We’re well into the second week of the campaign now, and whilst the polls don’t appear to be showing any signs of significant movement yet, there’s still that slightly nervous sense that, surely, the Conservatives have a trick or two up their sleeve to turn things around, even a bit.
Admittedly, having blown a whole bunch of the obvious advantages that being able to call the date of an election offer – the element of surprise being one, and choosing the best feasible scenario for persuading voters that things are getting better – and with time inexorably passing, you do begin to wonder if there is anyone in Conservative Party HQ who has the ability to come up with a game changing policy. Indeed, is there a game changing policy given the apparent mood of the British public?
And the absence of a significant number of Parliamentary candidates, exacerbated by a late rush for the exit by sitting MPs, has left a sense that, whilst Rishi Sunak might have been ready, his Party most certainly weren’t. Indeed, they seemed to be the most surprised of all, given the effectiveness of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats once the starting pistol had been fired.
Which brings me to Iain Dale and his remarkably short-lived campaign to become the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Tunbridge Wells. Stating that;
I’ve lived in Tunbridge Wells since 1997, slightly against my will, in that my partner comes from Tunbridge Wells…
I’ve never liked the place, um, still don’t and would happily live somewhere else.
probably does make it hard to convince people that you’re the ideal candidate for the place. I’m guessing that Iain didn’t really mean anything when he said that, and rather let his mouth run away with him. And, as he couldn’t possibly have thought that there was the prospect of him becoming the town’s MP when he said it, how could an off-the-cuff line do any harm?
But there’s a more serious issue here, and one that leads me to have a little sympathy for Iain. Those of us who are less prolific, or more guarded in what we post, might wonder why you’d say such a thing. But, the greater your presence, and Iain is, if not ubiquitous, then at least widely active, the greater the risk that you’ve said or written something that your opponents can, and happily will, use against you at some point in the future. Social media posts are forever, even if they’re usually rather less valuable than diamonds.
And, until you reach the point where you seriously decide to run for public office, does anyone really self-censor their posts and contributions just in case? Even then? I’m not convinced, which means that, for most young and emerging political activists, there’s probably something that they have written, or said, or done, that might be, at the very least, embarrassing or politicly fatal if given a wider audience. How do we, as competing activists, or even ordinary members of the public, deal with that? Do we, should we hold people accountable for posts written in anger, or frustration, or simple ignorance?
People change, they mature, they grow and, most importantly, they learn from exposure to new ideas, to different environments and cultures. And we, as political activists, should encourage that process, cutting people a little slack before we rush to condemn. That doesn’t mean that we should forgive hatred on social media, regardless of its form or target, but it does require us to seek an understanding of the context or how a person has or hasn’t changed, before we rush to condemn. It also means that, where there is genuine doubt as to intent, we give people the benefit of it.
Iain won’t be the last person to fall foul of a flippant comment on social media or elsewhere. He may become the poster boy for greater caution for a little while. But as just another misstep in a campaign that has been full of them so far, his misfortune is just another piece of evidence to suggest that this Conservative campaign could be truly cursed.
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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15 Comments
Todays YouGov MRP result will be interesting. January it gave us if I recall, (sounds like a Post Office Enquiry witness), 48 seats and April 49, with some individual changes in those figures, both up and down. Electoral Calculus MRP got us 39 -59 this weekend. Hope we hold those sort of ranges, I fear a squeeze on our vote as has happened in the last 4 general elections, and will be more than happy with a block of MPs in the 20’s.
We will see.
I like this plea for greater understanding and tolerance. Thank goodness there was no social media in my day. None of my embarrassing mistakes are on permanent record and only I remember them.
“Thank goodness there was no social media in my day. ”
No-one is forced to use it now.
@ Noncomformistradical,
Indeed, nobody is forced to use it, but people do. And, sometimes, social media is effectively weaponised by third parties publishing pictures of intimate or personal moments. You, as the subject, have no control over third parties with smartphones, so does that act to drive politicians from public spaces.
Mhairi Black, in an interview recently, noted that, on a night out with friends, people were encouraged to take pictures of her. Those pictures might not have been terribly flattering or might be used to attack her by political opponents. Is that right or fair? I’d suggest not.
I would note that people seem to live their lives more publicly these days – social media enable that. And, whilst my own natural caution leads me to keep much of my private life private, and to respect other people’s privacy, the opportunity to share is a tempting one, with all the risks that ensue.
Perhaps we ought to teach our young, in particular, that their privacy is something to be valued sometimes.
It’s not just social media that can be a problem. Anyone who was at all leftish in their youth may well have written articles which they perhaps wish they hadn’t with the benefit of hindsight.
