I’m off to Crewe for the weekend soon, to check out the lie of the land, campaign for the Labour party and pay homage to Dario Gradi.

Anyway, don’t expect any great insights from this. I just wanted to mention that I’m not just all mouth. I ike to go and knock on doors and stuff leaflet through letter boxes too.

Well, “like” is probably too strong a term. “Feel morally and socially obligated” is probably closer.

British Conservatives decrying the horrors of “borrowing to encourage growth”  after weeks of saying how great the US “economic stimulus” package (cost $150 billion) is.

“In the US the bi-partisan fiscal stimulus package means that millions of households around the country are about to receive cheques for hundreds of dollars to help them through difficult times.
In the UK, by contrast, our Government is raising taxes on the lowest paid, on small businesses and on capital gains. They are adding to the cost of living instead of easing it”

George Osborne, April 8th

“The contrast with the United States is stark. There the Government is now literally posting tax rebates worth hundreds of dollars to American families to help them with the rising cost of living. American business is being boosted by tax reductions to help them through this year..”

George Osborne April 15th

Of course, what Mr Osborne really means is that doing that sort of thing here would be the height of irresponsibility, as after all, the US economy is famed the world over for having a budget surplus and their $150 billion tax plan is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the UK’s $5billion… Oh.

Simple. 

Obvious.

Benefits people who weren’t expecting to pay less tax who are facing rising bills.

I like this tax announcement.

That’s all.

I have a personal affection for Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn - when I was a junior and green press officer in the North-East, both of them were incredibly helpful, supportive and focussed on campaigning.

That affection hasn’t changed now- I thought Stephen Byers article in the Sunday Times, far from being an aggressive attack on the PM was a useful call for political boldness in the Tax system, similar to the case I argued on Friday.

Of course, at the moment it’s rather hard to distinguish between helpful contributions to the policy debate and book selling. Stephen’s article is definitely the former, and as such has been roundly ignored (except by the Sunday Times, who covered it as if it were the latter).

In start contrast to Mr Byer’s thoughfulness there are those who are simply seeking a bit of positive press coverage, to make a bit of money and to get on the telly. Like me.

Yes, who wouldn’t want some of that sweet serialisation rights action? Not me. I’m in it for as much as I can get.*

That’s why today I’m announcing the publication of my upcoming magnum opus, provisionally titled “Stand there and be a crowd - My years as a New Labour nobody“.

I promise that my book will be packed full of spicy revelations and insider gossip that will shock, stun and amaze.** Here’s a sample

Pass warfare How obsessed people in politics are with the number, variety and security implications of their various passes - from the lowest Labour conference complex pass to the coveted Number 10 pass, which when achieved, is treated with the same “lI’ve made it” understatement that millionaires reserve for American Express black cards.

The psychology of the “snapper’s pen”. The eternal mystery of how a bit of plastic tape between two posts can hold back the massed ranks of the paparazzi.

Cherchez les femmes The women who really run new Labour, and why they let the boys get away with all the posturing.

Convoy! The childish delight everyone, and I mean everyone, takes in being part of a security convoy. Wheeeeee!

The fear-ometer Who junior press officers are scared of, and how hacks should get round them to get what they want. If you’re a junior press officer on an event you don’t care what someone writes in the papers. You only care if you’re going to get shouted at by someone you’re scared of.

Male Press officers are sad because every single one of them, without exception, wishes they were really part of the security detail, and are delighted when on occassion they are mistaken for them. One day press officers will get little wire earphones too, and their joy will be unbounded.

80’s Newsreader stand off - what happens when you share a helicopter with 80s news reading legends Nicholas Witchell and Trevor MacDonald. (answer- they stare fixedly ahead for fifteen minutes, then make awkward small talk.)

Getting lost with the Cabinet Over the course of my political career, I’ve managed to get completely lost with the following cabinet ministers. Tony Blair, David Miliband, Shaun Woodward and Jack Straw. Hilarity ensues. (If by hilarity you mean grumbling)

Death to the sketch writers Why the savage conflict between Sketch writers and press officers began, and why it cannot end until the last sketch writer is ground into the dust. (Yeah, Letts, that’ll serve you right for calling me an authoritarian, and worse, spelling my name wrong.)

