Spinners and bangers
‘Sell the sizzle not the sausage’ goes the old advertising phrase. Political strategists too have been creative in exploring the stretchable space between substance and message. As a former member of the New Labour junta I am hardly in a position to complain, but the Coalition publicity machine does seem to have gone into a super-fast spin cycle since the New Year.
There is a good example this morning. Normally in Government when ministers are told there might be a problem they will ask their officials to check the facts closely before admitting anything publicly. It is interesting to see the logic reversed as it has been this morning by Chris Grayling, the employment minister, and Damian Green, the immigration minister. Writing in the Daily Telegraph the ministers give the clear impression that there is a major problem with migrants illegitimately claiming benefits. The ministers’ article gets a predictable front page splash with the implication that this problem of benefit abuse involves 370,000 people.
But as a searching interview of Chris Grayling by John Humphries revealed on the Today Programme, the evidence of actual wrongdoing is much, much smaller. Indeed of the 370,000 only 2% were found to be making fraudulent claims. There is a large batch of cases in which the claimant is yet to be fully identified, but on the surface at least, there isn’t any very strong reason to think the proportion of fiddlers will be much higher in this group.
It is unusual for ministers apparently to seek to alarm the public about an existing policy, but even more odd when the factual basis for the concern seems so tenuous. Two of the Government’s vulnerabilities right now are unemployment (which is high and rising) and immigration (which is also high and rising despite a high profile Coalition commitment to reduce it). In the short term, at least, it isn’t clear Government can do much to put either trend into reverse.
Put the two challenges of rising unemployment and immigration control together and the populist script writes itself. Facing this danger – reinforced by the continued toxic salience of immigration in opinion polls – ministers may well have decided that it was vital to show they were getting a grip on the issue. I will leave others to decide whether presenting the public with alarming, but arguably misleading, statistics is a price worth paying to pre-empt allegations of complacency.
The Grayling/Green article is the second high profile example of the Coalition volunteering concern about its own policies. The first was David Cameron’s recognition of the inequities of removing child benefit from households containing a higher tax payer. I am not for a moment doubting the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s concern but it is noteworthy that not only did the Chancellor almost immediately confirm his intention to implement the change but, as Gavin Kelly pointed out, it is hardly credible that Mr Cameron has only just noticed a flaw (namely that a household with a single income of £45k will lose out while one with a combined income of £80k might not) which must have been apparent from the very first time it was floated by officials.
There is no reason why ministers cannot acknowledge problems with their own policies, indeed it could be seen as welcome candour. But aspects of both cases (the ministers’ apparent indifference to the impression created and Mr Cameron’s ‘discovery’ of the perverse impact of benefit withdrawal) suggest that the Coalition has of late been listening rather too carefully to the spin doctors’ advice.
Given the tough policies it is pursuing the Coalition’s popularity is holding up pretty well and most of the media continues to give it the benefit of the doubt. In these circumstances spinning can feel like an easy game to play. But as the weather of public opinion changes the political wicket takes spin less and less well.
Regardless of disagreements about the pace of spending cuts, there is no question the Coalition is trying to do something tough and brave with its austerity programme. Given the pain being suffered by ordinary folk, the credibility of the Government is important not just to its political aspirations but to national morale.
Modern politics inevitably involves creative communication, but selling a sizzle will stop being such an effective strategy once people start noticing the frequent absence of sausage.
If not now, when?
Yesterday the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition, being the clever types they are, took it in turns to put each other on the defensive. Mr Cameron attacked Mr Miliband over Labour’s stance on public sector strikes while Mr Miliband condemned Mr Cameron on youth unemployment. Business as usual in Westminster, meanwhile, out in the world the gloom deepens.
In the short term there is the unfolding European sovereign debt crisis (today saw yet another failure by European leaders to agree a credible collective strategy). Major British banks are still highly vulnerable to default so any idea that the UK will be sheltered from the collapse of the Euro is almost certainly wrong. In the medium term we have no realistic path back to the kind of growth that would enable us to manage down national, corporate and family debt without years of pain or the ever present risk of a slide back into recession. As he prepares for his autumn statement next week, George Osborne’s scope to make choices may be restricted to deciding in what order to put the bad news.
