“Competence with a conscience” - how well is Nick Clegg’s narrative working?

“Competence with a conscience” sounds like a good, comfortable narrative for the Liberal Democrats.  But the voters don’t seem to be buying it.

Nick Clegg’s narrative to market the Liberal Democrats and our role in government was summed up in his speech at the National Liberal Club in May. The speech marked the first anniversary of the coalition’s formation.

At the next election, we will say that we are demonstrably more credible on the economy than Labour, and more committed at heart to fairness than the Conservatives. I am confident that by showing we can combine economic soundness with social justice – competence with a conscience – we will be an even more formidable political force in the future.

These themes are elucidated in Nick’s foreword to the Facing the Future paper, to be considered by the party conference this week.

For the conference season, Populus has produced its latest findings on how the parties are perceived by voters.  The results aren’t exactly encouraging for the Liberal Democrats. A useful summary comes from Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report:

Historically these Populus questions tended to show that the Lib Dems had the positive party image. That is no longer the case. They have the least positive score on every measure except being for ordinary people [with 45% agreeing it applies to the Lib Dems], where they at least beat the Tories [with 30% agreeing].

This is very important – and very worrying.  In the run-up to the last general election, the image of “being for ordinary people not the best off” was, with a reputation for being honest, one of the party’s most positive brand assets.

We have often heard the argument that being in coalition would make the party more credible to voters.  Once they saw us delivering in government and taking the hard decisions, voters would take the Liberal Democrats more seriously  – the “competence” part of Nick’s desired brand.  But Anthony Wells explains:

On having a good team of leaders [the [Lib Dems] are on 31% (down 13 since last year), on sharing peoples’ values they are on 36% (down 5), on being honest they are at 35% (down 6), on competence they are at 31% (down 10), on party united they are at 27% (down 13), on having clear ideas they are at 31% (down 11). In most cases the party’s ratings had already dropped sharply last year following their decision to enter the coalition – these falls are on top of that.

Then, Wells rams the point home:

In summary, go back a couple of years and people tended to give the Lib Dems the benefit of the doubt, there was a tendency for people to assume they were good, honest and caring people (even if other polls also suggested people rather doubted their policies would work or they had any chance of actually winning). That positive party image took a knock after the removal of Charles Kennedy, but was on its way to recovery by 2009. Since then it has fallen through the floor.

Nick Clegg’s rating for “competence” may vindicate his coalition strategy

Coalition narrativewatch: alarm clock Britain

How to rebuild the Liberal Democrats’ identity

[This is an edited and updated version of my speech to the consultative session on party strategy at the Liberal Democrat conference, 19 September 2010]

We Liberal Democrats need to think seriously about the party’s identity – but we need to understand how the voters see us, not about how we see ourselves.

Remember the Times-Populus polls we hear about year after year.  In 2007 and 2008, clear majorities saw the Liberal Democrats as being “made up of decent people but their policies probably don’t really add up” and “basically a protest vote party because they have no chance of ever winning”.  Many think that a vote for the Lib Dems was a wasted vote.

It’s not all bad, however. As Labour’s flame flickered and died, the Liberal Democrats were seen as the nicest, most empathetic party: “for ordinary people, not the best off”, the most honest and principled — as we’ve proved ourselves many times.  By the middle of the 2010 general election campaign, Nick Clegg was perceived as, by far the most honest leader and the one most in touch with ordinary people.

But the 2010 British Election Study has found that we didn’t win any of the arguments on the policy issues that mattered most to voters.  According to Ipsos-MORI, we weren’t seen to offer a credible team of leaders.

Then the coalition came.  Now the big story people hear from government ministers is that they are to fix the crippling deficit that Labour left behind.  By paying off our bills and living within our means, we will have fiscal redemption.   It’s little wonder the familiar Lib Dem messages have been crowded out.

So we – all of us - have to get back into the persuasion business and start telling people about the difference we are making in government on the issues that matter.  They’ll judge us on what we do, not on what we used to say.

