LIBERATOR ARTICLE – WINNING HEARTS AS WELL AS MINDS
I have never really been a numbers man. If I had been, I may have had second thoughts about taking leadership of our party with our polling remained stubbornly around the asterisk mark.
In fact I may have had second thoughts long before that, when in in 1976 I was first selected for Yeovil only to find the party getting beaten at the ballot box by the National Front.
I have never been a numbers man for a simple reason: I am not the sort of politician who dreams of being an accountant.
That’s not to say that accountants do not have their place in parliament; frankly a few more on the Labour Party benches during the last government may have saved us from some of the mess we’re now having to clean up.
But while I doff my cap to this breed of politician and will always bask in their brainpower, concentrating on the numbers has never really been my style.
Which, you may well think, might make co-ordinating a General Election campaign a little tricky.
To which I would reply: “With numbers like ours, frankly it helps!”
Clearly, I jest – as, indeed a man of my considerable years is entitled to do. But within this there is a kernel of truth. For instead of being a numbers man, I am a hearts-and-minds man. I see the role of politicians not just to scrutinise but to lead. And the role of a leader is to pioneer, persuade, enthuse and cajole.
I enjoyed this part of my job that during my time as captain of our ship. And that’s how I see my role now that I’m back down in the engine room, stoking the fire.
So, guess who in this rather tortured analogy are the flames?
Yup, that’d be our members. They are the bright light that heats this party, the furnace of activity that powers our ideas, the flames that will singe our opponents if they venture too close.
Ok, ok, enough of that.
The General Election campaign will feature numbers, of course it will. The number of jobs created under this government especially apprenticeships. The amount of pupil premium funding awarded to each school. The proportion of people we will take out of income tax in your constituency and so on. These are all hugely important figures that we will all need to learn by rote as the campaign approaches (though there’s no time like the present…)
I am sure that, true to form, our manifesto numbers will shine, the sums will add up and confound the critics with the simple purity of both its liberalism and practical common sense. Described begrudgingly in 2010 by the IFS as the “least worst” of the three main parties our numbers are often right.
But numbers alone will not be enough come 2015. We live in a deeply cynical age where anything a politician says will be taken with a big dollop of cynicism by a sceptical electorate. We’re just not getting the benefit of the doubt any more. Pure statistics run the risk of hitting an impenetrable wall of doubt and distrust. Even the most finely-crafted arrow cannot pierce that kind of granite.
So I see it very much my role to make certain our campaign speaks directly to people in a way that does penetrate those defences. It is to make sure that we take each of our achievements and policies and craft a narrative that explains how each helps reach our fundamental goals: creating a society that is fairer, freer; much less conformative and much much more meritocratic.
That is why when our team crafted the central message that we will fight the next election on the argument that the Liberal Democrats will create a stronger economy and a fairer society, I insisted we added a third prong: enabling everyone to get on in life – that means empowering them and giving them the freedom to live their lives as they want, not as conformity demands
And it’s why you can be sure we’ll always strive to run a campaign with heart and passion which will both unite our activists and inspire the voters.
We must never forget what makes us a unique political force. In my opinion it is summed up in that one little verb, to enable.
Our mission in 2015, as it is in every election, is to set out onto the doorsteps of Britain and explain why we are the only party that will harness the powers of the state to set the individual free. Why we are the only party that will hammer away at monopolies that shackle us all, whether they be in the private or public sphere. And why we are the only party that embodies the spirit of Gladstone through a humanitarian interventionist outlook that keeps the world safe.
This is what inspires our activists to go out in all weather to win us elections. This is what brings people into the party so young and so passionate, and keeps them with us for life. And it is this central tenet that will inspire activists to keep working all the way up to 2015 and beyond.
I have said many times that I believe history will show Nick Clegg is, bby some margin, the best poltical leader of our day. But whether it is Nick on the front of leaflets, or Ming, Charles or myself, we are merely there as glorified cyphers. It is the people delivering those leaflets, and conversing on the doorstep, who are distilling the very essence of liberal democracy. And it’s that key message of liberalism – enabling, empowering liberalism – which will stay with voters long after the statistics have left their minds.
However, if you think this is me giving you permission to trash the coalition’s record or pretend we have not been part of government over the last five years when on the doorstep, it is most emphatically not.
