A test of personality or governance

Due to the sad death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, 22nd May will see a by-election in the Crewe and Nantwich constituency. It seems fairly safe, Dunwoody enjoyed a 7,078 majority; but support for Labour has been in steep decline since 1997 (majority was 16,000 in 1997, down to 10,000 in 2001). The Conservatives have not to date made great in-roads in terms of vote increase, the decline is more due to reduced turnout than anything else, but this by-election will take place with a very different backdrop to the last two general elections.


The results make it difficult to say if Dunwoody enjoyed a personal vote, support for her as MP as opposed to a loyal Labour support; however Labour seem to be playing on support for her and sympathy in allowing her daughter Tamsin to be candidate. Her Conservative opponent Edward Timpson is stressing his local credentials and in responding to her selection Timpson questioned her understanding of the local area and suggested she would be too loyal to Brown to be a representative. Interesting that one cannot do both, but this relates to an attack on Brown and his tax reforms presenting him as out of touch.


Of the top three Liberal Democrat Elizabeth Shenton is still the only candidate on Facebook, and now has a wall with two supportive comments and imports news items on her and the party and is up to 147 friends. She is also the only one advertising a personal website devoted to her cats. The Liberal Democrats have been gaining support in the last three election contests, but can she make an impact or even win.

(l-r, Dunwoody, Timpson, Shenton)

The contest will be about gaining support, so persuasion to vote for the individual and party, and mobilisation, persuading people to physically go out and vote. Will this be another referendum on an unpopular government, if so it should be Timpson that wins; or will it be a test of personality? In which case will it be the personal and pavement politics approach that the Liberal Democrats employ that is victorious or will a latent support and sympathy for the late Gwyneth secure the seat for her daughter. Politics is never easy is it?

Boring and predictable scuffles

The war goes on between our journalists and our party leaders, they hunt in packs and their target at the moment is Gordon Brown. So every journalist, Boulton, Marr et al, all want Brown to admit it is a disaster and he is failing, he knows that is true but plays up the positives and talks about communicating better. I just wish that these journalists would watch each other's programmes and not just replicate the same worn script. Yes it is a disaster for Labour, Brown will never admit it, live with it, move on and if that is all you want to say just don't bother. Is it any wonder that television audiences are less interested in political magazine programmes when they do not add anything to what most viewers already know. I am sure opponents do enjoy watching the leader they dislike squirm but there are limits surely.

Boris Is Mayor - it seems!

If its in the Evening Standard it must be true (or if not the editor will look daft in the morning)and I have to say I am genuinely shocked. I did not believe Boris Johnson could convince London's electorate that he was a viable potential mayor. It seems he has done that, perhaps partly a result of the unpopularity of both Brown and Livingstone, but even so it is one hell of an achievement to transcend the image of the bumbling eccentric to even come close never mind win - as it seems that he has. I'm speechless, the question is not if he is intellectually capable but if he has all the other skills required for the job.

Is there going to be a revolution?

ITV news did an interesting translation of the local results into a national election, and half the cabinet lost their seats in the biggest landslide of all time. Of course this is rubbish but there is a serious point, if Labour's popularity continues to decline, or even if it flatlines, a lot of MPs are due to lose their seats. LabourHome is currently pretty quiet apart from one comment by Tony Hannon who says: "Thanks largely to national politicians, local councillors have been kicked out or shovelled in irrespective of the jobs they’ve been doing or are likely to do"; while he puts this in the context of the failure of local democracy, it is also could be a sign of things to come. Will there be a challenge to Brown?

A new way of covering elections?

I was privately quite excited by the notion of letting bloggers lose on election coverage, sadly though, despite Luke Akehurst promising: "I'll colour your bland bits, alright" he didn't really seem to be given the chance. And they didn't break any stories and the BBCs 'Emily's Election' blog is more like a report from a celebrity shindig than an innovative way to talk about an election, and it is dashed hard to find.

Most interesting for me is what Iain Dale is up to, I loved the twitters last night; where else could you find the comments "Emily Maitlis is a very funny (and rather beautiful) lady. I am very lucky to be spending the night with her" and "Michael Portillo is sitting on a sofa reading a book, not deigning to talk to anyone". Perhaps that was the real value of it all, the perspective from behind the scenes.

More seriously is Iain's updates all day from the Mayoral count: unsurprisingly he tips Boris to win, but evidence suggests he may be right (if so how is that for a turn around in image and he failure of negativity). His updates are on his blog here. It should get more interesting as the day goes on.

The serious point, the updates are perhaps the best thing. While election coverage is very formulaic and attempts to be entertaining and dramatic (though Jeremy Vine's antics last night were cringeworthy only); those who do watch til the last result crawls in really want results as they happen. Perhaps the twittering of elections is the future and we can all get the results on our laptops, palmtops and PDAs and make our own assessments. Perhaps also it gives more chance for those who want to, to comment themselves via their own blogs, other's blogs or news pages: could it just get a few more people watching elections.

Gordon Brown and his percieved credibility gap

There is a killer phrase on one page of the BBC's various bits of election analysis, David Cowling comments that "It doesn't seem to be difficult to persuade people that your political opponents aren't up to the job. But it seems much harder these days to persuade them that you are". To an extent I agree but, when considering Brown's standing in the polls that have led to his party's spectacularly bad performance in the local election last night, perhaps also there is a little more to it. Yes it is very easy to kick and incumbent government when there is an economic crisis, and anyone can do so in the safe knowledge that they do not have to propose an alternative strategy and even if they do they will never have to. metaphorically, 'put their money where their mouth is".