No, that doesn’t mean being like the town cryer in the square – “hear ye, hear ye, here’s a big list of policies”.  And no, it doesn’t mean dusting down the old manifestos, leaflets and slogans of yesteryear and pretending that the last coalition never happened. I’ve never met a liberal who thinks who you can go back.

What I’m talking about is telling people stories about what Liberal Democrats in government are doing now, giving reality to our values.  Stories because that is the way people have communicated for thousands of years.  Stories about the difference Liberal Democrats are making – giving the specifics.  Most of all, stories about the people whose lives will be better as a result.

Here are two quick examples.  I can remember Nick Clegg, years ago, calling for more money to be focussed on the most disadvantaged pupils.  We worked up the idea and campaigned for the pupil premium at the election and now our ministers in government are making it a reality and thousands and in time millions of people will have a better start in life.

And we can’t forget the area where we have shown a strong commitment for decades, and reaped some political benefits: looking after the environment and tackling climate change.  Chris Huhne and Vince Cable have reaffirmed their joint commitment to building a low-carbon economy that will meet our ambitious climate-change targets, deliver energy security for all of us and help our economy to recover.  They are telling us how the Liberal Democrats government will do it.

So, let’s start telling people the stories.

Explaining the Liberal Democrats’ disappointing performance in 2010: an update

I have just come across the “emerging evidence” from British Election Study (BES) for the 2010 general election.

The findings confirm two of my earlier conclusions, based on the Ipsos MORI election data: that Liberal Democrat support grew during the campaign but remained soft; and whilst Nick Clegg’s personal support shot up after the first debate, support for the Lib Dems did not firm up as a result. 

As the BES summary and conclusions slide puts it:

With weak fundamentals, ineffective campaigns and widespread voter disaffection with politics as usual, the two major parties were susceptible to a move by the Liberal Democrats.  The leader debates provided the Liberal Democrats with the exactly the opportunity they needed.

Despite their surge after the first debate, the Liberal Democrats had to rely heavily on Nick Clegg’s popularity.  Their partisan base remained small, and they had little pulling power on the economy, the issue that dominated the campaign.

On the last point, the BES data seems to back up another of my previous conclusions: the Lib Dems did not win any of the arguments on the issues that mattered most to voters.  Only 9% of the CIPS post-election respondents chose the Lib Dems as the best party on the issue they saw as most important.  (Yes, nearly half of those who saw the environment as the top issue opted for the Lib Dems.  But “green issue” voters accounted for only 3% of the electorate.)

The Lib Dems can draw a small amount of comfort from this BES finding:

… no party had the overall pulling power on major issues that Labour enjoyed in 1997, 2001 and 2005.  In the CIPS post-election survey only 25% chose Labour as best on most important issue and only 30% chose the Conservatives. 

And one of the above BES conclusions should be tempered, just a little.  Voters were more likely to see the economy as the number one issue.  Amongst those most concerned with the economy, the Lib Dems drew even with Labour and the Conservatives as the best party.  I am sure that has not happened before.

But there’s no getting away from the twin realities.  The Lib Dems will make little further progress unless we are more credible across the range of key issues that matter most to voters.  And we need to go into election campaigns with a stronger base of core supporters. Just 11 per cent of voters, the same proportion as in 2005, identified with the Liberal Democrats in the run-up to the campaign.  Neither Labour nor the Conservatives made any progress on that front either, but both started from much higher bases. 

The big question for the next five years is: how will being in the coalition help or hinder the Liberal Democrats’ efforts to build more credibility on the issues — and a stronger partisan base? 

Analytical, pragmatic revolutionaries who see both sides - understanding the leaders from Generation Jones

Do you really know what you’re getting from Generation Jones - the people who now rule much of the world?

Earlier this week, Cari Oke (a fellow Joneser) commented on how leaders from our generation are more likely than our forebears to  strive for the greatest possible agreement when political choices have to be made.

