Dumb Conservatives

Early in the seemingly interminable election campaign I was delivering leaflets in a neighbouring constituency.  It was a familiar beat and I was often, sometimes even cheerily, recognised.  On this occasion, one constituent with whom I had previously exchanged polite greetings about the time of day was, this time, more forthcoming.  “You know you lot are going to lose,” he said.  Now this was at a point in the campaign when the polls had the Conservatives double digits ahead and we were, seemingly, being swept along on a tide of strong and stable leadership to the sunlit uplands of a post-Brexit Britain.  So, indulgingly, I asked him, “why?”  His reply was simple, “because you’ve got no policies!”

In retrospect, I rather think my friend was partly right but I haven’t seen any evidence for that yet.  But It seems the post-mortem procedure is winding up, in advance of the Party Conference, and so I was delighted to receive a personal communication from, no less than, the Chairman of the Conservative party addressed “Dear Member.”  This is better than “Dear Joan” which has been the normal salutation!  Apparently, the Party is extremely keen to learn from the recent election campaign and reflect on what worked well and what didn’t work so well.  I opened the link to the survey which I had been invited to complete with some relish.  After the election, I wrote on this Blog:

I became dismayed by the campaign which degenerated from what appeared to be an unassailable position to abject confusion and farce.  It was not clear to me what the Conservatives stood for and long-standing conservative principles seemed to have been abandoned in a shameful, scatter gun and populist charge.  It appeared that fox hunting and free breakfasts were more important than defence of the realm which, once again, had been relegated to a footnote in the manifesto. Indeed, as I write, RAF aircraft are in danger of being shot down by tetchy Russians in both Syria and the Baltic yet nobody seems to care a fig.  Who would have thought that a Conservative Government, seeking a fresh mandate, would be seen to be on the back foot against Jeremy Corbyn and Dianne Abbott security about defence, security and law and order?  Why was Corbyn’s fantasy finance allowed to flourish unchallenged on social media?

So here was my opportunity to tell the Chairman (well at least the computer programme of the PR company conducting the market research) exactly what I thought.  I was dismayed to find that the survey was all about my election experience.  How had I helped, how had the campaign gone, had I used social media etc?  In other words, it appeared to me to be an investigation into why a campaign game had been unsuccessful.  There was only one concession to, for me, the key point of the election, namely policies, in a single question whether, “the policies in the manifesto were helpful to my local campaign?”  An opinion ranging from “strongly agree” to “don’t know” was required but no clarification was sought.  In fairness and obviously in a concession to people like me, a catch all at the end asks, in 1000 characters, “is there anything else that I would like to add?”  Well, quite a lot!

Perhaps I am being too unkind?  The Conservative Party does have some good policies but it seems it completely failed to communicate those policies to the part of the electorate they sought to influence.  Neither did it neutralise and turn to advantage the stream of fantasy from the opposition.  On the other hand, Labour flourished on social media where clever algorithms reinforce prejudices and existing beliefs.  The sort of feed is overwhelmingly left wing.  Pointing this out in the Spectator, Rory Sutherland notes that there is almost no high-quality journalism from the moderate right-wing press available free online.  On the other hand, worthily championed by the BBC, there is no shortage of the opposite for free.  And even if there were to be some serious right wing opinion available the disadvantages of the medium would swamp its impact.  These disadvantages are beautifully summed up by Rory Sutherland:

“It also doesn’t help that most social media has only three modes of emotional expression: smug, soppy and nasty.  An abridged version of ten trillion words on Facebook would simply read: ‘Look at me!’ ‘Gosh, isn’t this terrible!’ Go fuck yourself!’”

The new season of Conservative Policy Forum has commenced.  This is an agreeable way to discuss politics at an intellectual level.  But it is academic and the output, despite the effort, probably goes unheeded.  Nevertheless, we are asked for our opinions on “Conservative Values” as a contribution to shaping the future of the party.  Maybe we will be wasting our time?  Maybe we don’t need values and policies, just a massive social media presence and as Rory Sutherland concludes: “As Charles Foster Kane knew: ‘If the headline’s big enough, it makes the news big enough.’”  So, Conservative Party, if you can’t beat them, join them. Who said politics is not a game?