With content like this, who can resist a book that’s literally like no other?

Get the real inside dirt on New Labour by pre-ordering “Stand there and be a crowd” now. Serialisation rights are available.

* Should say on this that I couldn’t care less if people write a book about their lives. Good luck to them. I do find it comical that these books have provoked howls of outrage from columnists writing pieces about how awful they all are, and how no-one wants to read this sort of thing. Which would make sense, were they not loudly voicing their disinterest in national newspapers, which one takes to mean that people very much want to read about this sort of thing, especially the juicy details that are recycled in every “How Awful” column. Only thing that’s worse is when it’s next to a piece about how we need to know more about the private lives of our politicians.

**This is an aspiration, not a pledge.

Lot of work on today, so little posting. Just wanted to say that I was quite pleased with the post below this one, but because I only got to write it late on a Friday few people would have read it.

So here’s your chance to remedy this sad situation.

“I’m doing as I damn please for the next two years and to hell with all of them.”

Harry Truman, after the congressional elections of 1946

So. We’re behind.  We’re either a lot or a huge amount behind in the polls.

We don’t run Scotland. We don’t run London. Ten years of Labour hegemony of the machinery of Government have come to an end. Only in Wales do we manage to retain leadership - and Wales delevered a more negative verdict than anywhere else in the Country.

It’s easy to console ourselves with the details that show things aren’t as bad as hysterical media types say (I’ve done so myself, and rather elegantly too).  We know that we gained seats as well as lost them, we know that in Oxford, in Brent, in Liverpool, in Ipswich we gained ground.

Yet all those details are meaningless unless considered against the bigger picture of dissatisfaction. So how did we get here and how do we get out of it?

When considering what has made us unpopular there are a few things we can rule out. We can rule out  unemployment. We can rule out rising interest rates or soaring inflation. We can rule out recession or devaluation or the need to go cap in hand to the IMF for money. These are not small factors - they are the causes of most Government defeats in General Elections.

Yet there are real concerns about the economy out there. MORI’s monthly issues monitor shows that the number of people who feel the economy is the most important issue facing the country has trebled in the last six months, while two thirds of people expect the economy will get worse over the next year, up from one third this time last year. So twice as many people expect the economy to get worse than did so last year.

This isn’t a new phenomonomonomonom. This level of economic pessimism has happened twice before in the last ten year- during the fuel crisis and after Sept 11.

At the same time, the Government’s core issues are no longer as salient with voters. In 1997 around half the population said the NHS and education were among the most important issues facing the country. Today just 23% say the NHS and 15% say education. They’ve been replaced by Crime and immigration as the big issues.

So what does all that mean in political terms?

First, it means that the essential challenges the government face are policy and issue based, not personality based. The current negative poll ratings for the PM are trailing, not leading indicators. We’re losing support because people have serious concerns. We need to address those, not obsess about ourselves.

For me, this all suggests three interlinked challenges for the government until the General election. These are easily identifiable, but the answers are far more complex than I’m able to answer here. Forgive me then if my answers  broad brush. If anyone’s interested, I’d be delighted to come back to them in the future.

First and most important: get the Economy right. We need to go into the next election able to argue convincingly that the economy is growing because of the decisions we took. People are understandably nervous now, and although the economic data is reasonable, they will not be re-assured by rising repossession stats (even if they’re historically low). The current focus on supporting homeowners is right, but we have to make it a huge, visible commitment. Think the NRA under Roosevelt or Medicare or Macmillan’s homebuilding commitment.  the scale of what we’re going to do to help the economy through the credit crisis is enormous - the program that delivers it should be as enormously well known.

Second. Make Schools and Hospitals matter again. The decline in people believing schools and hospitals are big issues facing the country is good news for the Government. It means lots of people are relatively content with what we’re doing.  (actually it means they’re not actively compaining aboutwhat we’re doing - which is about as good as any government is going to get). There are huge areas of disagreement between Labour and Conservatives on how to deal with these issues. Building Schools for the Future, for example, or the need to improve primary care - even when that comes into conflict with the agenda of the BMA. 

We need to create political drama around those differences. What would the tories hate us to do most now? Invest more in consumer focussed public services. So Why not announce plans to spend millions on a huge wave of “free schools” with extra funding from the centre and perhaps some funding top sliced from the increases that would have gone to inefficient, beureaucratic and now Tory LEAs?

