Is getting elected and being an effective politician correlated?

Some researchers have been looking into what people vote for in a politician and whether this gets us effective politicians. It would seem not:

We found that voters are not necessarily able to see what politicians are required to do in their day-to-day work and therefore have to rely on characteristics that might seem to matter for leadership, but may not actually be that important

The researchers go on to observe:

Voters increasingly choose politicians based on personality traits such as how warm, reliable, or decisive they appear to be, judged often by how they look or how tall they are.

This last point reminds me of Scott Adams observation that, all other things being equal, the tall candidate with good hair will win. Nevertheless:

...voters prefer candidates who are agreeable, but are won over less by people who look warm...

It seems that the politician who engages with the public by nodding, smiling and say "absolutely something should be done about that" is the same politician who, faced with the wiles of the professional bureaucrat, will smile, nod and say "absolutely, we'll do that".

We quite often pretend that we want politicians who think for themselves, challenge the assumptions of the bureaucracy, and provide leadership or direction. But when we get to the ballot box, we ignore all that and choose the one who says he's our friend. The problem with this is that we've likely chosen a candidate who wants to be everyone's friend making meaning that - and you'll see this all the time in councillors and MPs - he or she will spend their entire time crafting appealing platitudinous soundbites rather than doing the job. It's also a reminder that the 'good constituency MP' is perhaps less useful than the MP who spends more time doing questioning and challenging things in Parliament. Not that MPs should ignore their constituencies but rather than spending the five years of their term opening fetes, visiting businesses and kissing babies in Bigchester South might be agreeable to those constituents but doesn't make for an effective MP.

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The nice, pleasant, decent left is valorising violence with its silence and excuses

I know it's not all of you but "The Left" as it likes to call itself really does have something of a problem with being extremely unpleasant. And this problem is getting worse not better.

It may not be the biggest of big deals but this rather illustrates the problem:

"The government has blocked a giant statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square over fears it will be vandalised..."

 So it's just a statue of Britain's first woman prime minister - something definitely worth marking in Parliament Square (where, in case you haven't noticed, there aren't many statues of women). But because of that unpleasant faction on "The Left" it isn't going to happen.

The bigger problem with all this is that so many of those nice, pleasant, decent folk who hold left-wing opinions are prepared to make excuses for the sort of people who indulge in this sort of vandalism and worse. You only need to read the story of the attack on Sarah Wollaston's office, listen to Sheryll Murray describing the appalling vandalism and personal attacks in her election campaign, or to run down the Tweets of the Liberal Democrat campaigner in Manchester targeted at four in the morning for the heinous crime of putting up some posters.

Yet every time the response is to swat it away - "every party has these people" - to draw a false parallel between policy disagreements and vandalism or personal attacks ("look at these political campaign posters I don't like") or whataboutery - "here's something nasty that a Tory said fifteen years ago, what about that then". When the extreme left target a Liverpool MP for the terrible crime of being critical of Jeremy Corbyn, targeting that includes appalling anti-semitism and misogyny, those nice, pleasant, decent folk with left-wing views do nothing and say nothing. Every time.

It's true that every party has its share of unpleasant folk but it's also true that only "The Left" valorises vandalism, personal insults, threatening behaviour, intimidation and bullying as campaign methods. And because those nice, pleasant, decent folk with left-wing views don't deal with it - even having the almighty gall to talk about some sort of "kinder" politics - this sort of campaigning continues.

I've said for a long while that our political culture celebrates the bully - you only need watch "The Thick of It" to appreciate this - but we now are in the position where a faction on "The Left" has lifted this unpleasantness and transferred it to the political campaign itself. In forty years as an active political campaigner, I've never known a time when so much unpleasant, personal and downright nasty campaigning has been directed at the good people who hold different political opinions from "The Left".

I know you consider yourself different. You're not part of that left, oh no. But so long as you tolerate, excuse, deflect or explain away violent campaigning, you are little different from the left wing men who are doing the vandalising, performing the intimidation and ganging up on those most exposed and especially women and ethnic minorities.

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Why Remain lost (more evidence of bad marketing)

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Politico has done a long interview - really a cobbling together of three interviews - with Craig Oliver who, we're told, ran the 'Stronger In' campaign having previously between the PM's communications guru. Oliver's background is as a TV producer - reports tell us a very good TV producer - which, unless my education is wrong, isn't a professional marketing role. And, it's true that while Oliver did some good (well sort of) stuff getting the then PM on the telly this is a long way removed from running a comprehensive marketing campaign - which is what Remain needed.

How completely separated Oliver is from any understanding of marketing is shown in this paragraph:

That week, one of Oliver’s trump cards had flopped. A senior MP, Sarah Wollaston, had defected from the Leave camp because of its dubious claim that leaving the EU would save £350 million a week that could be spent on the NHS. He had given the story to the Times, thinking it would lead their front page, but instead they buried it and splashed on a wealthy Tory donor endorsing Brexit (even though the Times ultimately endorsed Remain).

So someone who nobody outside Oliver's bubble knew existed 'defecting' was a 'trump card'? As if Mrs Smith on Branksholme estate in Hull knew or cared. If Oliver had been running a decent campaign, he'd have known what the problem was, known why Remain weren't getting traction with undecided voters (let alone shifting wobbly Leave voters). The Politico piece sets out how wrong:

Remainers came across as “too mean,” an adviser to the Leave campaign told me later. The clips just played to Leave’s argument that Remain was trying to keep voters scared.