As Gen Jonesers hover on either side of the half-century mark, are we seeing the telltale signs of our empathetic natures? …  President Obama, born in 1961, is well known for his ability to see many sides of an issue and his belief that two sides can be brought together with a little help from a friend. Supreme Court nominee and Joneser Elena Kagan, born in 1960, continues to defy efforts at labeling. The best anyone can do is to call her a moderate.

For years, I’ve noticed and approved of the way “liberal-left” politicians from Generation Jones try  seriously to follow political principles that are once “idealistic” and  “pragmatic”. The obvious example, going right back to the “neoliberal” triumphs of the 1980s, are the concerted efforts to reconcile “social equity” with “economic efficiency”.  Another example is the concerted effort that has been made over the last decade or so to synthesise “economic prosperity” and “environmental sustainability”.

But then I am, after all, a paid-up member of Generation Jones who has supported the New Zealand Labour Party and now the Liberal Democrats.  And that may be one reason why I am more prepared than some Liberal Democrats to cut Nick Clegg (born 1967) some slack as he tries to frame the coalition government’s tough fiscal policies as progressive, as well as responsible.   In today’s Guardian, Nick cites his conversion over fiscal consolidation as an example of accountable politics.  Nick even says:

“I am a revolutionary but I am also a pragmatist.”

The latest example of the Jonesers’ empathetic, thoughtful but somehow ambiguous brand of politics is Australia’s new prime minister, Julia Gillard.  Born in 1961, she is the latest member of Generation Jones to take power.   Her competence and professionalism are not seriously disputed.  Nor is her ability to consult or to engage in serious dialogue on tricky policy issues.  Sounding like a true Joneser, she has promised:

“We will consult, listen and encourage people to give their best and we will work through the nation’s policy challenges with a calm, methodical and analytical approach.”

In his first weeks in the top job, prime minister Gillard has cut a deal with the mining industry over resources taxation – trying to make the government’s “fairness” rhetoric work alongside the industry’s needs. But she has come across as less than forthright over border protection and the processing of refugees.  And the commentators are now asking Gillard to explain what she really stands for and reminding us that you win elections by setting out a clear path to the future.

There’s an even bigger question around Julia Gillard – and Barack Obama and Nick Clegg for that matter.  Even if another of Cari Oke’s observations about my generation sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, it still makes for uncomfortable reading.

While watching the implosion of Joneser General Stanley McChrystal’s career, one has to wonder if the Generation Jones ability to see both sides also allows us to play both sides. Does this characteristic come back to bite us in our once bell bottom clad butts? I could argue either way.

I hope that it doesn’t bite us anywhere.  I am waiting and hoping for Barack Obama, Nick Clegg (though he’s a deputy PM in a coalition government) and Julia Gillard to use their times in the sun to deliver a politics that is new and different in its substance.  A competent, empathetic style of governance is most welcome. Using it to deliver the politics of the “soft heart” and the “hard head”, based on a more environmentally sustainable economy, would be great. 

Pollwatch: Ipsos MORI helps to explain disappointing Lib Dem performance in 2010

Ipsos MORI has just published a digest of polls conducted during, and just prior to, the 2010 election.  Their findings are interesting and offer some explanations for the Liberal Democrats’ disappointing performance.

Here are the main points that I have taken from the Ipsos MORI material.

·         The Liberal Democrats won the “young women’s” vote.  The Lib Dems were the preferred party of women voters aged 18-24, where we had a 4% lead over the Tories.  This is the only demographic group in which we clearly prevailed; our support from younger women was 8% up from 2005.  Conversely, older men were least likely to vote for us: just 16% of men aged 55 or older voted Lib Dem.  Overall, Lib Dem voters were more likely to be female than male – but then so were Labour’s. [click here]

·        The Liberal Democrats performed best amongst younger voters and worst amongst older people.   30% of 18-24 year olds voted Lib Dem, putting us level-pegging with the other parties in this cohort The Lib Dems did well amongst 25-34 year olds too.  But voters were inclined to vote for us in inverse proportion to their age: just 16% of those aged 65 or older voted Lib Dem.  The support patterns amongst age groups were even more pronounced than in 2005.  [click here] 

·         The Liberal Democrats performed best amongst higher income voters and worst amongst lower income voters.  Voters voted Lib Dem in inverse proportion to their social class.  We had 29% support amongst “ABs” but only 17% from “DEs”.[click here]  Now, put some of these trends together: just 13% of “DE” men voted Lib Dem.