Third Be focussed and aggressive on Crime, while neutralising immigration as an issue. There should be no let up Anti-Social behaviour and Crime. The new points system for immigrants should go a long way to reducing fears about non-EU immigration, but while Britain has one of the most dynamic economies in the EU, it will attract EU immigrants. We need to actively manage peoples legitimate worries on that topic without pandering to anti-immigrant idiocy.  Skilled Immigration is good for Britain 

Finally, there’s some political ju-jitsu to be attempted. David Cameron’s great weakness is his eagerness to over-reach when he sees votes coming within his grasp. On the environment, on poverty, on social justice and the economy, When Cameron thinks he can find floating votes, Andy Coulson writes cheques George Osborne won’t cash.

So instead of looking suspiciously at each new Cameron promise, welcome it enthusiatically as a conversion to the true faith from a prodigal son and propose something that goes a bit further still. force them to vote it down or commit to our agenda. 

The Tories are edging onto our territory, so force the debate open. Make them vote against the objectives they claim to support. (This last will also help with the need to motivate labour supporters). Want to cut poverty? OK then We’re going to take people out of taxation, increase the minimum wage and pay a job premium to every long term unemplyed or person on IB who gets and holds a job.

Will some of this be expensive? Perhaps. Less so than you might think, but it might well involve some short term extra spending. There’s an economic justification for doing that.  What we’re likely to face in Europe over the next year or so is a battle over demand. If companies can’t access credit they won’t make as many purchases. A little Keynsianism might not be such a bad thing in a situation like that.

In any case, all the plans above would certainly be cheaper than the US approach of sending people and businesses $150 billion in cheques to spend. In fact, if you wanted to make Tories really uncomfortable you could even use the US model as an excuse to cut taxes at the same time as doing the above - though a plan like that would need a lot more economic justification than a political hack like me can provide.

When you’re in a situation like the one we’re in now though, It’s good to remember the words of Franklin Roosevelt when asked how he intended to handle multiple related crises.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something”.

In defeat you can find liberation, as Truman found. If we use it well, we could pull off as big a suprise as he did.

Fraser Nelson interviews David Cameron and Cameron won’t deny he’d have a referendum on withdrawing from the EU.

“One theory, which I have now heard from two shadow Cabinet members, is that the Conservatives would insert in their manifesto a pledge to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the European Union and then hold a referendum on the result. It would be a herculean task, which would take years. But when I put the proposal to Mr Cameron, I do not get the brush-off denial I expect.

CAMERON: ‘These suggestions are options for how to deliver what I’ve spoken about,’ he says — referring to his promise not to let ‘things rest’. ‘I am not going to comment favourably or unfavourably on any option like that until we are ready to do so.’

If the Tories were to renoegotiate the terms of membership of the EU, and then hold a referendum on it,  rejecting the resulting referendum would mean leaving the EU. If the leader of the Conservative party is thinking along these lines, this is probably the biggest story in politics. Are the Tories really considering a referendum on membership of the EU?   

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been lucky enough to be the “featured blog” at Labour Outlook, the new Labour blogging community site which features articles, Labour Blogs and debates on new ideas. (Labour Outlook nestles nicely alongside Bloggers4Labour, which is more of an aggregator)

I haven’t mentioned it because of my severe case of selfpromotinghackophobia, but now they’ve moved on to featuring Labour and Capital, I can happilly say that it’s an excellent site and you should all be reading it.

So go do so.  Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on.

Coming from a marketing background, my instincts are strongly with Danny Finkelstein in his article in the Times today about the importance of narrative. He says:

“The image of a product like Coke is not separate from the way it is experienced. Similarly, the way policies are explained and linked together, the story that is told about them and the brand image of the party advancing them affects the way those policies are experienced. Perception and reality, spin and delivery, style and substance are woven together.

I have one major amendment, which is I believe that the audience that most requires a convincing narrative is the media class itself and that changes what you can do as a politician.

What is a narrative, after all, but a way of turning a series of events into a story that is easily grasped and explicable? That is the job of the media, it is what they excel at. Hence, it is what they esteem in others. This isn’t a rant against the media (for once). In turning events into stories, by imposing a narrative on them, journalists and editors are responding to a human drive for explication.