Not me, though. I’m probably somewhat unusual in having moved to the left over the years. 🙂 I was thinking more about Keir Starmer who was editor of a Trotskyist journal, Socialist Alternative, in his early 20s. This was the British arm of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency. If Keir Starmer Jr were somehow to reappear in today’s Labour Party he would probably be expelled for being part of.or having ever been a part of, a proscribed socialist organisation.
It’s this attitude which has got him well offside with many in the Labour Party. His recent treatment of Diane Abbott was quite disgraceful.
There’s not a lot of enthusiasm in Labour ranks for the Labour campaign. Or maybe that should be a non-campaign?
The result of the next election may yet be closer than the polls are showing.
Mark argues, correctly, for a bit more tolerance for candidates who may have made an unwise, flippant comment, some years ago. However, my understanding is that it was the Lib Dems in Tunbridge Wells who exposed those remarks by Iain Dale, and thus forced him to withdraw his candidacy.
@ John Bicknell,
“it was the Lib Dems in Tunbridge Wells who exposed those remarks by Iain Dale, and thus forced him to withdraw his candidacy.”
If you’d been slightly more ruthless you’d have waited until after the 7th June and it would have been too late for the Tories to have selected another candidate.
On the other hand if you’d been much less ruthless you wouldn’t have dobbed him in at all!
Peter Martin 3rd Jun ’24 – 1:59pm……….His recent treatment of Diane Abbott was quite disgraceful..
.I looked back at the comments on here when Abbott made her statements about Irish, Jewish and Traveller people..
It seems that you, together with the Daily Mail, Express and Guardian, can now explain that she is ‘just the misunderstood victim”
Ref the comment above, Dale claims that it was the Lib Dems who exposed the comments but that is demonstrably untrue. As far as I know, they were surfaced by a Labour supporter on Twitter & journalists soon picked up on that.
Nobody has a right to privacy in a public space ..If Mhairi Black didn’t want to be photographed then that’s tough…Millaband eating a bacon sarnie was hardly flattering – but so be it – the damage was done…. Politics is a tough game …A grocers daughter from a Lincolnshire market town would probably say Man up …
@Martin Gray I agree with you that there’s no right to privacy in a public space, to the extent that you may get caught up in random photos. The Mhairi Black incident though seems to go beyond that; According to the reports, a nightclub she was in actually, without consulting her, offered a free drink to anyone who could get a photo with her. That seems outright disrespectful and unethical, as well as appalling customer care considering she was presumably a customer of the nightclub that was doing this.
@ Martin Gray,
So, what you’re saying is that, if you’re in the public eye, you should hide away from the world if you want to relax or simply have some fun. Way to go, achieving the complete dehumanisation of politicians.
We complain that they don’t understand how our lives work, and then drive them out of normal life. When are we going to accept that an MP is not paid to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and that they need and deserve down time just as much as the rest of us?
@John Bicknell – I don’t think it’s clear how those remarks emerged (though I do recall them at the time) but from what I’ve read, it was someone within the Lib Dems who contacted the Tories in Tunbridge Wells and told them about it before it was used – possibly a backhanded mark of respect for how Iain Dale is seen across the political spectrum.
@Martin Gray – keep that up, and no sensible, normal person will want to become a politician. You are effectively saying that you can’t go out with friends, you should always make sure you’re smartly dressed even if you’re going to Tesco for the weekly shop. Where do you draw the line – should Green politicians not be pictured within 100 yards of an open car door? SNP supporters should never be pictured enjoying anything from England?
@Mark & Simon ..Nobody is saying hide away – I’m stating that in a public space people do not have the right to privacy – nightclub or not ..
I’m tired of the poor me syndrome – you might get a different response if the politician was a Alice Mahon or Gwyneth Dunwoody….As the Grocers daughter from a Lincolnshire market town – who no doubt overcome far more significant issues – would probably have said Man up …
@ Expats
You’re missing the point. The Labour Party has a disciplinary procedure which now is (or is stated to be) independent of the Parliamentary leadership.
That process was completed by the National Executive Committee in Dec of 2023. Diane Abbott had been suspended from the Parliamentary Party but still retained her party membership. She did what was requested of her in early 2024. That should have been the end of the matter. What we might have thought at the time about the wisdom of her original remarks is quite irrelevant. It’s not that she had committed any criminal offence. Her indiscretion was a POV held my many in the party.
However, it took the investigative journalism of Victoria Derbyshire and the Newsnight team to bring the truth to light. Starmer was clearly misleading (to put it in the most polite way) the party membership and the wider voting public by stating that it was nothing to do with him but was still a matter for the NEC.
If the newsnight team had not acted Diane Abbott would not have been allowed to stand. Not by any decision of the NEC but by a decision of the party leadership. The interference of the party leadership in disciplinary matters had been a key criticism of the Labour Party in both the ECHR and Forde reports into Labour Party procedures.