·         Liberal Democrat support grew during the campaign but was still soft.  Just before polling day, 43% of Lib Dem voters though it was “very important” who won the election, compared to 53% of Labour voters and 59% of Conservatives.  This might explain why the Lib Dems were vulnerable to “late squeeze” messages from the other parties.  But we shouldn’t get too carried away with Ipsos MORI’s data on this point.  34% of Lib Dem voters thought they might change their mind before they voted, lower than the 20% of Conservatives who thought they might switch but about the same figure as for Labour voters (32%).

·         Nick Clegg’s personal support shot up after the first two debates – but that did not strengthen his party’s vote.  Just before polling day, voters still saw David Cameron as the most capable prime minister and the Conservatives as having the strongest team of leaders — with the Lib Dems a poor third.  This mattered: for the first time ever, leaders were as important as policies in driving the way people voted.  Yet the reasons for the lack of a “Clegg effect” may be more deep-seated than anything that happened during the campaign.  The chart on page 15 of the overview (pdf) document shows that Nick Clegg’s positive ratings prior to the campaign did not pull up the Lib Dem share of the vote.  In other words, whatever people thought of Nick’s performance in the debates, they may not have been disposed to take the party all that seriously.

·         Once again, the Lib Dems did not win any of the key policy arguments.  Policies are another basic test of credibility.  In February, voters perceived the Conservatives (by a 2% margin) as having the best policies overall, with the Lib Dems in third place.  In March – just before the official campaign started – the Conservatives were the preferred party on two battleground issues, asylum / immigration and crime, with Labour leading on health and unemployment. The only issue on which the Lib Dems led was climate change.  But the party had a margin of just 2% (over Labour) here.  And climate change was the area in which voters were most likely to rate no party as having the best policies.  There’s more: only one voter in 20 saw climate change as “very important”.   Crucially, on the issue of most concern to voters – the economy – no party established a clear ascendancy.

The lightsabre passes to a new generation of leaders

This week, we saw a real British revolution: the handover of power from a Labour government to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat adminstration, this country’s first coalition government since World War II. 

But another transition took place this week, that may prove to be every bit as important.   The baby boomers’ generation, embodied by the outgoing Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown (born 1951) and the party’s deputy leader, Harriett Harman (born 1950), were sent packing.  

In their place came Conservative prime minister, David Cameron (born 1966) and Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg (born 1967).  They are both representatives of what the American commentator Jonathan Pontell calls Generation Jones. This cohort was born between 1955 and 1967 and they are the real children and not the “flower children” of the 1960s, part of a demographic bridge that came between the “boomers” and Generation X, born between 1968 and 1980.   

Pontell  describes Generation Jones as:

 

practical idealists, forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part.

Yes, the UK has cabinet government, not a presidential system and some of the new coalition’s key players and senior office holders are not part of Generation Jones.  The chancellor, George Osborne (born 1971) is a GenXer.   The business secretary, Vince Cable from the Liberal Democrats, was born during World War II.  Tory “big beast” Ken Clarke (born 1940) predates them all. 

But the demographic tilt is unmistakeable.  The foreign secretary, William Hague was born in 1961.  The home secretary, Theresa May was born in 1956, education secretary Michael Gove in 1967 and the defence secretary, Liam Fox, in 1961.   On the Liberal Democrat side, the chief secretary to the Treasury, David Laws was born in 1965.

And the new parliament is dominated by Generation Jones.  Dods Research has  found that 291 of the 649 MPs elected so far were born between 1955 and 1967. 