We will be judged on how we have governed. It will be absolutely fundamental to how most people decide their vote. We cannot hope that a strong record of local action and a passionate declamation of liberalism will be enough to push us first over the finish line.
So my challenge to you, no matter how fed up you may be about some of the actions of this government, is to think hard about how our party has married our long-cherished belief in enabling citizens to the realities of governing in both a coalition and in an economic downturn.
Because if you cannot speak passionately and eloquently about what we have achieved in difficult circumstances – and more importantly, why we have achieved it – it will make it very difficult to persuade the average voter to put a cross next to the bird in 2015. Starting a doorstep conversation with an apology for being a Liberal Democrat will rarely win a floating voter over. Put simply, if you cannot convince yourselves of the merits of having our party in government, you will not be able to convince others.
The good news is, we’re here to help. Nick has made a series of important speeches in recent months where he has set out how his philosophy of liberalism has transferred into government. And the policy unit in headquarters has both distilled our many achievements into a handy pocket-sized booklet and secured data that shows how many people we’ve helped in each individual constituency.
So how would you look a voter in the face and defend health reforms, for example? For a start there’s the shield: Labour started these reforms and signed disastrous PFI deals that we’ll be paying back for generations; while the Tories are ideologically in-hoc to privatising healthcare and probably would have succeeded in doing so without us in government stopping them. Then there’s the stick: not only have the Liberal Democrats made certain there are now 4,000 more doctors in the NHS than under Labour but we have ensured that, in the new system, not only is there more integration of services but also that patients have a more personalised system and more democratic oversight – making healthcare work better both for the community and the individual.
Secondly, welfare reform. There is a truly liberal case to be made for changing a system that traps people in poverty, as Labour managed, by ensuring those with families would lose money if they took a job. Our changes to the income tax threshold, extra help with childcare and free school meals for infants all help give people on benefits the freedom to go into work. And what about the other parties? Labour, let’s not forget, introduced disability tests for those on welfare which we have improved – and Labour pioneered the ‘bedroom tax’. And what would the Tories do on their own? Cap child benefit at two children, stop housing benefit for the under 25s and talk relentlessly about the so-called “scroungers” in society. Many Conservatives look forward to the day they are unleashed from the Liberal Democrats not realising they would be held captive once again, this time by the likes of Burkah Banning Peter Bone MP.
Labour will want to talk about jobs. They mustn’t be allowed to get away with it. No Party in Government in recent years has plunged more people into popverty or destroyed more jobs and businesses than Labour did when they trashed our economy and plunged us all into a sea of debt during the last Government
This election is going to be the toughest fight of our lives. We will be asked searching questions and we won’t be able to rely on a lack of scrutiny to dig us out of a hole. Regrettably, thanks to our cynical and unimaginative national media, everything will be seen through a prism of Liberal Democrat MPs being sent like lambs to the slaughter. I suspect a regular question we’ll get asked both on television and on the doorstep will be ‘why should anyone vote for you when your party is going to be annihilated.’ When you think about it not much of a change from the regular question before 2010 ‘why should anyone vote for you when you are never going to be in power.’
Nothing angers me more than this lazy and sneering cynicism. It does all of us a huge disservice – we have all given our time and energy, and often many other resources, to achieving a more liberal Britain for the benefit of all of society. No one should feel anything but pride when they knock on a door with a yellow rosette pinned to their chest.
But it also isn’t true. Because of the hard work of activists over many years, we have now earned the right in communities across Britain to be listened to with an open mind. They have ensured that doors will not be slammed in our faces; that people will hear us out. What it doesn’t do is guarantee us the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t automatically transfer people into our column, even if they have voted Liberal Democrat many times previously. But it does mean that they will be willing to hear what we have achieved for them and their families; what our vision for a more liberal society entails and why we deserve to have their vote propel us back into government.
We must seize this opportunity. We must each be able to mould our achievements, our ambitions and our vision for liberalism into a simple doorstep pitch we can explain with positivity, pride and panache.
Others have the job of making the numbers add up. Mine is the easy bit – to ensure we run a campaign with heart, soul and vigour; a campaign that inspires our members, the voters, and maybe even the cynical media too. I have a first class team to work with and a great tribe of activists relishing the fight. I could not ask for more. It’s time to stoke that fire. It’s time to get out campaigning again for what we have done in this Government, what we will do in the next and what Liberalism means in the modern age.