears invisible, even for a couple of days of the 100, or falters in any way shape or form, he will be pounced upon as “not as good as Vince Cable” and then that will be it. The new leader will be history. Toast.
I am particularly thinking along the lines of Paddy Ashdown’s ‘Listening to Britain’ tour…or whatever it was that he described in his book that I fell asleep in the middle of.
I am not proposing something exactly like Paddy’s tour, when he rolled up his sleeves and stayed or worked with normal people. But something like that which gives the new leader maximum ‘macho’ visibility for 100 days.
It has to be breathless and, by the way, forget about Christmas – the new leader has to be visible all over the holidays. In particular the new leader should be like a greyhound out of the trap to criticize the government about any events which occur. Shameless hijacking of events should be the order of the 100 days. And if it means the leader muscling in on some of the front bench briefs then so be it.
On PMQs, the new leader will have to be just as good, if not better than Vince Cable. A tough job, I know, but it’s got to be done. Plenty of humour, particularly.
Oh, and, cribbing an idea from Ming and James Graham, the new leader MUST have a web site which says where he is at any given time. A map of the country with ‘he is here’ on it and videos of what he’s up to. We cannot afford to have another leader who appears to have gone AWOL for large chunks of time.
Shadow cabinet changes? Who gives a monkeys’? I don’t, and I don’t think most voters do. We actually have a very talented front bench and I don’t think much change is necessary.
Policy – we’ve got it – but we need to insert it into the public’s mind via issues as they arise. In particular I would like every person in the country to have etched onto their grey matter the fact that we want to knock four pence off the basic rate of income tax.
Internal structures – most of all we need a proper media grid for each day to ensure that we are hitting the media virtually everyday. To do this we will have to break some sort of paradigm to pass the “so what?” test. If you don’t break a paradigm, for some reason the press aren’t interested.
Goodness knows what paradigm we are going to break… Perhaps the first 100 days of the new leader should be sub-titled ‘Search for a paradigm (to break)’. Except that the search for that paradigm will have to be over within about three seconds of the announcement of the new leader.
It’s a tough job, isn’t it?
* Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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21 Comments
I said it, I’ll say it again… The first thing he must do is kick his colleagues out of the House and send them out into the constituencies to re-enthuse members, recruit more, get local press coverage – in other words start to help to rebuild our base.
Secondly he should go into the Temple – sorry, Cowley Street – and overturn a few tables.
I have managed to get his colleagues out into my constituency. This year we had Chris Huhne and Charles Kennedy, next year (February 25th) we get Steve Webb and maybe some others if we decide to invite them.
To be fair being based in Hackney makes this relatively easy (central London constituencies take note).
However another important part of the equation is that I wrote to them and asked them to come over.
If you have done that with no luck, then you have a good point.
1/ offer Charles Kennedy a real front bench post – maybe Foreign Affairs (sorry Michael) that would win a lot of praise together with not demoting the leadership runner up.
2/ I want the new leader to talk of holistic liberalism: personal ambition, social justice, localism and eco-system survival and to coin a phrase like Live and Let Live.
3/ I would like to see him (I presume it will be a him) establish a grass-roots revival of the party. I would also like to see an ideas “drop box” on the main Lib Dem web site for, well anything: ideas, slogans, questions, jokes because everyone comes up with a gem at some point.
A walking talking billboard for the party has got to lead by example, which means not only talking the talk, but walking the walk as well.
All the cliches are true and all the criticisms have their grain of truth – there is no challenge bigger than politics, as there is no task nobler than to make the liberal argument and there is no victory greater than won by liberal mandate.
Nice piece Paul. It is ironic that at the end of this contest we seem to be back where we started!
We often attack the government for initiativitis. But in truth, a small outbreak of it every now and again is necessary in politics.
An early priority should be to initiate Tax Commission 3 so that we have something positive to offer the next generation – especially as lower paid workers are about to see their tax doubled.
Appoint a serious body (commission ?) into our armed forces – chaired by Sir Menzies Campbell.
To assess and report on:
Role – what ARE they expected to do?
Procurement – are we buying the right tools, at the right price?
Support – housing, health care and families
Structure – does it still make sense to have three services?
And do we really need more admirals than ships; more squadron leaders than planes; more colonels than regiments?
Not a traditional cuddly wuddly Liberal subject, but one that is critically important to our nation’s role in the world, and – literally – a matter of life and death to many families.