The core of Oliver's campaign - a media war - wasn't working and all people like Oliver and Will Straw (another marketing know-nothing who ran Stronger In) could do was what they knew: more media, more attacks, more clips on the evening news.

It's clear from the interview that Oliver isn't about to admit to error and is writing a book - presumably 80,000 words of self-justification over the disaster of the campaign to remain in the EU.

When people look at the Leave campaign they focus on the divisions (Vote Leave, Leave.EU, Grassroots Out) and the clunky media campaign filled with faux pas and dominated by defensiveness over a factual error they'd committed to at the start of the campaign - the £350m claim. But Leave got something else right - it got its message through to two important targets: non- or occasional voters, and voters who hadn't decided.

What we see from Oliver is complacency and a failure to realise that referendum campaigns are not like general elections. The latter are driven as much by personality - could you see Ed Miliband waving in front of Downing Street - as by policy. Referendums aren't, they're driven by policy and what people see as policy - by trying to turn the campaign into an attack on Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, Craig Oliver and his team completely misread how people respond when asked a policy question.

In the end there were lots of reasons for Remain throwing away its advantage but it seems to me that the biggest reason was that the campaign not only lacked a marketing strategy worth the name but was led by people who wouldn't recognise marketing if it danced before them in a tutu.

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"The bigger the number the better" - public health campaigners' cavalier attitude to evidence

An entirely gratuitous picture of cake

I've felt for a long time that single issue campaigners of various kinds - poverty, public health and so forth - have a tendency to choose statistics that maximise the scale of the problem they are campaigning about. From the perspective of campaigning as a business, this makes a lot of sense - if we can demonstrate there are huge numbers 'living in poverty' or some sort of booze or food related crisis then the need for our campaign is all the greater. And we can present the stats to compliant - and media-scared - governments who will carry on providing the funds to pay us so we can carry on campaigning.

This hyping up of a problem does however have a downside - by making the numbers ever larger and the problem greater and greater we feed scepticism and cynicism in the population. If your recommended alcohol limits boil down to a glass of dry sherry twice a week the drinking public (and that's most of us) are going to think something like "that probably a load of nonsense, isn't it", And that public will carry on behaving just as they were before.

So the campaign is sustained because government is given scary figures by the campaigners. And the unwillingness of the population to change its behaviour (because it doesn't believe those scary figures) further reinforces the view of campaigners that "something must be done".

And now we have some evidence to support this theory:

People who think they are overweight or obese are more likely to pile on the pounds than those who are unaware that they may be heavier than doctors would advise, according to research.

The researchers show that telling people that they are fat is unlikely to work because of the stress associated with the stigma of fatness. Yet the obesity industry is utterly predicated on two interpretations of statistics - firstly the conflating of 'overweight and obese' into on number and secondly the narrowing of the definition of 'normal' weight. We're repeatedly told that two thirds of more of adults are 'overweight or obese' and in doing so extend the stigma of being a bit chubby from body image alone to body image plus health. This is despite there being no evidence at all showing that being overweight is unhealthy.

"Our results are similar to those from other recent studies, confirming that underweight and obesity class II+ (BMI > 35) are clear risk factors for mortality, and showing that when compared to the acceptable BMI category, overweight appears to be protective against mortality."

This is a pretty consistent finding - far from being chubby shortening our lives, the reality is that is probably extends them. If we were - given what the evidence tells us - to redefine healthy and unhealthy weights so as to direct appropriate interventions, a better definition would focus 'obesity' on people with a BMI in excess of 35. But were we to do this the numbers might fall from 'two thirds of adults and a third of children' to '5% of adults and 1% of children' - still a lot of people but not exactly a crisis. Such a change would challenge the huge sums being spent on anti-obesity campaigns and would call into question the ongoing campaigns against sugar, fat and the working class diet.

I am repeatedly told by public health folk that their work is 'evidence-based'. And they are very quick to point out studies that support their position. But when the evidence - as we see here with obesity - challenges the preferred position (and funding - Bradford spends over £2 million on its obesity team) it is simply ignored. By not fitting the narrative - 'global obesity crisis' - the pesky evidence undermines the strategies of public health and brings into question its programmes of work. This cannot be allowed.

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All over bar the voting...thoughts on an election campaign

A Denholme doorstep...

It rained today. I mean really rained. Torrents of cold water pouring down onto the Pennine village of Denholme. And we got wet - "I've never know rain like it" was one slightly exaggerated comment. We plodded on from house to house, talking about the main road through the village, the housing development just starting in the derelict (and unsightly) former mill site, and the work of the library that the community saved when Bradford Council wanted to close it down.

We heard about national politics too, about immigration and jobs, about the NHS and about the lack of trust in politicians. As always we listened, tried to get the message across about an improving economy and how we'd protected the health service from the worst of the cuts. Nowhere did we find antipathy - one man abruptly told us he wasn't voting indeed that he'd never voted and would never vote again. And there was the usual smattering, unsurprising in such dire weather, of people too busy or too tired to engage with a damp canvasser on the doorstep - "not interested", "not now I'm on my way out".

There were worries. The woman who invited me in to shelter in her porch so she could tell me how terrified she was at the prospect of a Labour government. Or the ambulanceman who, putting aside his worry about cuts to his service, said that we couldn't risk the economic recovery so he'd be voting Conservative. Time and time again the message came back - "we can't risk it", "Labour might tip the economy back", "I don't know what will happen if we get Miliband in charge".

