Political policy
Alex Massie, over at the Spectator, has made a number of references to the coalition’s ineffectiveness when selling policy. And he has a point. He says:
‘Generally speaking whenever someone complains that you have a communications problem what they mean is that you have a policy problem. But this government really does have communications problems too.’
The eternal debate of good policy versus good politics has been tackled by many smarter and more articulate then myself – but let me give it a stab from a comms perspective.
Good politics can be defined by perceived motivation. To be seen to be doing the right thing, as many have said, is more important than actually doing the right thing. From a communications perspective the argument to win is therefore not ‘how this will benefit the country’ but instead ‘we are doing this for the right reason’.
The left have always understood this. It is why Gordon Brown and New Labour’s legacy remain comparatively unscathed next to the respective outcome of their policy decisions. From the 50p tax rate to independence of the Bank of England, the perceived motivation behind each was to be admired. Incompetence can be excused when pure – a streak of sentimentality that runs in the very DNA of our culture.
(Interestingly, consider the two biggest shocks to the New Labour juggernaut – Iraq and the 10p tax rate. Both broke the fundamental rule of good politics – the country decided that the motivation behind them was different to that being claimed – revenue generation and securing oil respectively. An over-simplification, but in losing the purity of their motivations these two actions sparked the death knell of both Blair and Brown)
Two things emerge from this. Firstly, that perceived motivation runs to the very core of a party’s identity. It can not be shaped by individual policies (although it can be lost) but the party or individual’s ‘reason to exist’. In short, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. This simplistic perspective is hard wired into our consciousness and passed down family lines and within communities and form such an integral part of our identity that all the PR in the world won’t shift it
To change this will take many years or concerted effort and shows why Cameron is right to continue with the decontamination of the Tory brand. The Torys are still the nasty party. (NB – Labour have always been the nice party – to win the battle of competence is one of rationality, and therefore much easier that win the hard wired emotive argument of having ‘people’s interests at heart’)
The second that the coalition has been the author of its own downfall. They had a unique opporutnity to define their reason to exist. As a unique entity the tribal perceptions that come to classify individual parties were weaker. It was a classic branding exercise with a relatively blank canvas to work from. The radical policy approach was waiting for a grand narrative to how it was being pursude for the ‘right reasons’. For fairness, opportunity or freedom? Well yes, but the ‘right reason’ selected and enforced with rugged abandon was to ‘reduce the national debt and bring sanity to our finances’
This is the grand narrative of the coalition government. Decisions being made BECAUSE of the nation’s finances – the role of fairness, opportunity etc simply to soften the blow and justify why each ‘negative’ decision was made (we didn’t want to do this, we had to) . In a culture in which cuts are seen as negative, to then frame every decision as a cut (regardless of impact on finances) seems somewhat foolish.
The power of this narrative is such that it tarnishes all it touches. NHS reform becomes cuts by the back door, Free Schools are a way to remove money from traditional state schools. And because the coalition has defined its reason to exist to mend the nation’s finances, all attacks of this nature stick with the public. A failure of their own making.
Tactically this was a huge flaw – but the outcome is more serious. Re-alignment of British politics was the prize. And it could have been achieved if the coalition’s reason to exist was to provide a radical new approach to fairness and opportunity (or words to that effect)
Instead the motivation behind every decision is now defined, the purpose of the coalition set in stone in the hearts and minds of the British public – a coming together of necessity driven by both a need and desire to cut.
The best the coalition can hope for is therefore appreciation. Good policy judged on outcome. But being proved right 10 years after the act never helped anyone.
To return to Alex’s initial point, far from being good policy at the route of a communications failure, it is instead a communications failure which has shown the coalition’s inability to do good politics.