I like crewegwyn’s idea about using Campbell for an Armed Forces Commission. Give him back some credibility to in a subject matter where he has particular interest and merit.
Bombarding all media with interviews, messages etc.
Setting up a telephone tree of activists who’ll bombard the media when they DON’T put him on.
Asking for new media rules that give the party equal access etc.
If these don’t work – simply do a gesture of defiance and lead loads of Lib Dems on a march on the BBC.
he needs to actually lead the party. As a member I feel left out. There is no communication and my local conference was as usual badly organised. I would hope that he gets better advicers to help him promote the party at a national level, using bold schemes, do more to attract new members at a local level whilst trying to keep on board current members. This can be done by more involvment, better communitcation and clearer messages about future agendas ect. Then we need clear, bold policies which are understandable and will appeal to the public
3 things you can do today (where have I heard that before?)
Expose Cameron for the sham he is!
Expose the Tories for the nasty party they are!
Demonstrate that the Lib Dems are a force for change!
Tell the Liberal Democrat team at the Welsh Assembly to sort themselves out.
I’d hope he spends the first 14 days or so doing not very much and try to enjoy probably his last Christmas and New Year without too much media intrusion while recharging his batteries.
I’d then turn up at my office in Westminster/Cowley Street on 3rd January and do a thorough audit of activity, then talk to experts like Chris Rennard, Tony Greaves and Jon Oates and pull together a campaign and communication strategy.
I’d then talk to my ‘shadow shadow’ cabinet colleagues and gently let about two thirds of them down by sacking them from Westminster and sending them out to smooch with regional and local journos…
I’d then find a back of an envelope and write down three things I wanted to say, fold it up put it in my pocket and refer to it just before I opened my mouth in public every time for the next four years.
1) Stick the boot in to our opponents at every possible opportunity.
2) Work with the party rather than just treating it as a fan club. Employ a dedicated party liaison officer, as Paddy did, to help that process. And don’t try and bounce the party into things or make policy on the hoof.
3) Always remember to relate specific Lib Dem policies to the liberal values which lie behind them. We have policies coming out of our ears, but too many people are not aware of the coherent values we have.
4) As all of the above are not specific to the first 100 days, don’t be bound by any artificial timetables or deadlines (such as the first 100 days), but just start as you mean to go on.
Amen to the final para of #13 and (3) of #14.
1. Accept that getting positive media coverage – especially TV coverage – in the early days/weeks is by far and away the most important thing – organise diary commitments (or leave diary fairly empty) to suit this imperative.
2. Slash the number of internal party meetings/conferences to a minimum. I’m sure party members want the new leader to be at their annual dinner to speak to a few dozen party faithful, but its far better for him to be at 4 Millbank talking to the nation.
3. Be absolutely and unapologetically willing to “bounce” the party in all sorts of directions. The leader should be positively encouraged to express his views, ideas and opinions even – indeed, especially – when these clash with present party policy. I’m sorry if that makes policy committees and activists unhappy, but that’s the way to get into the news. David Cameron would not have been even half as effective in the media if he was bogged down by the vast number of internal checks and balances that the LibDem leader faces before he could open his mouth.
4. Explain politely but forcibly to Shadow Cabinet colleagues that for the early months at least, the party leader will be our key spokesman on the “issue of the day” NOT the shadow cabinet member. If there’s tons of media interest on a particular day on e.g. education, then I want our leader to be our spokesman, not our education spokesman. Again, sorry if this puts noses out of joint but that’s the way it has to be.
5. Acquire an office in Cowley Street and be there from 8am – 10.30am every weekday morning and 3pm – 5pm every afternoon. These are key times for interviews to be done at 4 Millbank (just one minute’s walk from HQ) and being based in Cowley Street would give a campaigning rather than Parliamentary focus.
6. Cut the size of the Shadow Cabinet from over twenty people to less than ten. The party will never have more than about half a dozen recongisable media faces, so let’s pick who they are and not pretend that there are 25+ lead spokespeople.
7. Get Vince Cable to oversee PMQs strategy. Vince can chair whatever meetings and take whatever advice he wants on Wednesday mornings in order to get the question drafted by c.11.30am, but don’t tie up 2 – 3 hours of the leader’s time in prep meetings.
8. Draw up an aggressive media strategy to hit the regional media – aim for a dozen 1/2 hour radio phone-ins and a dozen major newspaper interviews before Spring conference.
