This blog has a history of truly crap titles and that above is one of the worst - sorry! It's a pity, really, because the item that provoked it is exceedingly interesting and might even prove to be important. It is an article, or to be precise, a mea culpa, in The Daily Telegraph byGeorge Bridges. Who he?, you ask, as did I, and our mutual ignorance is understandable when I tell you that he is one of those anonymous apparatchiks who work behind the scenes in all the main political parties, in this case, the Tory party. He is ashamed of himself, and so he should be, but I will allow him to tell you why in his own words:
Are you one of those who thinks that there isn’t much to choose between the political parties these days? Are you crying out for politicians who say what they believe, rather than what they want people to hear? Well, I have a confession to make. I have spent much of my career in the political backroom, out of camera shot, out of sight. First a researcher for the Conservative Party machine, then a tour of duty in the bunker of No 10 for the last three Major years, followed by a few years advising Michael Howard and David Cameron.
This was a period in which the Conservative Party had a political nervous breakdown, was committed, had care in the community, and then found its feet again. My scars, my mistakes? Too many to mention. But the greatest mistake of all was my silence. I sat there as the culture of politics changed. And I did nothing.
I'm not so sure that "the culture of politics changed" during his period, it just seemed so after the unbelievable reign of 'Queen Margaret' when things very definitely were different. But before her, as I recall probably not very accurately, there was the same old fudge between Labour and Tory. Even so, let us hear Mr. Bridges's confession:
Yet during the Nineties all of us, and the entire political class, became hooked on a new drug, a new line in “retail politics”: to treat voters as a retailer treats consumers, constantly tweaking what was offered to meet changing trends, minutely analysing opinion polls and focus groups to pick off the voter in the marginal constituency. As political parties became “brands”, their principles were reduced to “attributes”. Just as Heinz may change the level of salt, the label or the price of a can of baked beans, political parties began to ditch or adopt policies to suit the public taste, day by day, week by week.
To which one might mutter that very little, or perhaps, bugger all, has changed since! If one ever wished to see 'wannabe' puppet-masters hoist in their own strings by attempting to be all things to all men look no further than the occupant of No: 10 and his counter-part who sits opposite to him in the Commons. They attempt to be all things to more men than their opponent, and more and more of us are sick of the pair of them - and any likely successors they might have.
Opinion research is critical in politics, but only if it is used to tell a politician how to communicate, not what to believe – a point Lynton Crosby, the election guru who will advise the Tories’ 2015 campaign, repeats ad infinitum. It provides a map and a compass, but the leader must set the direction [my emphasis]. Before 1997, we certainly did too little of it. But politicians who are guided by polls are chasing will-o’-the-wisp in a forlorn search for popularity. They are not selling baked beans, but something more complex: vision, belief and leadership. And the more politicians change to reflect every passing fad, the less the public believes what they say, and will-o’-the-wisp flits away.
Of course, there are limits to a policy of blind abstraction and, so to speak, just following orders or ideals:
Nor am I saying that politicians should worship at the shrine of a holy grail of principles. Such blind devotion is at the top of the slippery slope of fanaticism. There is a world of difference between that and the sheet anchor of belief, the integrity of politicians who sticks to their guns, and of whom even their enemies begrudgingly admit, “They’ve got guts – they’ll speak their mind, whatever the consequences.”
Or, to repeat the very wise words of a very wise man, er, me, actually, it is important that a politician has authenticity. If he or she is in fact a can of beans then when I tap the tin I want to feel a satisfying thud to indicate that it is full, not an echoing click that tells me it is empty. Mr. Bridges's mea culpa is well worth reading in full.