We see the same thing in marketing. Sure Daz washes whiter, but how do we bring it to life to the consumer?  Those are the questions advertisers ask.  The answer is through drama and narrative. So instead of a man in a suit telling you the scientific facts about detergent efficacy, you end up with Danny Baker pitching up at someones house asking if they’d be willing to show their laundry to the nation, or a Persil ad that stresses how, because Persil can be trusted to get everything clean, mum can relax about her kids getting dirty.  These are impositions of narratives on consumer products.

As Danny says, we respond to these narratives. We respond to them so strongly that we internalise them, coming to believe that Coke tastes better than Pepsi, or that Persil is somehow gentler on the skin than arch rival Ariel*. We’re designed to respond to narrative. Good thing too. Otherwise no-one would bother to write Crime and Punishment, or Grand Theft Auto, or Lost.  

So Politicians need to develop narratives.  But it’s a competive marketplace. It’s not enough for politicians to simply provide a hook to hang their latest announcement on. Their narrative has to encompass both what it is they’re trying to do, and a reason for consumers of the narrative (in this case journalists) should accept and propogate it, rather than other narratives that are on offer.

Why am I so insistent on the audience being journalists and the narrative market being competitive?

It’s not because narrative isn’t important to voters. It is, but it’s less important than crime, their mortgages, immigration, the economy and whether or not their local school is any good. Yet the only way those voters are going to see any political narrative on the areas that matter to them is through the agency of the media- and thus it is the media that defines the way every issue that matters to voters is covered**.

Politics is a mediated business.

You can’t buy a £30 million ad campaign to set out your narrative. Even if you could, that campaign itself would be drowned out by the commentary on the narrative created by journalists. Remember what happened to Dasani, the mineral water that wasn’t? That’s what happens to narratives when the media decides it preferes an opposing narrative. (actually, David Cameron reminds me of Dasani - a pale blue, expensively marketed, synthetic imitation of the real thing).

All of which poses a conundrum for political types. If the key for success is to develop a winning narrative, but the people who you need to spread that narrative are, as they are at the moment, already embrace a competing narrative and are primed to mock any narrative you try and come up with, what can you do?

The answer is to force some defining split that forces your narrative on the agenda.  Think back to 1994 when Bill Clinton was bloodied and beaten by a triumphant Republican party.  Here is the New York Times on “our generations greatest politician” TM

“…Mr. Clinton’s greatest political liabilities: his failure to give citizens a clear, consistent explanation of his goals, and the widespread belief that he is weak, that he can be rolled.”

Not that different to how the media sees the Prime Minister today, and just as wrong. That was the Media’s Clinton narrative in 1994 though. Weak. Beaten. Bloodied, Inconsequential.

Clinton managed to fight back by dramatising again and again his differences with the seemingly dominant republicans, while staying firmly in the centre ground. 

Here, the one thing that has changed to the Prime Minister’s advantage over the last week is that he’s now thought to be an underdog by the media.

Underdogs have to do one thing, and that’s fight hard. In politics, that means fighting for the people on issues that define you against your opponents plans.  It’s happened often in America- Harry Truman from ‘46 to ‘48 as well as Clinton from ‘94 to ‘96. 

With a media expecting a Tory victory a Labour narrative could be about fighting every day for the economic security of every family in Britain against those who would risk it for short term popularity.

No matter how I might wish for it, Journalists won’t just retail this story because politicians make speeches or give interviews. They’ve got better, more fun alternative narratives to hand. Why should they suddenly dump a world view that fits things perfectly for the one we’re selling? They won’t.

No, to be propogated widely a new Labour narrative need to be dramatised by a battle over issues that cleave Labour and Conservative on social and economic policy, while not retreating to the false safety of a core vote strategy.  (I can think of a few ways of bringing that contrast to a head- but as this is a discussion on narrative, I’ll leave the policy options to another post.)

Simply put, any narrative now has to embrace that feeling of battle, of something significant at stake, or it will be rejected by those who control whether it will be propogated as mere marketing and tinkering - a story line that fits very well with their existing mind set.