9. Merge the party press operation and the leader’s press operation under a single manangement structure.
10. Draw up three major launches/initiatives to be rolled out before Spring conference. These must NOT be dreary, worthy policy proposals. They need to be bold, controversial, defining of the leader and cause a stir within the party and without. I have some ideas as to what I’d recommend but am keeping my counsel at present! Controvesy must not merely be courted – it needs to be enthusiastically embraced.
Mark, you are dangerously wrong in point 3. I don’t see that the new leader or the party would benefit in any way from provking unnecessary rows. Unless you think that stories about divisions and unhappiness within the party are a good thing? Whoever becomes leader will have an enormous amount of goodwill within the party and it would be utterly pointless in wasting that just for the sake of a few short-lived headlines or TV appearances. Of course the new leader must express his views, but he should try and work with the party as a whole, not against it.
Although you appear quite willing to upset party activists, don’t forget that we’re the ones who deliver the leaflets and raise the funds, without which it doesn’t really matter who becomes the leader, as the party would be dead.
Bernard, I don’t think “unnecessasry” rows and divisions are a good thing. Of course not. But both the Conservative and Labour parties have demonstrated that an improvement in one’s electoral fortunes can often be brought about following a process of self-flagellation. Cameron spent his first – pretty successful – year in office doing little else but going round saying how ghastly the Tory party was/had been. Fortunately, the LibDems don’t have anything like the same “brand contamination” problem as the Conservatives, but you get my point.
The next leader -and the party more generally – will always be able to get some media attention on a purely reactive basis. But proactive stories about the LibDems will need to be about how the party is changing and how it’s going to be a different beast in future. This almost inevitably implies a degree of internal conflict/dissent/discussion. A new policy, approach or strategy which commands near 100% support through out the party is unlikely to be of much interest to the media or the wider public.
At party conferences, for example, in purely “objective” terms, we tend to get the best coverage when there is a a major internal debate on a controversial matter that the leadership just wins (examples are the debate on the 50p rate and on Trident). Obviously, I’m not saying we should (or could!) engineer false differences and correograph the vote to always be 51%-49% in favour of the leader’s position, but we need to be fully aware of what the greatest sin of a LibDem leader can be. The cardinal sin is to be boring.
The next leader shouldn’t provoke a civil war for the sake of it. That would be insanity. But he needs to brave enough – and self-confident enough – to accept that we can’t be 100% united all the time. Unfortunately, disputes in the last couple of years have tended to be snipings about the perceived weaknesses of the leader NOT about the future direction and strategy of the party. Which probably goes some way to explaining why it’s pretty hard to divine what the long-term strategy and direction of the LibDems actually is…
Mark – Good to have you posting here. Best wishes, Tim
In fact Vince has bounced us: he did not consult “the party” on what to do about the Saudi official dinner, and he did not consult the party about whether to nationalise Northern Rock. Indeed, over the last two years Vince has very much developed his own line on debt and the British economy. The lessons that I draw from this is that (1) sometimes you need to make policy quickly, and that means on your own or with advisors (MPs or other), (2) when you have expertise, as Vince does on the economy, you can and should use it.
The party was clearly supportive of Vince on the Saudi issue. He was principled, and right. On Northern Rock most party members have no clue as to what should have been done as the crisis began, or what should be done now: it is a technical issue. Here it does make sense to trust someone who understands the issue, and for the rest of us (frankly) to shut up and let Vince get on with it.
So yes, I think Vince has shown that leaders should have the power to lead, and that this model works well.
[also posted to the Vince/Titley thread]
Mark, no-one is suggesting that the leader shouldn’t air their views. But what you suggested in 16 was: “The leader should be positively encouraged to express his views, ideas and opinions even – indeed, especially – when these clash with present party policy. I’m sorry if that makes policy committees and activists unhappy, but that’s the way to get into the news.”
By taking that approach, the party would indeed get into the news – but only because the story would be Lib Dem divisions.
I also think that, with the possible exception of Chris Huhne’s views on Trident, neither candidate has expressed any views which are in conflict with existing party policy. Sure, they both want policies to develop in particular areas, but I haven’t come across any notable conflict. They could therefore plausiby be accused of dishonesty and of concealing their true views from the party if they suddenly came up with a list of things which they want to change.
I agree that the leader should be trying to develop new ideas, but he can and should do that in a way which shows respect to the party, rather than trying to bounce it into decisions in the (rather autocratic) way you suggest.