And there were the waverers, the don't knows. the not sures and those not voting. Each one with a different concern - maybe immigration and Europe, perhaps something personal about social care but most often a real bemusement about the pitch being made to them. I know I can't change someone's mind on their front step in the pouring rain but I make the points - economic recovery, referendum on EU membership, investment in health - and hope that my little contribution (and the fact I've turned up on their doorstep) might tip them from don't know or not sure into voting Conservative.

Many of you will have watched this election through the prism of the media - debates, interviews, stunts, gimmicks, more manifesto launches than ever before (there seems to be one for every minority and every special interest these days), and the constant bickering of talking heads. You'll have laughed at the gaffes, spluttered in righteous indignation, argued with the TV and the radio. Some might have stepped a little further - attended a local hustings, rung a phone in, clicked on one of the avalanche of petitions that pointlessly clutter up our email in-boxes.

Out there on the doorstep it feels very different. For sure we meet the engaged and involved, the questioning, and the angry. But mostly we meet people who make clear that, however important the election might be to us politicians, they have things in their lives that are much more important. Like the man in Cottingley who said, "yes I'll be voting but I've not had time to think about it yet". Next to running his business, ferrying children around and fixing the cracked pane of glass in the conservatory, my plea for his vote is unimportant.

I've not watched much of the TV campaign and my consumption of the newspaper campaign comes courtesy of Twitter so I can't say who did well and who didn't. But I think that the two main parties have adopted very different strategies - Labour segmenting like mad and targeting bespoke messages to target groups of voters and the Conservatives preferring the bash, bash, bash of a repeated message. The marketer in me is curious as to which will be more effective - my direct marketing bias tells me Labour's approach, cynical and exploitative, owes more to Readers' Digest than David Ogilvie. And I know this works.

But I also know that the repeated message and the bestseller syndrome works as well - some of you are now bored with 'hard-working families', 'long term economic plan' and 'don't let Labour ruin it again' but these messages are just starting to get through to people like the man in Cottingley I mentioned above.

Back on those doorsteps what we get fed back to us are the messages that have filtered through - the real 'cut through' not the belief that getting something trending on Twitter is any sort of engagement with that electorate. So we hear those concerns that have reached people - immigration, health, the economy, the competence of Miliband and the threat to our unity from having separatists dictating government policy. No-one mentioned Miliband's 'pledge slab' or Cameron's slip up, no-one talked about bacon sarnies or Bullingdon boys, and no-one said a thing about the inundation of opinion polling that we've seen during this election.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow - other than that millions of men and women will exercise their franchise. I know what I hope for and I see those polls and their accompanying analysis - your guess is probably as good as mine so I won't be making any predictions. But on the dozens of occasions when people have asked me what's going to happen - usually in the context of not wanting a Miliband/SNP cuddle-up - I've answered along these lines:

"All I can do is put my cross in the right box and tell everyone I meet to do likewise."

That right box - for a load of reasons - is the Conservative box. Some of those reasons are negative - not wanting Labour to ruin the economy yet again while screwing us over for a load more taxes being a really important one. But most are positive - offering lower taxes, better managed services, the sort of real compassion we need rather than Labour's 'hug the poor but do nothing much to help them' attitude, and a chance to have a substantive debate and a real say on the UK's most important relationship, that with our European friends and neighbours.

There are lots of things that I don't like about the last five years - the nannying fussbucketry, the creeping erosion of civil liberties and the enthusiasm for grand projects like HS2 stand out - but anyone who thinks a Labour-led government would be any better in this regard needs their head examining. Add in the fascism of the SNP with their named person laws, minimum unit pricing and banning of songs and you get the recipe for the most illiberal government in the UK's history.

So put your cross in the right box tomorrow. Vote Conservative.

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In praise of the (election) workers

The last few leaflets

At the start of this seemingly interminable election campaign I was delivering 'In Touch' leaflets in Denholme. In that peculiarly Yorkshire spring precipitation that can't decide whether it's rain, snow, sleet or hail. I'd listened earlier to assorted pundits, journalists and such like holding forth about the issues in the election and social media was cluttered with gangs of smiling campaigners waving placards.

And I thought that the image of the election campaign given us by the media is pretty unrealistic. A more accurate picture of election campaigning would show me in a wind-cheater, scarfed up and shivering a little as I plod up Hillcrest Road delivering my own personal little message. And thousands of others doing likewise everywhere across the country. Not just the ones in those Twitter pics waving banners but loads of others who are delivering a few leaflets because they support the cause, because the candidate is a friend, because someone asked and they thought 'why not'.

So when you're feeling a little cynical about politics and politicians think instead about the lady delivering my leaflets up Wilsden Hill, a beautiful, almost unique collection of old agricultural buildings, workers cottages and great views. Or about the old man who delivers them round your way. Politicians (well nearly all of them - I can name a few that don't) recognise the importance of these people, listen to them and understand that they do it for a whole host of reasons.

Yesterday, as the temperature dropped and the clouds gathered in preparation for today's rain, I was delivering my leaflet in Harden. At one house a couple were sat in their summerhouse drinking tea - taking a mid-afternoon break as they put it - and we had a brief conversation. Mostly about the fact (which they hadn't appreciated) that there are local council elections on the same day as the general election but also about my lack of 'minions'. I didn't go on to explain that what 'minions' I have are, in truth, volunteers and mostly elderly. These are the people who help me campaign every year and their number and capability diminishes with each passing year.

When I was first elected - 1995 by just fifteen votes - things were very different. Across the four villages of Bingley Rural we ran a full polling day campaign having canvassed more than half the ward. Every polling station (bar two with only 150 electors each) was manned from 8am through to 8pm, numbers were collected and crossed off. And we knocked up and pulled out - even down to one colleague baby-sitting while someone went to vote and another driving someone to vote as she'd had one or two too many to drink. I remind everyone that this is why I was elected on that day.

