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Cameron stole my lines – but will never win my heart.

October 10th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized by

As someone who has been involved in television for over two decades, I’m interested in the sort of “narratives” that are used by political leaders, football managers and pop stars, inter alia.

TV news is about stories. And in politics it’s about stretching stories over as much time as you can manage. Andrew Marr’s interview with William Hague shows us this. (“what is it you were trying to say this week?” he asked…after 27  hours of BBC coverage).

I’m sickened that the Conservatives are stealing our story:

On 21st September (on the Victoria Derbyshire show) I said ” My name is Angela Harbutt ….I am a Liberal Democrat… I am so proud and pleased that we have had a politician for the first time…who’s actually come out and said loud and clear what a state this country is in. We are virtually bankrupt … We are running out of people to borrow from ….and we need to take some really hard decisions and everyones got to be part of that…the bankers have got to be part of it, the NHS has got to part of it, people who own larges houses have got to be a part of it, the unemployed have got to be part of it. Everyone’s got to pull together to get this right.”

Yesterday, in his leaders speech David Cameron said “If we pull together come together, work together, we will get through this together. And when we look back we will say, not that the government made it happen, not that the minister made it happen….it was the business woman that made it happen, the police officer made it happen, the father that made it happen, the teacher made it happen, ..you made it happen”

We, as Lib Dems, have a massive problem. We have policies and procedures, we have grassroots fighters. We don’t frankly- have a story.

The Lib Dem policy archive would comfortably see us through 7 or 8 consecutive terms as a majority government.

But, we have no prospect whatsoever of winning the next election. Our chances would be much higher if we ditched our utterly unenforceable policies and started talking about ideas.

This is a “narrative” that we have left to Cameron. And he really has stolen it. He’s saying “times are tough, Labour has failed, we – the Tories – feel your pain. It’s going to be tricky. But we will reward genius and hard work and clampdown on the feckless, idle, and workshy”

Nick Clegg talks either in cliches (freedom, fairness, furriness) or in policy detail (we will look long and hard at Afghanistan…and if the circumstances suggest that we should….we might even consider advocating a well ordered withdrawal of UK troops).

This simply won’t work.

So, David Cameron has stolen our words, but he hasn’t stolen my heart. I think his government will be a disaster. Its time for the Lib Dems to fight back starting today. That can only done by talking about ideas, and painting pictures not reeling off yet another list of policies or commenting from the sidelines. We dont need to steal other parties lines, but we do need to start winning hearts.

5 Responses to “Cameron stole my lines – but will never win my heart.”

  1. Simon Goldie Says:

    Angela Harbutt stole my blog post!

    After watching Cameron’s speech I was struck by the language and certain segments that could easily have been used in a Nick Clegg’s speech. I was planning to write a post about it this weekend but now Angela has stolen my…

    Needless to say I agree with you and will probably still write something.

    I thought the not just me but we bit was particularly interesting. A few years ago I suggested the Lib Dems use that to explain how the individual connects with the community.


  2. Cityunslicker Says:

    Cameron is far better than Clegg. He can’t even create a proper strategy and lead his party…

    http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/2009/10/lib-dems-had-worst-uk-political.html


  3. MikeScotland Says:

    Cityunslicker “Cameron is far better than Clegg. He can’t even create a proper strategy and lead his party”

    This is spot on Clegg is far to tactical. Regarding strategy he keeps on changing the policy whether the LDs are to principally attack the Tories or Labour. As far as leadership is concerned it is clear that the major decisions are not made by the team but by him or Cable. It’s not helped by the fact that Vince is starting to copy Tory proposals.

    Clegg cannot control the narrative until the party has a consistent and meaningful strategy.


  4. Neil Stockley Says:

    Interesting post Angela.

    I have come to the conclusion that the Lib Dems do have a story of sorts – it’s just that we’re not very good at seeing it, let alone telling it. In the story that Lib Dems tell about ourselves, the villains are Labour (who have failed) and the Tories (who wouldn’t do any better); we are the heroes who tell it as it is and offer real change for a “fair” and “green” country.

    This fits (well, kind of) with our brand and image. When they recognise us, they tend to see us as: standing up for ordinary people, not the best off; honest; and not bogged down in internal arguments. They also like our emphasis on environmental issues [see my last blog posts].

    This is all really important because we don’t own the story, the voters do and so the story we tell about ourselves needs to match with their expectations. In a political market, we can’t just produce “goods” and magically make the public “buy” them.

    There are two big problems though. One is the “invisible party” / “wasted vote” counter-story which we have little control over.

    Another is the party’s insistence on using meaningless clichés (“free” “fair” “green”), dull lectures and lists of policies instead of interesting stories and rhetoric. Here, I think we agree. Cameron uses a lot of the “people – we / us” rhetoric that Nick should be using. Compare his “we’re all in this together” pitch above with the parts of Nick’s conference speech that dealt with the public debt – “progressive austerity”??. It’s all the more frustrating because I know who I trust.

    We shouldn’t just ditch all our policies, certainly not just before an election, and “start talking about ideas”. Ideas are too abstract. So yes, it’s time to paint more pictures and tell more stories.

    One question though – Cameron can sound like the voice of “change” because the Tories are the opposition party. How should the Lib Dems say that we’d make change happen if, as you say, we can’t expect to win the election?


  5. Max Atkinson Says:

    I was very interested in this, as I’ve just posted a fascinating video clip of an interview with Jo Grimond from 50 years ago in which his ‘story’ can be heard either as wishful thinking or as a perceptive prophesy of what lay ahead for the Liberal Party (http://bit.ly/1mB2Ip).

    When the Liberals and SDP first came together back in 1988, the story was very much clearer. After all, the SDP had come into being because of the ever-leftward move of the Labour Party and there was some pretty clear space to be occupied. That no doubt played an important part in the fact that there are now 10 times more LibDem MPs than there were Liberal MPs when Grimond was leader.

    I would also argue that the same ‘story’ goes a long way towards explaining why the sudden surge in LibDem MPs in 1997 coincided with New Labour’s landslide victory – because both Blair and Ashdown were beneficiaries of the legacy of Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, et al.

    The situation now is much less clear, and is likely to remain so until it becomes clear whether Brown and/or his successor will preside over the resurrection of Old Labour.

    There is also a question about the ability of leaders to appeal across party lines to voters who aren’t ‘natural’ followers of their party – at which Blair, Thatcher, Grimond and Ashdown all excelled. As I’ve suggested in another post today, it’s not clear that any of the current generation of party leaders has this elusive gift: http://bit.ly/JKoYI, though I haven’t a clue what effect that will have at the election.