It would be wrong to abandon every campaigning technique used in the 2015 general election. Despite the result, some constituencies saw unprecedented levels or door knocking, innovative new literature items and original online campaigning techniques. In seats like Hornsey and Wood Green – retaining 32% of the vote when the national average was 8% meant we were doing something right.
But the party also has to think about what it lacked – and how we could do things differently to improve our share of the vote in upcoming elections.
I believe, in our 2015 national campaign, we lacked originality and distinctiveness.
Our core messages were comparative, based on us being a combination of Labour and Tory, but not as bad as either. Rather than setting out a distinctive liberal programme, we spoke of propping up one of two sets of unpopular people, giving one a heart and one a brain.
Our policies on the NHS, the personal allowance, education and more were mirrored by the other parties and didn’t set us apart.
To avoid this happening again, I believe we need to undertake long-running, proactive campaigns that will make us stand out (or, in jargon-speak, we need ‘unique selling points.’)
Next year, London will elect members and mayor. And like in 2015, the Lib Dems face a very real prospect of being frozen out of a Labour/Tory contest, which polarises the vote. With a (relatively) high green vote in London we risk 4th place overall, unless we give the voters a distinctive and popular offer.
Based on a quick think about one of our big London target audiences (young/parent age, centre-left, progressive ‘natural’ liberals who will consider Lib Dem, Labour or Green) – here are some ideas for distinctive campaigns that might appeal to them. Of course, the details would need ironing out, these are just drafts…
1. Use GLA funding to help tackle inequality
Details: Increase the GLA council tax precept by £3 a month (for full rate taxpayers in band C and above properties) – then ring fence the proceeds to help support those most affected by the Government’s cuts to tax credits. The fact we can use the campaign to highlight Labour’s support for the Tories’ cuts is a nice bonus.
2. A support fund for social entrepreneurship
Details: Good social entrepreneurs provide solutions to social issues and reduce inequality. State investment in them is a smart move – and it could be a role of the GLA to reach out to and support young people with ideas and ambitions, that would in turn benefit the city as a whole. It would appeal to young people and present a practical way to tackle rising inequality.
3. A proper programme for energy efficient homes
Details: The Mayor’s energy efficiency programme RE:NEW had a £150k under spend last year, and hasn’t hit targets for the number of homes retrofitted. Committing to whipping this programme into shape would help the environment, improve housing stock, and save people money on bills.
I’m not suggesting these campaigns will swing it for us on their own. We need strong and effective local campaigning. We need South West London campaigning on Heathrow. Here in Haringey, we’ve started a very popular campaign on our local Town Hall. This must continue.
The new Lib Dem leader also needs to get their voice heard on Europe, counter-radicalisation, and whatever else dominates the headlines. And of course, our London candidates will need strong positions on the top line issues that other parties will also talk about (housing, healthcare, education.)
But while the above is necessary, I don’t think we can improve our vote share and engage new supporters unless we stand out and proactively campaign for distinctive, liberal ideas that are popular with our target audience. It would be great to try this out in London next year and monitor the effects.
Any thoughts or other distinctive campaign ideas welcome!
* Jenni Hollis is Haringey Liberal Democrat Campaign Chair, former Office and Campaign Manager for Lynne Featherstone. Now working in as a Campaigns Consultant for Verbalisation, and blogging and commentating at www.JenniHollis.org.uk
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20 Comments
This is an excellent article, Jenni.
I absolutely agree with your assessment that our 2015 campaign lacked USPs and was purely comparative. This was a huge weakness and not just an issue in 2015 but long before then. We defined ourselves in relation to what we were against, but people couldn’t really get a handle on a small number of specific things we’d do, and how those provided examples of a wider, overarching vision of a more liberal country. That made life harder for us in Government in spite of good work by people like your former boss in office.
One thing I would say about your three specific campaigns for London, though, is that the specific campaigns should really fit into a bigger, overarching narrative about the sort of London we want. I’m not 100% sure how the ideas do that – they don’t feel like three examples of a bigger vision. Perhaps it would be possible to weave something around the idea of a more supportive London – supportive of enterprise, but also of those in need; but that needs more work.