On 7th May the same applies - there will be MPs and councillors elected because of those men and women who plodded up damp drives, gashed their fingers on rusty gates, fought the evil that is the English letterbox and braved 'beware of the dog' signs. For sure, all the nice comfortable warm folk clicking on things in their living rooms will have helped too but the real slog done by the party workers come rain or shine is the reason why safe seats stay as safe seats, why marginals are held against the swing and why people we didn't think will get elected get elected.

There are too few of these people - we couldn't muster the numbers to run a full, old-fashioned polling day campaign these days - and the national party headquarters, filled with young folk who've never done one of those campaigns, are not interested in finding more. Yet those people who do that delivering, canvassing, writing addresses, sticking on stamps and bashing in poster stakes are the political party - without them it's just a badge or a brand sustained by large donations or, worse, through state funding.

So, before all the different political leaders, campaign managers and political strategists start taking credit (or blame) for the election result, let's celebrate those ordinary election workers who delivered, rang, stuffed and knocked. They are better and more important than all the David Axelrod and Lynton Crosby sorts that litter our political scene. Well done - whatever party it's for- and thank you.

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Taking us for mugs - Labour, immigration and a panic about kippers

Seeing this delightful mug I thought back through all my years of active involvement in politics - from smuggling Monday Club Tory, Sir Patrick Wall into a meeting of Hull students (in his own constituency) through any number of local and national elections all of which have featured at some point the implication, nay insinuation, that saying we need to 'control' immigration is tantamount to racism. Indeed that we didn't really mean 'control immigration' but rather that this was code for something worse, something nasty and sinister, something racist. Saying we needed less immigration was always portrayed by Labour as but a short step from 'send the blacks home' or some other similarly unpleasant and bigoted policy.

That was until UKIP arrived on the scene. Up to this point Labour had stuck to its guns on immigration - pointing out that, mostly and most of the time, it's good for the nation and good for the economy. Whatever we may have thought about the issue, Labour's approach and its policy while in government was very clear - even when confronted with popular concerns about too much immigration:

It is the duty of government to deal with the issues of both asylum and immigration. But they should not be exploited by a politics that, in desperation, seeks refuge in them.

There is a position around which this country can unify; that we continue to root out abuse of the asylum system, but give a place to genuine refugees; that we ensure immigration controls are effective so that the many who come, rightly and necessarily, for our economy, to work, study or visit here can do so; but that those who stay illegally are removed; but that we never use these issues as a political weapon, an instrument of division and discord.

This view - that people come here 'rightly and necessarily' - was widely supported across the country and especially welcomed by a business community struggling for skilled recruits. In simple terms Labour was pro-immigration but against the abuse of the system. Today this has changed - the Party's position (albeit a little vague) has shifted noticeably away from 'follow the rules, play by the system, and you're welcome' towards the point where control - for which we will always read reduce the numbers - outweighs and rational discussion of migration. Labour is in a panic about kippers.

Labour got things wrong on immigration in the past. But Ed Miliband has set out a new approach: controlling immigration and controlling its impacts on local communities. Britain needs immigration rules that are tough and fair.

The Tories have let people down on immigration. David Cameron promised to get immigration down to the tens of thousands, “no ifs, no buts”, but net migration is rising, not falling. It’s now at 260,000, higher than it was when David Cameron walked into Number Ten, and the Tories’ target is in tatters.

The position here is rather different - it is the Conservatives that have failed because of those (rather dumb) net migration targets and Labour will, by implication, stop the tide. But the real drive in the Labour Party for this dramatic shift in immigration policy hasn't been some sort of Damascene conversion - or maybe just a cynical one - but rather the threat perceived in some Labour heartlands from UKIP.

Ukip are not about to overturn dozens of Labour’s northern heartlands. But the result in Heywood is further evidence of the threat that Ukip poses Labour. It is one rooted in much more than the charisma of Mr Farage, but the disconnect between Labour (and all main parties) and the working-class. In 1979, there were 98 manual workers and 21 people who worked primarily in politics in Parliament. In 2010, 25 manual workers were elected to Westminster - and 90 people who had worked primarily in politics before becoming an MP. Average turnout was just 58 per cent in Labour’s 100 safest seats in 2010.

I say the threat is perceived because I see little prospect of UKIP winning any seats - they've an outside chance in Grimsby but it's a long shot - from Labour in May. But Labour activists feel the challenge - the local councillors in Bradford who saw their majorities in safe seats dwindle to a handful, the activists who get berated by ex-Labour UKIP supporters at the working man's club or the trade unionists reporting how many of their manual labour members are making UKIP sort of noises at work.

Last year in Rotherham UKIP won 10 seats in that classic Labour rotten borough of Rotherham. We know the reasons but we overlook the wider reality - across those rotten boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield and Doncaster UKIP moved into second place and became the main challenger to Labour. And the traditional response to the "far right" (as Labour folk insist on calling nationalists) didn't work. People didn't think UKIP were racist - or at least no more racist than the Tories - and did think they had a point about immigrants, about political correctness and about local community.

The Labour people in these places had never been challenged. Or rather the challenge came from that nice bloke who owns a garage and always stands for the Conservatives. Now Labour felt threatened - branch meetings were dominated by people talking about what UKIP were doing. The poor quality (if shiny) leaflets from that party were give to councillors by folk with slightly shaking hands - "look, look - what are we going to do" exclaims the leaflet-finder. The MP is involved and, while reassuring local activists, heads off to London where he meets others with the same tales.