Over twenty years as a policy analyst and commentator I have tended to disagree with people who claim public services are getting worse. The problem is usually that they are not getting better as fast as we would like, or that they have fallen behind comparable services in other sectors. But now we are beginning to see genuine deterioration. This is not just in those non-statutory areas, like libraries, youth and community services which have borne the brunt of local government cuts. Monday’s EHRC report on domiciliary care was just the latest in a string of damning reports. The prospects for vulnerable older people are clearly deteriorating and there is no foreseeable reason to expect this process to stop. Whatever steps are taken to improve public service efficiency and engage volunteers in the community, further years of austerity are likely to see this decline in service levels and social outcomes spread to other core areas of provision.
In the face of the crisis and the danger that, in time, declining living standards and services will lead to social conflict and even political extremism, we desperately need national leadership on a different plane to that on offer right now. Leadership to give us hope and a sense of national purpose. Leadership to challenge us – from the self-serving overpaid company executive to the apathetic unemployed youngster and every one of us between – to be part of a national mobilisation to protect our most vulnerable citizens, keep our communities going and show the creativity, collaboration and risk taking which must be the foundation for economic success. Imagine a society in which almost everyone had a story to tell about what they were doing to help the nation pull through.
But when it comes to political rhetoric we are all so jaded that this leadership will not come from conventional oratory. Our political leaders need to go miles outside their comfort zone. In particular they need to recognise that political point scoring and playing to their own dwindling band of party loyalists is not only irrelevant but an abdication of the duty of public service. If they don’t we might eventually reach the same depressing conclusion as the Greeks and Italians and seek to replace politicians with technocrats.
Like all my blog posts this is no more than shouting in the wind. Perhaps it’s time I took my daily pill and had a nice lie down. It’s not as if I know concretely what it would take for our leaders to convince us we should respect and respond to them. But I think I would know if I saw any sign of it happening. It might start with greater humility, more recognition of the inherent uncertainty right now in all policy options, a willingness to work across party lines, the courage to appeal concretly and directly to the nation even at the risk such an appeal will initially fall on deaf ears.
Every politician I know says they came into politics to serve and to make a difference. That’s why I tend to defend the political class even when it’s friendless, like over expenses. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Over the years, I have heard so many politicians say they wish they could break out of the binds of intra-party trade-offs, inter-party adversarialism and media management and find a way of connecting with the public.
If not now, when?
Ask not what the state can do for you ….
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a number of people trying to work out how to respond to the idea of the Big Society. As I said yesterday, the report on Monday of the ACEVO Commission on the Big Society is likely to provide plenty of ammunition for those critical of the implementation of the idea, but this conversation was more at the level of principle.
Essentially the Big Society contains two ideas, one which is traditionally associated with the right and one which is more comfortable to the left. The former comprises a critique of the state, the latter a recognition that people should be expected to act in ways which do not simply avoid harming others but contribute to the public good. A problem for the right is that most evidence suggests civil society tends to be stronger in countries which have a relatively generous welfare state. A problem for the left is that in practice the way public services are organised – at least in England – too rarely creates feelings of empowerment among either staff or the public.
Part of the intellectual terrain over the next few years will therefore be a tussle between Conservatives seeking to show how a withdrawing state has created spaces for community initiatives while a left in search of a new narrative will need to demonstrate it has moved beyond the rampant statism of the Brown years and has credible plans for a strong, efficient and enabling public sector. The interesting thing right now is how weak, and lacking in much more than anecdote, both arguments sound.
But the thing that really stuck me was when someone quoted from the socialist thinker RH Tawney, who said in 1931 of the first Labour Government that ‘it asked too little and promised too much’ (when I checked the quote I found it had been used in a speech last year by David Miliband).
One of the things that David Cameron’s Government has in common with Margaret Thatcher’s is a message that people need to change. For Mrs Thatcher it was that people needed to be independent and enterprising, from Mr Cameron it is that people need to be more responsible and community-minded. In contrast Labour – whose ideology should have at its heart the idea of social citizenship – lacked any such over-arching exhortation. Instead Labour’s message was ‘leave it to us, we will sort it out with policies, plans, targets and tax credits’ – interspersed with occasionally delivering a shrill and populist telling off to anti-social youths or the work-shy.