That makes me happy, because politics should not be merely competing narratives, but narratives that are based on issues that have real significance. In my washing powder days we used to call it the competitive demonstration or the “side by side demo”.  It’s the bit where you say “My product does what you want. Yours doesn’t. So try mine instead”

Time for some side by side policy demo’s to bring our political narrative to life, I think.

*Interesting side note on this. The UK is about the only place in the world with a non-biological laundry market. Why? Because when Lever Brothers launched Persil Bio there was a media scare about it’s effect on skin. Sales collapsed, and Persil were forced to bring out a non-bio detergent when people started reporting skin rashes.

None of it had anything to do with enzymes.  Twenty-five years later, people still believe non-bio detergents are better for their skin (and marketing comapanies are still using non-science to make it all sound reasonable). That’s narrative power.

** The exception to this is when parties are organised and hard working enough to get messages across directly and often. This is why party organisation and organisers are the other great important thing in politics.

Actually, I just read my post over, and it was so mind numbingly tedious, it should all go below the fold.  I’m writing about being criticised by someone else for not writing about something. Then I go on to say that we get obssessed by micro-trivialities. Mote, beam etc.

Read it if you want to, but it’s pretty pointless (apart from the rant at the end about paper reviews, which is reasonably amusing.)

…according to Iain Dale, who thinks that my duty as a blogger is to watch the Sunday morning political shows, applaud the utterances of the leader of their party and proclaim inevitable triumph in the near future. (or perhaps, heaven forfend, slag off the leader of the party and be quoted by eager Tory bloggers, which I’m sure was never Iain’s intention in scouring the left wing blogs on a Sunday morning, oh no). This duty to blather report is only trumped by actually going on the Sunday morning political shows and doing a TVBP about it, ldo*

I have a slightly different perspective. I couldn’t be bothered watching the Sunday morning shows when I worked for a political party and I can’t be bothered now. It’s Sunday so I spend the time reading a book, lying in bed, going for a run or playing internet poker. I am a proud member of the “keep Sundays special (for Hopi)” campaign, which involves other people working but me having the day off, so I can sleep in and still go to the shops.

So sorry, Iain, didn’t watch the Sunday shows. Rarely do. They bore me. What fills me with tedium about them is how it fuels this sort of micro-obsessiveness about politics is that misses anything important while at the same time being utterly predictable.**

Of course the PM had to go on the Sunday shows to take the election results on the chin, and of course, because the conventional wisdom is that Brown’s in trouble various commenters will deride his performance.  Then other commenters will comment on their reaction and we’ll all end up where we were.

As it happens, what Gordon was reported as saying seems both sensible and mature (for which in the language of todays media read “boring and old hat”) and I can’t imagine what anyone could think I’d add to it. Perhaps i should get a flag that says “YAAAYYYY GORDON!!” and wave it occassionally? Would that help matters?

*TVBP - thinly veiled brag post, a speciality of Iain’s, ldo. (ldo stands for “like..duh..obviously” You’ll all be using it next year.) 

**  Also I hate paper reviews, which the news channels and Sunday shows seem obsessed with.  On what basis are the papers being reviewed? It’s not like it’s a restaurant review, designed  to open your tiny mind to a fabulous little local newspaper in Harlesden, which does the most fabulous food columns, they’re to die for, just like Jay Rayner but a fifth of the price.

 No, “paper reviews” seem to exist in order to highlight stories that each of the newspapers have written about the same thing “Well, obviously Jeremy, all the newspapers are full of stories about the Cellar business in Vienna, most of which look poorly sourced and probably made up by an Austrian stringer who had to be woken from an alcoholic stupor to cover the story, but I thought this article by Terry Thomas was insightful because it very much chimed with what I thought about the subject already.  Oh, and there’s an amusing pucture of a duck on page 34 of the Mail”

Even if there’s a news story featured in the paper review which isn’t covered by other papers, I’m left wondering why, if it’s important enough to be brought to my attention, why the fricking news programme I’m watching can’t be bothered to report on it. If they can’t, the review is redundant, if they can, the review is also redundant.

 So for what meta-level reason do TV stations review newspapers? it’s not as if people are going to  rush out the next day and say  ”I understand there’s a simply fabulous piece on ID cards in yesterday’s Observer by Seamus Milne, I must get hold of a copy”. 

It tilts me.  Just review a book instead, kthxbye.