"We have to respond" these MPs say. "We can't be caught out on immigration. UKIP can win where the Tories never could". Party strategists (knowing full well that there's little or no chance of UKIP winning and that it's the Tories and SNP that Labour should worry about) sooth fretful MPs and dutifully inform higher-ups about their concerns. With the result that proper working-class policies are developed about 'controlling immigration' - local campaigners can point to the policy and persuade those disgruntled folk in Rawmarsh or Royton that they're best sticking with Labour.

Plus a mug. A mug that means people like me can point to Labour and say "you bunch of no good, low down hypocrites - after all those years of attacking Conservatives for wanting to control immigration, you come up with a policy important enough for you to emblazon it on a mug."

Or as someone called it - the racist mug.

The odd thing is that Labour know the numbers. They know they're not threatened by UKIP - indeed that in some places that Party's support holding up increases the chances of Labour winning. But because lots of ill-informed and panicky local councillors and activists are on about it, the Party has placed immigration controls at the heart of its election campaign. And of course on that mug.

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The Metis project won't solve the Conservatives' campaigning problem...

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There's a belief that Barak Obama won two presidential elections because his team were super slick with the on-line campaigning. All those voter demographics and behavioural metrics were the thing that meant Republicans stood no chance.

So it's no surprise that this things are now all the rage here in the UK - here's Sebastian Payne drooling over one such system in the Spectator:

... an alternative is revealed with the Metis project. Headed up by four of Westminster’s sharpest minds, Metis is destined to become the largest and most sophisticated voter database ever built in the UK. The power of a 20 million strong list of voters has the potential to revolutionise campaigning.

And it will do this by enabling:

...political parties to run highly targeted campaigns, focusing on individual voters whose support is vital to win key seats. More importantly, it will spare householders the sort of unwelcome attention that was lavished on them by over-enthusiastic (or desperate) campaigners in Eastleigh’

This is great - it reminds me of the Asimov short story, "Franchise", where

...the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held.

Such speculation aside, this sophisticated and targeted approach is only half the story of Obama's success - the other have is the activist, the boots on the ground:

So it was that Bird and his colleagues drew up plans to ­expand the electorate into one that could reelect Obama. In Ohio, for example, a “barber shop and beauty salon” strategy was designed to get likely Obama supporters, particularly African-Americans, to register to vote when they went for a haircut. “Faith captains” were assigned to churches to encourage parishioners to turn out for Obama. “Condo captains” were told to know every potential Obama voter in their building. The goal was like nothing seen in presidential politics: Each Obama worker would be ­responsible for about 50 voters in key precincts over the course of the campaign. By Election Day, that worker would know much about the lives of those 50 voters, including whether they had made it to the polls. Romney’s team talked about a ratio of thousands of voters per worker. It would prove to be a crucial difference.

Here lies the other half of the secret - the database that Obama's team used wasn't some clever piece of geodemographics spliced with a lifestyle database and based on questionnaire data. What they were using was real information about real people - and the contact was direct, personal and on the doorstep (or the barber's chair).

If UK political parties think that the solution is to echo Howard Dean's campaign, they are wrong. That campaign failed because it thought that political engagement on-line was everything - it wasn't and it isn't. If we run campaigns on the basis of manipulating large data sets the result will be a worse politics. And for those campaigners the approach probably won't work. Indeed, as Vince-Wayne Mitchell demonstrated years ago, you can make a large data set say almost anything you want it to say:

Suggests that a prima facie case exists for the suitability of astrology as a segmentation variable with the potential to combine the measurement advantages of demographics with the psychological insights of psychographics and to create segments which are measurable, substantial, exhaustive, stable over time, and relatively accessible. Tests the premise empirically using results from a Government data set, the British General Household Survey. The analyses show that astrology does have a significant, and sometimes predictable, effect on behavior in the leisure, tobacco, and drinks markets.

If political parties want to win they need to put boots on the ground, to collect data on the doorstep - for sure the sort of information in Metis will be useful, just as geodemographics have always been useful. To profile, to assist in targeting and to select geographically. These are relevant to politics but, just as is the case with regular marketing, a list of previous buyers - or previous voters - is much more responsive.

The task is to build that list - that is what Obama did. He did use a clever marketing database but applied on-line techniques to the age old method - speak to the voter, look him in the eye and ass; "will you vote for me?"

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Tokenism, gay marriage and the ethnic vote

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Mark Pritchard MP sets off to attack tokenism:

Tokenism has always been politically lazy. It can also go disastrously wrong as different religions, sects, and schisms within the same ethnic communities emerge over an election campaign. It is also worth remembering that whilst more MPs from Britain’s ethnic minorities would be a good thing, the majority of the electorate still rightly place more value on the calibre of a candidate rather than the colour of a candidate. Most want a candidate who share their values and are willing to fight their corner – irrespective of gender, race, or religion.

Absolutely agree there - if we are to secure support it has to be on the basis of values and not some carefully selected mix of black/white/man/woman/gay/straight. What I don't understand is why Mark Pritchard then proposes a tokenistic policy platform?

The Party could also shelve its misconceived same-sex marriage plans. Apart from antagonising the Tory grassroots and traditional Conservative voters, Number 10’s decision to press ahead with a Bill is likely to alienate large parts of the very same ethnic and religious groups the Party says it needs to attract to win the next general election. The Bill is self-defeating, divisive, and could inadvertently breed intolerance. To proceed regardless would show the Conservative Party as out of touch with many in the Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Christian communities – many of whom are Asian and Afro-Caribbean.