But attacks only work when the public are ready to accept them (Social Judgement theory suggests our psychology is built around accepting or rejecting arguments based on established perceptions). Brown's problem is one of image. He does not appear competent or in control, nor does he appear approachable, in-touch or caring; this leads the public to perceive him as up to the job. Being a prime minister, president or any other sort of leader involves appearing to have the qualities of a leader; arguably Brown fails to project those. Hence he seems to be in a positin where opponents are offered an open goal, while his failure to keep answer critics (defend the goal) reinforces his lack of credibility and ehances that of his opponents. Can it be turned aroudn is a very big question, is the next general election there for the Conservatives to lose or can Brown establish himself as a prime minister in more than just name?

Politics 1.0 masquerading as Politics 2.0

I am currently doing some research assessing how interactive MPs are using Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook etc. While it may be assumed that having a 'Facebook' is interacting it is not, and hence we return to that Web 1.5 idea I blogged a couple of weeks ago. I was informed that the Elizabeth Shenton, Liberal Democrat candidate for the forthcoming Nantwich & Crewe by-election, had announced her candidature first on Facebook - a first. Visiting her site I expected requests for help, attempts at interaction, perhaps joining groups relevant to the area. I was disappointed!

She lists her favourite music, TV shows, Movies and Books, her interests position her to some extent "Making hand-made greetings cards, setting puzzles for magazines, cats, visiting farmers markets, baking, country walks and of course my family!". the 'About Me' section reads bizarrely "The legal print for the by-election: published and promoted by Neil Trafford on behalf of myself, both at Capital House, Fourth Avenue, Crewe, CW1 6XL". Did a copy and paste go wrong? There are no wall posts, in fact the wall seems to be disabled.

Now it is early days and it is easy to criticise when you are not mobilising voters for today's local elections etc. So this is advise for the future. Find out what the Facebookers of the constituency are involved in and join in, support causes and campaigns they care about, perhaps offer to give them voice during the campaign; interact, messages of support give indication of having support. Facebook is about friends communicating, it can be used as a tool for becoming part of a community, it should not be used to advertise or to generate publicity; this is Web 1.0 not Web 2.0. I want to see Web 2.0 used, and see if it can have an impact, but to find this out it has to be used appropriately- there's a challenge set!

The Assembly by Saturday! Maybe?

Tony Travers' report Predicting Londons Elections is a great read, if he is right, and of course this data is extrapolated, the above will be the shape of the newly elected Assembly with one seat for the BNP. While the whole thing may be sound, its publication on the 6th April, and the resulting press coverage, could have numerous effects on actual voting behaviour. The prediction of a Labour win across the council elections could mobilise Conservatives or lead to vote switching, as could predictions of a win for the BNP, so while interesting I will re-read this and compare it with the results while also looking at the press coverage, particularly the articles in the Standard, if there are differences between predictions and the outcome, and if we take the predictions to be safe as of April 6th, then we may see a poll effect has taken place.

BBC to employ 'online opinion formers' to tell all

The BBC's election coverage is to harness the blogosphere: "An elaborate network of opinion formers, activists and analysts collide online producing fact, rumour, and mood not found anywhere else". The web, they claim: "provides the unvarnished truth about what the parties are really thinking". Hence Iain Dale, Luke Akehurst and Alix Mortimer, bloggers representing respectively Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat, will be imparting snippets of information that provide colour to the often bland statements made by leaders playing up or down the results.

Of course there could be a downside and false rumours are offered up that manage to seize media and public attention, but it is interesting that the BBC feel bloggers are opinion formers both within the party, perhaps, or among their readers and the blogosphere more generally. To harness the collective intelligence, as Luke writes, they all want:

• results as soon as they seem clear, predictions perhaps
• information on what's going on a round the country- atmosphere at counts, rumours, gossip, colour
• reaction to blog posts
• information about other eye catching posts on political blogs

They will be creating a four-way blog with the BBC's Emily Maitlis (link here), all of which makes for an interesting development. My question for this, is this the rise of the citizen journalist to true credibility; or a reinforcement of the traditional political who may appear free from the party line constraints but also with clear bias to one side?

All politics is (not) local

Apart, perhaps, for the London Mayoral Election contest, most of the other 150+ council elections seem to be driven by the popularity of the national parties and their leaders than the desire for a assemblies or councils to be run by specific individuals or parties. The media are focusing on the 'kicking' Gordon Brown will receive with the Express reporting that "Labour insiders expect the party could lose more than 200 councillors in a punishing response from voters to Mr Brown’s blunder-hit first 10 months in his job". The Conservatives are also promoting the notion of sending Brown a message, in a campaigning email and video 'David Cameron' tells subscribers that "Every Conservative vote today will help send Gordon Brown a message".

It strikes me as a bit of a shame for the many Councillors and AMs who have done an excellent job but whose careers hang in the balance due to the performance of a party leader whom they have little influence over. But is it their fault, should the campaign be more intense and personalised, or is there nothing that can be done to ensure Council elections are about election a strong local team not sending messages to the top. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is the problem with representative democracy that we have so few ways to participate, or give voice to our feelings, outside of an election, that most people take the only chance they have to message the prime minister.

But it could also be due to the demise of ideology. As the parties increasingly bunch around the centre, offering almost identical solutions, the only differentiating factor is trust in the competence of that party to deliver. If there are no local personalities, with a recognised track record, or who promise something different, then many who wish to vote may only be able to judge the party as an entity and use the leader as a reference point to assess competence.