I don’t doubt that X-Factor is important to a lot of people, 12 million of them on average. I don’t doubt that a lot of those people are potential voters.
I am curious as to how or why the PR strategists at 10 Downing Street manage to connect those two pieces of information into a strategy that dictates Gordon Brown telephones the Priory to enquire of the health of Susan Boyle, or go onto This Morning to tell us that he is backing Stacey Solomon to win this round.
Why the unseemly rush to discuss biscuit preferences on Mumsnet? – Brown’s ‘don’t know’ and Cameron’s ‘chocolate hobnobs’ both faithfully reported in the main stream media. Whilst there are no doubt some people fascinated by the answer, do they seriously imagine that these are the same people who will turn out to vote in an election?
Both parties are showing a marked preference for fighting out this election in 140 character soundbites, and lightweight trivia, sidestepping any intelligent analytical debate. Neither party has shown the slightest inclination to get ‘down and dirty’ amongst the community of political bloggers who have increased exponentially over the past year.
Here are people who have shown a committed interest in political debate, are therefore, I would suggest, the most inclined to get out and vote, and yet the politicians (apart from Vera Baird’s odd appearance on my blog back in January to defend her friend Lord Ahmed) avoid us like the plague.
If they want to appear on-trend, and au fait with popular culture, then an accredited response to one of LFATs politely inquisitive letters, or Dizzy’s elegant fisking of ‘Yet Another Bloody Iraq Inquiry’ would reach an audience of many thousands of potential voters, and no doubt be picked up by the main stream press, fostering the impression that politicians are actually listening to their critics and not insulting us by a patronising desire to be voted in or out as so many contestants in Big Brother.
The truly courageous politician could venture onto Old Holborn and grapple with Guthrum’s opinion that Mandelson has grabbed total control of Nominet and ISPs, or Constantly Furious’ relentless quest for elucidation on the Paul Clarke case.
Winning this election will be decided on the basis of persuading the undecided voters, they will not change the mind of the hardened tribal voters. Politicians used to go from doorstep to doorstep, engaging in debate with real people, now they have selected a group of frothy headed television viewers and biscuit shoppers as the only people they are prepared to engage with.
I can see why they are frightened of debating serious subjects, but I cannot fathom how they imagine they will turn the sort of people who are prepared to spend Saturday night on the edge of their sofa fretting over the future of the Jedward twins into the sort of people who will be bothered to traipse down to their village hall and put a cross on a voting slip when they could be curled up with a packet of chocolate hobnobs and the latest edition of ‘I’m a Celebrity’.
I can also understand the desire to be voted in by people who don’t bother their little heads by serious matters – it is the mechanics of how they are going to get those people to vote for them that fascinates me.
Short of sending a stretch limmo with a continuous looping edition of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ showing in the back seat television round to Pebbledash Manor, or adding an extra button to the ‘BBC interactive’ – press the Green button now to vote for your politician and you could win a walk on part in Eastenders’ – then I see little hope for their strategy.
Could they be hoping for a hung parliament, and a chance to bring such a scheme in on the grounds of ‘low turnout’?
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
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Good morning, Anna, hope you are well
“Both parties are showing a marked preference for fighting out this election in 140 character soundbites, and lightweight trivia, sidestepping any intelligent analytical debate.”
I can do better than this. P**S O*F T*E L*T OF TH*M 6 words, succinct, analytical, overwhemingly anarchic and true!
The only hung parliament I want to see is all of them, from lamp posts, in Westminster, in alphabetical order.
This time I am actually looking forward to the politicians knocking on my door. I have so much to say to them, they may regret it!
UKIP spotted a good opportunity this week. Brown’s speech to the CBI included two important observations:
1 – that the EU needs the UK as a trading partner
2 – that the UK should look to increase trade with newly-emerging markets such as China and India.
UKIP’s website seized on this – they have been saying precisely that for years.
Would you like a UKIP membership application form, Gordon?
I think a hung parliament might be quite good fun. At least, from this side of The Channel.
I can’t go to England this year due to being broke due to the exchange rate. So there is a God after all, and every cloud does have silver lining.
Not long after you posted this, one Gawain Towler appeared in the comments over at Constantly Furious.
Not an MP, I grant you, but the UKIP PPC for North Dorset.
He rocked up to announce the UKIP were getting involved in the Paul Clarke case, hitherto very much a blogosphere/Twitterland exercise.
Guess you shamed him into it
May I suggest Anna, that the overwhelming mass of the readers of political blogs are likely to have chosen who they are going to vote for already. I would expect higher than average membership of political parties amongst readers than in the general population too. So apart from arousing interest in the MSM, there isn’t much to be gained by a politician engaging in debate on these blogs. Nobody is sitting here getting informed about who to vote for. In order to be elected they are playing a game of x-factor. Its those voters who think its about “voting for who you think is going to win” that are going to decide the election. Opinion poll swings are all, policies are irrelevant.
Now if it was a system where your right to vote was conditional on you knowing what you were doing, then blogs would be important, but its not. Anyone can vote. Even now members of the Lords and the feeble minded. So its not in a politicians interest to tell it like it really is.
I suppose the power of blogs is that sites like OH are becoming sort of proto-networking sites, where people are learning that they are not alone in holding views their neighbours don’t begin to comprehend. That is a danger for politicians in the future. A block of informed voters, unmanipulated by the tame spoon fed media, may well one day resist their traditional ability to ride roughshod over us all. I can indeed see a lot of people going for a walk on 5th November some day.
‘they are not alone in holding views their neighbours don
I thought the Labour take on the twins Jedwood depicting a spoof complete with daft hairstyle of Cameron and Osbourn and saying “You Wont Be Laughing If they Win” was actually excellent, funny and put a powerful point across.
However, this Tory spoof is quite frankly daft, it is a Johnny Come Lately, the Tories missed the boat and the punch line is stupid and boring and the deadwood bit has been done to death so – “Same Old Tories” not an original thought among them. They will have to do much better than this, especially as they are now sliding.
Dabs – it’s not true that all ‘blog readers’ votes are a forgone conclusion.
I think politicians won’t comment on blogs because they have no opinions of their own and there fore couldn’t afford to write anything. Westminster village think that because they are all air heads, the public must be too.
Politely inquisitive? Moi? I’m only polite because I think it’s only fair that I adhere to my own ‘no swearing’ policy!
Personally, I think that this poster was a big mistake. The Conservatives need to show the public they are a serious outfit, not a bunch of populist pricks.