The Labour Party - which, if I might remind Mr Pritchard, is vacuuming up two-thirds of Britain's ethnic vote - is almost wholly in support of the proposed Bill on same sex marriage. Presumably the rules are different for Labour? They can propose socially liberal policies AND get lots of votes from ethnic minorities!

The reality here is nothing to do with gays - or for that matter women, abortion or dress codes. The problem is that lots of people in ethnic minorities don't trust us. Not because of our economic track record. Not because of our social policies. But because of immigration. Because of that 'dog whistle'. Because their Labour councillors, their teachers and their elders have told them Tories are racist.

And the politically ambitious from those ethnic minorities join the Labour Party because overwhelmingly that is the Party of power where they live. We won't change this in one or two years, we won't change it by putting a bloke with an Asian name in charge of campaigning in ethnic communities. We will change it by putting in resource on the ground - backing those few ethnic Tories in urban areas with professional support, with campaign finance and with the scope to develop policies that really do respond to the concerns of these communities.

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Campaign in the North...a message for the Conservative Party

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We often hear from London-based commentators that the Conservative Party has a problem in the North. Look, these men say, you have no councillors, no MPs and no organisation across the great cities of the North - Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle. How can you lay claim to being a national party when this pertains? And such wise men have a point.

Others tell the Party's leadership that they must have a plan for campaigning in the North. That the problem must be put right. And each time the psephological runes are read and Party managers decide that this isn't so - the solution (or rather the winning of an election) lies elsewhere.

The Tories have a 40:40 strategy for the next election. The aim is to defend their 40 most vulnerable seats and try and win 40 others to give the party a majority. So which 40 are in their sights? Normally, it’s an easy one to answer: you just look at the last election and count which seats have the most narrow Tory defeat.

If you’d done this, there would only be 9 Liberal Democrat MPs on the Tory hit list. But the Liberal Democrat vote has changed radically since the last election. So Stephen Gilbert, the PM’s political secretary,  has drawn up a new list, added in demographic factors, current polling data and consumer targeting. As a result, the  number of Liberal Democrat seats on the list more than doubled.

And of those 20 Liberal Democrat seats most aren't in the North of England - Solihull, Dorset Mid & Poole North, Wells, St Austell & Newquay, Somerton & Frome, Sutton & Cheam, St Ives, Chippenham, Cornwall North, Norwich South, Eastbourne, Taunton Deane, Eastleigh, Torbay, Cheltenham, Devon North, Carshalton & Wallington. Only Cheadle and Berwick-on-Tweed are in the North and neither are exactly typical.

There isn't going to be a plan for the North. There will be a few target seats - Bolton West, Wirral South, Halifax, maybe Morley & Outwood to annoy Ed Balls - but no plan looking beyond getting 316 MPs from anywhere. Right now the national Party's resource in the North consists of fewer than ten people working out of an office in Bradford. These people work hard and do a great job supporting campaigns from Carlisle to Grimsby and from Ellesmere Port to Ashington.

What there won't be is a strategy for the North or the redirecting of resource from London-based spin doctoring towards campaigning at the grassroots especially if those grassroots are a long way from nice London restaurants in places where people talk funny. The problem is that - as I'm sure Labour is in the South-West and Wessex - the Party is dying in the urban North. We are reaching the tipping point in Sheffield, Hull and Manchester where the situation is unrecoverable - as is undoubtedly the case in Liverpool. Worse still behind these barren places are a row of other places - Leeds, Bradford, Sunderland, Huddersfield, Salford - where only the efforts of a dedicated few folk (and the welcome collapse of Liberal Democrat aspirations) keeps the Party from the same oblivion as in those big cities.

We do need a plan but more than that we need some of the resources currently spent on sucking up to London-based journalists to be directed to the North, to supporting good quality campaign teams in these Northern cities. And this isn't just because it might help us win general elections in the future but because the alternative is to condemn Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and other Northern towns and cities to generations of corrupting single-party government from the Labour Party.

Having failed to resource - or actively support - campaigns for elected mayors, the Party now has to get back onto the ground, survey its wreakage and begin to build. We need to start campaigning against the deadening hand of the North's establishment - public sector panjandrums, Labour council leaders, trade unions and the occasional lawyer or property developer badged as "business".

What I do know is that, if we don't, there won't be a generation of Tories in Bradford to follow on from my generation. And I'm prepared to bet that the same goes for Leeds, for Hull and for Greater Manchester. It really is time for the Party to act. Further delay will be fatal for the Party in the North.

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#Greenpeacefail...

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If, say, a lobby group for forestry interests did this there would be the most enormous outcry:

The event was a hoax, and so was the follow-up email and the website with its often hilarious-if-it-wasn't-true fake...marketing copy.

Yet environmental campaign group Greenpeace are revelling in their media manipulation, lies and misrepresentation. Indeed as the New Statesman (hardly the most anti-green bunch) have put it:

The real villain here is Greenpeace. This is an NGO that thinks it is acceptable to lie to the public, to lie to bloggers and journalists, and to then intimidate writers with threatening emails warning of legal action. This absolutely is not okay. I don’t care if you’re saving the Arctic, rescuing kittens from YouTube’s vicious pet-celebrity training camps, or training pandas to pull famine-ridden children out of earthquake debris; to behave in this deceitful way demonstrates an astonishing amount of contempt for the public - not least for environmentalist supporters who spread their message in good faith only to find themselves forced into embarrassing retractions.