We should be careful not to generalise about the campaign.
There were local variations in target seats driven partly by local opinion polls.
For instance in Maidstone, Kent issues on the record of the Tory were compared with the achievements of the Liberal Democrat candidate.
Jenni Hollis
In seats like Hornsey and Wood Green – retaining 32% of the vote when the national average was 8% meant we were doing something right.
Not really. This was a defensive election where we knew we had to put all our effort into defending the seats we held. If activists are pulled from other constituencies to save this one, obviously this is going to result in bigger drops elsewhere and a smaller drop here. Nothing to do with the nature of the literature etc.
Thanks, Sir Norfolk! I suppose the overarching theme for this target group would be tackling inequality in London. The three ideas I mention bring in redistribution of wealth, investment in social businesses, improving housing (with a nod to green issues) as ways to achieve that. But all need further thought and development.
Richard – agree that plenty of great local campaigning occurred and must continue, based on evidence of what works well. My criticism was of the national messages that local campaigners were given to work with.
Matthew – by ‘we’ I was referring to North London Lib Dem efforts, which were phenomenal. And the literature/doorknocking must have been able to change some minds to achieve 32% against such a tide – so the local campaigning is still worth doing imo. But this statement not really relevant to overall argument in blog post – which is that we need something more than local campaigning to help us improve vote share in coming years.
Jenni Hollis, “In seats like Hornsey and Wood Green – retaining 32% of the vote when the national average was 8% meant we were doing something right. ”
No. It might suggest at a hard working local MP who clung onto some of her previous vote but that’s about it. Under FPTP, only election on election vote increases mean anything in terms of campaigning success. Other than that, you win or you lose. In a winnable seat, anything other than winning, even in what Matthew Huntbach correctly calls “a defensive election”, means you look at all of your campaigning techniques and from every angle possible.
A successful election campaign starts the day after the declaration of the previous election result. Most of the occupants of the Westminster Bubble appear to have forgotten this or, far more worryingly, never even learnt it in the first place.
I have less of a problem with the rest of the article but of what use is this without proper campaigning foundations?
Phil – here is an article I wrote on how to build better campaigning foundations (which I agree are necessary): https://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-performance-v-effectiveness-how-the-lib-dems-can-and-must-fight-smart-46526.html
On the first sentence re HWG result – the point was really just to illustrate that, just as we shouldn’t abandon all current techniques, we also shouldn’t discount new ones (because the result in HWG wasn’t complete annihilation, but also it wasn’t good enough). Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t review them all – again, see the other article.
But rather than debating semantics of that, would rather focus this debate on whether distinctive campaigns are the way forward – and if so – what should they be!
Thank you Jenni. And yes I agree about the Hornsey campaign. We we came up a couple of times to canvas in my old London patch of Muswell Hill I found things well organised and targeted. I also agree with your general point about the need for us to be more policy-distinctive in 2016’s challanges. The selection of your policy themes to make us more distinctive, could do with being linked to some big themes as some other commenters have said. We need a solid principle here to guide us in devising themes and policies and ‘how we will do it’ narratives. All three are necessary for distinctiveness; a distinctiveness principle – distinctive themes & policies – distinctive narratives as to how we get our policies into practice.
I believe the two key principles are first that we emphasise solving the problems that the public see as a priority, first, before emphasising the issue which WE thing are important. You need credibility on the former if we want to be listened to on the latter. It’s no good being distinctive on things the public sees as of low relevance. Second, if we have a particular angle on HOW to solve a priority problem, and it is likely to sound to the public as similar to that of our more media-skilled competitors, then don’t waste time on it…focus on those things which both relevant and different. As a party we have discovered that we have much to learn on these strategic policy and media questions, if we are to gain prominence and popularity again without compromising on our core values..
Jenni Hollis
Matthew – by ‘we’ I was referring to North London Lib Dem efforts, which were phenomenal. And the literature/doorknocking must have been able to change some minds to achieve 32% against such a tide – so the local campaigning is still worth doing imo
I’m not saying that local campaigning is not worth doing, in fact I’m saying the opposite.
