Gareth Lyon: We need something better than negative campaigning

Cllr Gareth Lyon is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Rushmoor Borough Council.

There is an increasingly jarring cognitive dissonance between the heightened rhetoric and daily drama of modern politics and the relatively minor differences between the way that the parties conduct themselves in office locally and nationally.

As the practical differences between the parties shrink the rhetoric and narratives of party politics have ramped up to a ludicrous level. Social media both reflects and intensifies this. Increasingly superficial, vicious, personality based, short-termist, and stupid, I know of increasing numbers of intelligent and thoughtful people who find our political discourse childish and embarrassing.

This is particularly the case with activists and politicians from the Labour Party. You would think that having won last year’s national elections and many local elections they would be content to focus on all those things they’ve long wanted to do in power and to be abuzz with excitement about whatever form of glorious future they wish to see for the country. Instead they seem unsettlingly obsessed with Conservatives – a kind of vindictive obsession which suggests that all is not well in the current party of Government.

To a great extent, this comes across as displacement activity – the narcissism of small differences – serving a particularly important role in the context of the way that modern political parties work, especially those that have got used to being in opposition.

People get involved in politics at all levels because they believe in things, because they want to achieve significant improvements in the quality of life of people or at least because they are motivated by a sense of justice or injustice in society and the economy.

Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult for politicians at any level, especially at local government to make any of the changes they or their supporters so desperately want.

Persistent low growth meaning lower tax receipts, shocking falls in public sector productivity meaning that what funding is available doesn’t go as far as it should, most local spending being consumed by a few big ticket items such as social care, the extensive hiving off of powers to unelected and unaccountable regulators, judges, inspectors, commissions and bureaucrats – all meaning that the scope for political decision making is severely limited.

So how to keep activists and politicians motivated for the long tiresome slog of political campaigning and day-to-day political work?

Deception, distortion and distraction.

Deception: there is so much information in the public realm now it is easy to pick and choose your evidence or data points to serve a particular narrative. Even though the resulting cases can be paper thin at times it is possible to fool enough people enough of the times – particularly those of us who are politically motivated and want to see things a particular way for it to be worthwhile. Deception is a strong word but we all know examples from across the political spectrum – from Chancellors’ budget speeches downwards – where the clear intention is for the audience to come away with a fundamentally false view.

In the context of narrowing differences between what the parties do in Government it is much easier to claim to have achieved things and that good things are happening by selective use of statistics and to claim the opposite about your opponents. This is a practice the new Government and several Labour councils I could name are turning into an art form.

Distortion: similarly, on those occasions when parties do start to discuss some of the major policy challenges which need public debate whether they be the future of social care, the urgent need to reconsider the scope of Government activity, or the structure of taxation, it is much easier to produce a strawman version of your opponents’ arguments for short-term political gain than to present a thought-through counter-proposal based on principles and economic reality.

So instead of a viable long-term funding model for social care we had slogans about “death tax” and “dementia tax”, instead of recognising that the shape of taxes today influences economic activity tomorrow we have spurious debates about how much individual companies pay in tax, and instead of having a serious discussion about how many services the state can provide to an ageing and increasingly inactive population we trumpet every further increase in Government spending as “investment” and a good thing in itself and long-term sustainability can go hang.

So long as parties can convince themselves (or at least enough supporters) that the actual acts or words of their opponents conceal the very worst possible motives – and that the lack of action on your own side is entirely excusable because – well it doesn’t come from as awful a place as your opponent’s secret intentions then you can lower the grading curve and manage expectations ever downwards.

Distraction: perhaps the tactic we see the most of – whether it is media friendly announcements of a few million pounds for a pet Ministerial scheme (relying on the fact that for many people all large numbers sound the same), fluff about things that politicians may or may not have said or tweeted or just finding a new cause celebre or villain of the week to condemn, legislate against or threaten to take action against in order to keep public attention from the big picture of everything falling apart.

All of this is carried out in such a way which resonates with fewer and fewer people – but just enough to serve short-term political ends even if its transparent puerility actually disgusts many of the capable, reasonable and thoughtful people we’d like to be more involved in politics.

And so ever fewer of them are and the downward spiral intensifies – politics ends up dominated by people who can stomach (or even enjoy) the childish discourse we now engage in. These people are less likely to develop or advocate for the kind of decisive policies we so desperately need – and so the cycle of superficial nastiness will continue.

Negative and nonsense messaging and campaigning is nothing new in politics but it was once based on real and substantial differences between approaches. As those differences get smaller it seems like this is all we’re left with – this at the very time when we most need something better.

It is said that in marketing you sell the sizzle and not the steak. But what if you’ve not actually got any steak to offer at all and the best you can do is to talk down the competition? It will work to some extent in the short-term but if everyone is doing the same we’ll all end up going hungry or going out of business – and rightly so.