There is a limit to the bounds of campaigning. For me, Greenpeace crossed it years ago when they forced Shell to adopt a less environmentally sensible disposal of a redundant oil rig for the sake of cheap headlines and the 'kerching' of the organisations cash register. But this really is stepping even further beyond those bounds:

“Even if you think Shell is evil and will lie to achieve their goals, now you know Greenpeace is the exact same way.” 

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Councillor Ellis and the sheep...

One of those priceless moments for which cameras were invented. Shame then that I didn't have one with me!

We're putting up posters for Margaret Eaton's re-election campaign and pull up to a field gate on Keighley Road in Mike Ellis's big people carrier. The field beyond the gate is filled with sheep and lambs that, on hearing the van draw up and the hatch open come bounding, skipping and (in the case of one particularly ugly ram) marching down to the gate.

There's bleating in every possible tone from soprano to the deepest bass. These sheep clearly expect something and I'm prepared to bet that it isn't a 'Vote Conservative' poster - unless of course those have become edible recently.

So Mike enters the field - a little gingerly - clutching the poster and the string to attach it to the fence. The sheep close in, their bleating rising to a cacophonous crescendo - they are all but nibbling at Mike. The old ram is leaning hard against the gate - perhaps his aim is to stop the Councillor leaving the field until food is provided.

I'm stood there watching and trying not to laugh at the sight of a Tory councillor hemmed in on every side with sheep and lambs all yelling their heads off with the ovine equivalent of "where's our food then, mate!"

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Is there an election on already? Thoughts from the (sort of) campaign trail

Spent a fair old chunk of today traipsing round Bingley Rural banging in posters - around 40 put up today in assorted strategic (and not so strategic) locations. We've also got the deliveries more-or-less sorted for just over half the ward.

As ever, it was a real pleasure to go round the ward - everyone we met seemed pretty cheery. Lovely chat with a chap at The Bullfield in Harden - not about politics but about the seemingly endless task of sweeping up underneath trees and the testing of assorted different tools (those sucker-blower things are useless by the way) for this purpose.

Other subjects of conversation included Bradford Bulls - there were 24,000 plus at Odsal last night cheering on the Bulls and make their contributions to keeping the club going. It looks OK for a while but, as John (who I was speaking with) pointed out, "this doesn't solve the problem of bad management." And then there's the little gripes and grumbles - the latest one being flyposting. Or rather attaching advertising posters to lampposts without permission.

The thing with local campaigning is that you don't spend a whole lot of time engaged in serious debate about the great issues of the day. Not only do people not raise these things with you but there really isn't the time for such indulgence. When some politician pops up in parliament or (more likely) the council chamber and starts talking about what he is hearing on "the doorstep" don't believe a word. Most people tell answer your question - yes they'll vote for you, no they won't vote for you or, very, often something like:

"Er, is there an election?"

"I haven't thought about it"

"I'll read all the leaflets and then decide"

"I haven't spoken to my wife/husband yet so I don't know"

"I'm not interested"

Or maybe I've been asking the wrong questions "on the doorstep" for the past 35 years!

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Councillors and blogging - for the unbeliever

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From my colleague, Cllr Matt Palmer:

Some stats for unbelievers:

Established engagement: 

• Households subscribing to my weekly email list: 468 (only covers Burley - I don't do a Menston one at the moment so that's for half the ward)
• RSS news subscriptions to my web site: 435
• Monthly visitors to website at mattpalmer.net: 5,159 (10k page views)
• Monthly visitors to local discussion forum at wharfedaleforums.com: 11,855 (reading 95,556 pages between them)

 Local paper? About 1,130 in the same area in 2009 but fallen since then.

Almost all of this is from half my ward so with the right efforts over the next 8 years it could probably be doubled.

 
It does work!

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Charity isn't independent so long as it takes the government's cash...

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It may be the effect of opposition but Labour folk are keen to see the "third sector" distance itself from government. Here's the fresh new MP for Wigan:

"The Labour government treated the third sector like a third arm of the state and I was troubled by that," she said. "I thought it was problematic. Delivering government services means you have to agree with the government about how those services should be run."

As they say, Lisa, 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'!

Despite this the sector seems ever more conflicted over its relationship with government - sure, charities, social enterprises and such want to be 'independent' but they also seem to be firmly attached to the teat of public money. You cannot have it both ways - you can't take the government's money and then campaign against that government's policies.

So if you want an independent voice of advocacy on behalf of your beneficiaries then stop taking the government's cash, stop being sub-contractors to the state and raise your money privately from people who actually support your aims. Simple really!

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Campaign Diary: Days Seven and Eight - white dots and chasing fairies

 

A quiet start to the week - took an evening off from the doorstep as Kathryn had driven to Milton Keynes and back therefore earning rest rather than doorbells. Still most of the delivery is out the door - got Wilsden to sort out but that should be done before the end of the week.

Took a wander up to Harecroft, a little hamlet between Cullingworth and Wilsden, where there were concerns about the sudden appearance of white dots on the cherished stone flagged footways. Residents - quite understandably - feared the worst and that the council were planning to rip them up and lay low maintenance tarmac instead!

Turns out the white dots were a precaution - there had been a couple of attempts to steal the flags while some general repairs were ongoing. Painting white dots on them is a disincentive to theft as it would mark then as stolen! We learn something every day!

Still chasing whoever's responsible for the Cottingley Beck area - want to get on with sorting out what is a pretty important site the management of which is causing local residents (who are, in this case, paying directly for the upkeep) a great deal of annoyance and irritation.