Because of the nature of the 2015 general election, I am sure there were many people who in 2010 campaigned in their own or other “good prospect” constituencies, but in 2015 went to Hornsey and Wood Green. I was so unhappy with the party’s national leadership that I didn’t campaign at all, but if I had been involved where in 2010 I worked in Lewisham East, in 2015 I probably would have gone over to help Simon Hughes in Southwark and Bermondsey.
All I’m saying is that one shouldn’t put the lower decline of the vote in seats we were defending as down to some sort of special campaigning there which others could have done elsewhere but didn’t. No, it’s because the others weren’t elsewhere, they’d come over to try and salvage all we had left in North London in your case and South-East London in mine.
The effort in Hornsey and Wood Green, and I am sure in Southwark and Bermondsey, was phenomenal, yes. But it’s so sad to see what were constituencies where we were building up and in other circumstances might have been winnable prospects in 2015 thrown away and vote slumping back to 1970s levels.
I don’t think there is any magic policy mix that if we push we will win back our lost vote, which is what you seem to be suggesting, but I do think we got a lot wrong in presentation 2010-15.
I do think this current government had much less popular support than is supposed, and the Labour Party has it incredibly wrong when it now seems to be taking the position that it has to move to the Tory right if it is to win in the future. Well, if it does move that way, it’ll be leaving a great big hole we can fill, if we want to that is (some members and one leadership candidate seem determined to do the opposite). However, I think whatever policies we adopt, the main thing we meed to do is to re-establish the whole idea of democracy by re-building a different sort of politics than the top-down leader-oriented one which the general populace now assumes is just how all politics is.
Matthew
Whilst agreeing with your general point (and indeed much of Jenni’s post), I should point out that when you say “one shouldn’t put the lower decline of the vote in seats we were defending as down to some sort of special campaigning there which others could have done elsewhere but didn’t”, even you are falling for the hype. I can’t put my finger on the figures at the moment, but after all the guff about “57 by-elections” or whatever it was, the Lib Dem vote declined by about the same amount in held seats as elsewhere. We got more votes in held seats than others, but that’s a real case of the bleedin’ obvious.
Thank Paul – that’s a very good point. Posing the campaigns as distinctive solutions to priority issues would help them gain traction and make them easier to communicate (while still retaining originality). And I agree we should listen to our target audience before deciding which campaigns to try and engage them in!
@Jenni Hollis – thanks for the reply. I inserted my final para because, on balance, I felt you were trying to make a positive and genuine contribution to the debate on campaigning.
My weariness over this, and hence I suspect my latching onto your HWG comment, is that there appears to be a singular unwillingness in the party to address how the national campaign (in the broadest sense and over 5 years) and local campaigning methods, could have been better.
It’s been 15 years since I was last an election agent or campaign organiser, but even from that distant (and I am sure old fashioned perspective) and awful lot of what we did was either based on ignorance, poor quality or downright damaging. The people in the Westminster Bubble where particularly guilty of this.
Whilst the party appears enthusiastic to discuss how we need the right policies to get back into government again, there seems to me to be a surprising unwillingness to discuss why our campaign was so awful and how we go about re-learning how to campaign. However, as most of the backroom Westminster Bubble people appear to be still around, maybe that shouldn’t surprise me.
Why are only centre-left voters “natural liberals”? Is this an article on strategy or morality?
Eddie – Jenni was referring to London and as a Londoner (and H&WG volunteer) her description of this market is accurate! She wasn’t saying we couldn’t appeal to other liberals too….
More generally, I think we should be majoring on all of: the environment; civil liberties; improving parental leave and pay and childcare so all young children can be looked after by a parent til they are two and then in free childcare; funding science better; drugs liberalisation; and liberal social reforms.
I think we need to start from first principles now and examine, in depth, what kind of society we as Liberal Democrats we are looking to create and what kind of policies will be required five years from now (or perhaps sooner if the Tories disintegrate over Europe). From these basic underpinnings, a whole agenda of policies will emerge.