These UK politicians join other Jonesers who have reached the top of politics in recent years: Frances’s president Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955), Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel (born 1954), Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd (born 1957), London’s mayor Boris Johnson (born 1964) and New Zealand’s prime minister John Key (born 1961).

What marks these leaders out is their efforts to leave behind old political battles, and, perhaps, core ideologies.  Sarkozy would rather that France forgot all about Paris in May 1968.  Key was too young to protest against the Vietnam war and, astonishingly, once said that he could not remember whether he was for or against the 1981 Springbok tour.  And, of course, Barack Obama offered Americans the opportunity to move on from the culture wars that started in the 1960s.  He came to prominence by declaring, “there is no red state America, there is no blue state America; there is the United States of America”.

But whether they stand on the moderate left or the moderate right, the leaders from Generation Jones have been less clear about defining what they stand for, as opposed to what they want to cast aside.

The UK’s new leaders seem to fit the Jones pattern.   David Cameron defined himself by breaking with Thatcherism and insisting that there is such a thing as society after all. Nick Clegg is the first leader of the Liberal Democrats who has not belonged to either the Liberal Party or the SDP.  Much of the analysis of the UK’s new coalition government has focussed on the prevailing “pragmatism” of Cameron and Clegg.  [Click here, here and here.] 

Yet there may be more to Britain’s Jonesers than pragmatic politics; the “new politics” is not value-free.  The May 2010 issue of Prospect magazine features a lengthy article about what David Cameron stands for.  The writer, Wendell Stevenson, concludes that Cameron is motivated by the need to serve and to lead but has not yet formed a clear vision of where he wants to take the country.  Cameron can point to a big idea: the “big society”, based on community and volunteerism, even if he has not been able to explain what it really means.

Nick Clegg has written and spoken extensively about:

a progressive politics [that is]  about empowerment, reducing dependency on the state, increasing social mobility through individual empowerment, releasing power from the centre politically …

Many times he has described his mission as to “change politics and change Britain.”

As an active Liberal Democrat who was born in 1962 – a Jones year — I am, of course, biased about all of this.  But no, I don’t think it’s not quite as simple as, “my leader has ideals and the Tory doesn’t”.  The two leaders seem be in broad agreement about the sorts of ideas outined above, and the experience of office will test them both, and force them to re-evaluate and re-think their ideas and their political strategies and tactics.  For now,we need to be clear about how we got to this point.

After the election resulted in a hung parliament, Cameron reached out to Nick and offered to begin talks aimed at sharing power in government.  They succeeded; the Lib Dems did very well, despite coming to the table with a poor hand.  Whatever anyone thinks of the new alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, nobody can doubt that for both parties, it’s a risk of historic dimensions.  Both Cameron and Clegg have put themselves and their parties on the line to make the “new politics” a reality.

Practical idealism, or what?

Welcome to the age of Generation Jones.

Cameron, Clegg show how stories can work- and how they can fail

Conservative leader, David Cameron, told a few anecdotes — stories — in Thursday’s TV debate.  Politicians are often told, by people like me, that stories are the best way to get their messages across.  But Cameron is being pilloried for telling stories. 

According to the Leftfootforward blog, Cameron’s claims that Humberside Police had “five different police cars and that they were just about to buy a £73,000 Lexus” have been disputed by the police.  The Met has challenged Cameron’s jibes about “form-fillers” as misleading and out of context.

You might want to have a play with the David Cameron anecdote generator.  On a more serious note, Max Atkinson has asked whether all three leaders may have told too many anecdotes on Thursday night.

He may have a point.  But I think the real issue may be the sorts of stories they told.  The Australian consultancy Anecdote have suggested some tests for what makes stories have impact:

·      Clarity—you hear or read the story once and you get it. It’s simple, clear and has a good narrative structure (time markers, characters, begin-middle-end).

·      Emotional—it gets you in the gut. It doesn’t matter what emotion it evokes but impactful stories evoke at least one strong emotion.

·      Believable—it doesn’t sound like bullshit. Facts and figures help but not too many. Details help with real people’s names and specific dates and times.