Back to Harden this evening for canvassing - sun's out so should be good.

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Campaign Diary: Day Six - well it is Bingley RURAL!

Spent a really pleasant day exploring the rural in Bingley Rural. The picture above is the view looking back over Whiteshaw Estate towards Denholme.

Our journey started in the late morning with a circumlocation of Cullingworth. Chatted with walkers on the path to Sugden End Farm (weren't going to vote Tory but didn't live in my ward so who cares!) while waiting for half a dozen cyclists to struggle up the slope - rather them than me! Dropped in on Mrs Wood on Lees Moor - safely sat in her new bungalow (the one the planners didn't want to let her have - yours truly went to committee and helped secure the permission). Met some nice folk in the gorgeous little hamlet of Ryecroft - had a series of planning, water supply and environment issues there so they mostly knew me and appreciated the support. And then - via Leech Lane and a discussion about dog poo - to lunch in our own garden.

After lunch up to St Ives - absolutely heaving with families taking advantage of the free adventure playground, woodlands and walks. One of the best playgrounds you'll see and a facility we worked hard to get.  Here's a picture (taken on a much quieter week day!):

Great stuff - shows what Council's can do and fantastic to see so many people enjoying what we've put in. From St Ives - via the controversial barn at Beckfoot - to Hallas Bridge, one of the hidden wonders of the ward. A sweet little hamlet set down by Hallas Beck just along from Goit Stock waterfalls.

Up Bents Lane dropping in a farms, barn conversions, livery stables and cottages - ending up at Wheelrace Cottages where the lovely Mrs Lee gave us a cup of tea and we sat in her wonderful garden for half-an-hour. Then the final circle - round Denholme - Whiteshaw is all closed off now with big gates, codes and such making it a tricky place to deliver - shame but an illustration of how security conscious folk have become these days. Finished along Trough Lane - real mix between the conversions filled with well-off folk and the obvious struggle that is hill farming - you can see why farmers want to turn their fine stone homes and barns into posh living when it's evident that farming doesn't pay its way. It's a real shame that all of us who take advantage of the hard work these men put in looking after the hills and moors don't put a little back in - maybe stopping acting like we own it all would be a start.

Best day of the campaign so far - highlights including gatecrashing a house party, talking about campaigning in Clayton back in the 1960s and, of course, Mrs Lee's tea.

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Campaign Diary: Day Five - gardening and e-mails

I know, it's Saturday and the sun is shining - should be out there voter bothering! But we took the day off to do so gardening (see results above) - still managed to get some leaflets dropped with deliverers and to get a new deliverer too!

Also I've got off a load of e-mails to people I dealt with over recent times - always careful with this as we all get plenty of spam. However, it's a good idea to send a nice, personal note to people I've helped over the past few years - so I've done so.

As far as the politics is concerned, the good news of the pension changes is swamped by the annoyance among existing pensioners - who, of course, aren't getting the extra money! And it's the pensioners with savings or a second income who are squealing - they don't get all those pension credits.

Back tomorrow - after a day charging round the farms, barns and cottages that fall into the delivery round entitled: "remote".

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Campaign Diary: Day Four - Denholme, the AV referendum and curry!

Of the 40 delivery rounds in Bingley Rural, only 16 remain on my dining room floor - this is excellent. Took some down to my ward colleague, Baroness Eaton - had a bit of a giggle about being a "Lord" plus some ace gossip that I can't tell you about! Spent the morning in Denholme though - sad to see the way in which some folk are obviously struggling - evidence of aborted DIY projects, maintenance left undone and a depressing feel about parts. Sad that the good times passed so many folk by - hopefully the tax changes and such will help a little.

Also got a new deliverer - on the back of wanting to campaign against AV. Which was excellent news as the regular deliver for that patch can't do it any more! And reminded me that I've yet to encounter anyone on the doorstep who thinks changing to a new system of voting is a good idea - bear in mind that I'm not mentioning the referendum (selfishly I find my election to be more important).

I've received a few e-mails and phones calls following delivery - shows people are reading the leaflet which is good. One or two of these are real issues with the Council while the others are more political - will respond appropriately!

Last part of the campaign day was canvassing on Long Lane in Harden - really good response, nothing like a bit of sunshine to get a smiley response on the doorstep! And plenty of Tories too so we rewarded ourselves with a curry - at the fabulous Moghul's in Keighley (where we did some actor spotting).

A good day!

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Campaign Diary: Day One - adventures in fairyland!

On the fairy estate at Cottingley this evening – Lysander Way, Goodfellow Close, Titania Close, Oberon Way – plenty of support but more conversation than I remember. People raised some real concerns – some national like tuition fees, some local like the lack of police cover after 11pm and the parking problems outside Cottingley Village Primary (something of a long-standing nightmare, that one). And I had a long chat about gritting – real issue on these newer estates as the gritters can’t turn round in the shaped dead end streets.

Good to hear a mostly positive response from the Asian voters on the estate – and to note the normalisation of this place. Nice Tory voting white bloke in a house he bought from equally nice Tory voting Asians!

One big worry – the register is poor, three or four examples of people who should be registered but aren’t which is very sloppy. When we get to Hill Crest in Denholme the gap in the register reaches one in ten houses – all occupied.  It worries me that people are losing the opportunity to vote because the bureaucracy can’t be bothered.

Day One positive – lots to do and a few e-mails from today’s delivery which is good. Thirty days to go before polling day, feet a little sore but pleased by what I’ve seen and heard.

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