We know that, by 2020:
1) Whole areas of public services will have been destroyed by severe cuts;
2) Inequality will be worse than ever before;
3) Our economy will still be unbalanced towards consumer spending and imports and away from production and exports;
4) Britain’s role in the world will be diminished;
5) Green development will have been left on the back burner or binned;
6) The UK’s housing crisis will not have been solved and may even have intensified;
7) Public transport and infrastructure in general will be even further behind our major competitors.
The “small state” agenda pushed by the Tories will be largely responsible for exacerbating or ignoring most of these problems. The question, once the deficit is finally eliminated, is how to persuade people that they should want to contribute as taxpayers to helping to solve them. We are not a “big state” party in principle, but our supporter base (as it was in 2010), is in favour of spending on public services, which is largely why we got pummelled in May. But at least in 2020 we will have a record, unlike Labour, of leaving the economy in decent health with public spending under control. I believe that arguments like the ones Jenni makes for responsible, targeted public spending will find increasing resonance with voters as living standards recover and the next couple of years is the time to start presenting them.
Eddie – nowhere do I say that centre-left voters are the only natural liberals! What I’m really referring to here are people that are small ‘l’ (social) liberals but not necessarily Lib Dem voters. I also say in the article that this is but one target audience, in one city. There are plenty more.
Good ideas Mark – drugs reform seems to be very popular with the people on the doors, particularly in HWG!
Jenni,
Thank you.
When Ryan Coetzee came to the target seat of Maidstone and the Weald he referred to the issue of “the brand”.
Maidstone is a Tory-facing seat.
If my memory is correct Lynne Featherstone defeated a Labour minister (who told us that Tony Blair had told her to “bore the public” on the issue of immigration, although she could not refuse a rerquest for a meeting from an MP).
Lynne had previously come to a barbecue in Tunbridge Wells and given us a very good speech on campaigning and fundraising, which was recorded by one of our active members.
RC
As the BBC’s Andrew Neil often mentions the financial forecasts are less accurate and less reliable the further in the future they are.
The Tories won an overall majority and seem likely to get their IN/OUT referendum in 2016 or 2017. All forecasts depend on the outcome, which is of crucial importance to our trade and prosperity, or poverty.
RC – completely agree. I think that’s a very good, accurate list of the problems and issues we can come up with distinctive solutions/campaigns for. Having been through a long recession and experienced the effects – I think voters will be much more receptive to the ‘fix the roof (and be progressive) while the sun is shining’ argument. And if we’re the ones coming up with the solutions and campaigns before the other parties, all the better!
What is a social entrepreneur?
And can you give any examples of profitable businesses that class as such?
I agree with the general thrust of this article if not necessarily with the points selected to make us distinctive – but then I’m not in London. “We’re less nasty than the Tories and more responsible than Labour” is a loser from day one as a main theme, even if it does express why some people may vote for us from time to time.
On the campaigning techniques, I’m sure we made some advances but my overall feeling is that in 2015 as in 2010 we were fighting the last war and the Tories (not Labour) were one crucial step ahead of us. So in planning for 2020 or sooner, we must not just be trying to learn from what the Tories did this time and from our mistakes, but also looking ahead to the next step (which might involve social media).
I can’t answer for Hornsey and Wood Green, but my impression from a few other places is that we put out too much literature, that locally as nationally we often lacked a coherent, simple message that could be rammed home over and over again (as the Tories did on Miliband in the pockets of slavering Scots) and that we didn’t canvass enough. People turning up at the campaign HQ who can canvass shouldn’t simply always be given a bundle of leaflets because they haven’t turned up at the right hour and place for an action day. In places the Tories massively outmatched us in phone canvassing and we need to up our game there.
I also suspect we relied too much on Connect, which not only ran into trouble on the day but does not reflect the unquantifiable impressions experienced campaigners have. In the last few days plenty of savvy veterans were sensing a shift to the Tories and wavering Tories becoming firm ones; maybe some also perceived our supporters becoming iffy. But I suspect none of this got beyond constituency level and targeting of resources on the day seems to have been based on a cloud in cuckoo land.
Great campaigning here: http://www.jennihollis.org.uk/twitter_reacts_to_one_labour_mp_s_welfare_bill_abstention
Holding an opponent to account . No hiding place, with Jeni around.