·      Transport—it transports you to relive the experience. You can see, hear, touch, smell and taste the experience.

·      Surprising—it throws you a curve ball that you weren’t expecting.

·      Relevant—does it talk to the topic under investigation.

Cameron told an anecdote  about meeting a “40-year-old black man” who had served in the Navy “for 30 years” and agreed that immigration was “out of control”.  This may have been surprising but it wasn’t believable.  The man’s age and experience, as recounted by the Tory leader, didn’t add up.  Even more importantly, the accuracy of the story, like the police Lexus and the form fillers, has  been called into question.  The man in question has now disputed Cameron’s account and said that “Britain needs immigrants”. 

I for one didn’t get the relevance of the Lexus story at the time and it evoked no particular emotional response.

Of the Anecdote tests, “emotional” and “relevant” seem the most important in political debates.  When a politician uses an anecdote, it should help to express their overall narrative about what has gone wrong (and right) and their vision of the future.  The anecdote should illustrate or set up a specific solution, a way forward that fits into the politician or party’s overall image.  This is a political version of what Stephen Denning calls a springboard story.  Cameron kept failing to provide clear solutions, even with his “my mother was a magistrate in Newbury” anecdote.

Nick Clegg told at least one good political springboard story with his anecdote about how restorative justice has been used successfully in Sheffield, where he has his own constituency.  He explained how a Liberal Democrat solution has been tried somewhere and used stats to show that it has worked.  And it tied into his big narrative, this time about how the other parties keep talking tough on crime and keep failing to deliver.

One more reason that he triumphed.

What voters think of Nick Clegg - an update

  This week’s Times-Populus poll of Labour – Conservative marginal seats tells us a bit more about voters’ views of the three main party leaders, including Nick Clegg.

Nick is perceived as the most authentic of the party leaders.  Asked whether each leader “generally says what he really thinks, not just what spin doctors tell him to say”, they gave Nick a spread of plus 25 per cent.  For David Cameron the figure was plus 18 per cent.  Both opposition party leaders were well ahead of Gordon Brown (plus 6 per cent).

The Populus result ties in with previous polls that gave Nick high marks for being honest and not just saying what people want to hear. Last week’s YouGov poll for The Sun found that he came top for being “honest” with a 23 per cent score, compared to 21 per cent for Brown and 20 per cent for Cameron.

The YouGov poll gave Nick the highest rating (21 per cent) for “being in touch with the concerns of ordinary people”.  This is also consistent with previous surveys.

Voters may see Nick as the most sincere and empathetic leader, but they may not know what he stands for.  When Populus put the proposition “I have a clear sense of what he really believes”, respondents gave him a spread of plus 14 per cent.  That compared to plus 27 per cent for David Cameron and plus 15 per cent for Gordon Brown.  And 26 per cent, more than three times the figures for the Labour and Tory leaders, replied “don’t know” when asked this question about Nick.

Now, here’s the real rub.  Voters like Nick but they are still unsure about his leadership qualities.  According to Populus, he had a spread of plus 49 per cent for being “nice, likeable”, the same figure as for David Cameron and much better than for Gordon Brown (plus 8 per cent).  They see Nick as “strong and determined” (plus 40 per cent) but not as much as Cameron (plus 62 per cent) and Brown (plus 52 per cent).  And people in the Populus survey were evenly split on whether “he has what it takes to be a leader”.

The YouGov survey told a similar story.  Just 7 per cent of respondents saw Nick as “strong”.  Brown came top on this one (!) with 26 per cent.  And just 6 per cent saw Nick as “a natural leader”, compared to 22 per cent for Cameron.

Nick’s real challenge is a familiar one: a large chunk of voters still don’t know him.  In the Populus poll, at least a quarter of those voting replied “don’t know” to the questions about him. (And 40 per cent did not know if he was a “family man”!)  In the YouGov survey, 38 per cent did not know which of the listed qualities to associate with him.  The general election campaign should resolve that, one way or the other.