It is not easy to challenge people to be wise and responsible citizens, especially with a 24 hour media constantly on the lookout for an excuse to accuse politicians of pomposity or hypocrisy (witness this excruciating interview with Francis Maude). But it is an essential task of political leadership and will be vital if the Coalition is to have a positive tale to tell through the coming years of austerity or if Labour is to find a way of connecting with people beyond its Northern heartlands.
The business of the Big Society
When I was involved in politics there was nothing more frustrating than planning a big announcement only for it to be over-shadowed by events. The Big Society bods in Government must have felt this way when they realised that David Cameron’s speech to private sector leaders about their role in the Big Society was the same day – last December – as FIFA’s announcement on the 2018 World Cup.
Not surprisingly the event caused barely a ripple. Since then an account of businesses’ role has continued to be a gap in the Big Society script. The Prime minister again failed to say anything about business in either his Observer piece or – as far as I could see – his speech this morning .
As recent RSA speakers, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green say in today’s Times (no link – it’s behind the paywall) the ambition of the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to go much further than the banks making a small (by their standards) contribution to the reserves of the Big Society Bank. Instead of focussing on volunteering and mutualism, Bishop and Green call for a much bigger role for the private sector in the delivery of public services, especially through payment by results mechanisms like the Social Impact Bond being piloted in Peterborough prison.
I am open-minded about what sector delivers public services and all in favour of payment by results.
[Although PBR systems must take into account inherent problems of cream skimming – taking on the clients most likely to succeed (endemic in welfare to work schemes) - and threshold bunching – focussing on getting everyone to a particular target rather than maximising the distance each individual travels in improving their lives (as in secondary school’s obsession with 5 A-Cs).]
But whilst effective outsourcing might improve society, I’m not sure it’s really what is meant by the Big Society.
Instead, we should be thinking more deeply about how companies can tap into the hidden wealth which lies in their organisations and their relationships. I’ve just read a very interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review by strategy gurus, Michael E Porter and Mark R Kramer. It is about the concept of shared value. In the piece Porter and Kramer seek to go beyond notions of corporate responsibility or balanced scorecards to explore the way corporations can and should combine competitive advantage with social good to achieve shared value. This, they argue, involves seizing three opportunities: re-conceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain (which seems to involve less outsourcing and less screwing of suppliers), and enabling local cluster development.
Although this is all interesting stuff, I think Porter and Kramer underestimate the importance of behaviour change in their account of how companies can contribute to social progress. This is where a lot of hidden wealth lies. In particular, organisations need to be aiming for a sweet spot (or virtuous cycle or some other term I can’t think of right now) which combines their competitive edge with levering their brand and relationships for social good. The classic contemporary example of this is Nike which has used its brand capital to become a powerful advocate for fitness and sporting participation (something which then in turn increases its market). This seems to me to be a fruitful way of approaching the question: what might a Big Society business do differently?
David Cameron at the RSA – some more thoughts
A couple of snippets following on from the lively debate about politicians and about David Cameron.
On the former, I still hold to the idea in my post last week of doing more to celebrate those times when politicians are inspirational and demonstrably public spirited.
But my bigger concern is that we try to understand the limitations of the view that power simply resides with those in government – politicians whose only motivation is to screw everyone else by lying and conniving. The fundamental problem with this view is that it allows us as citizens to avoid facing up to the fact that progress requires that we think and behave differently. That we can’t have what we tell pollsters we want – Nordic welfare but American tax rates or action on climate change but cheap energy – is not because we have evil or stupid politicians but because the conversation between us and those we elected is immature and inauthentic.
In search of a more interesting and nuanced view of the world I can strongly commend a wonderful piece in this month’s LRB by Slavoj Zizek.
A number of people accused me of being superficial by praising David Cameron’s communication style. But a Fellow who was at yesterday’s event stopped me in the corridor to make what I thought was an interesting observation. The Fellow felt that, for all his polish, the Prime Minister didn’t really grab the audience in the way that a great political orator –like for example Obama on a good day – might. We chatted and came to the conclusion that Cameron’s style is more about making his own case clearly understood and less about trying to win over the room by connecting with his audience.
If this is right, it may be simply the way Cameron is and, let’s face it, some people would prefer a more conversational style to attempts at emotional bonding. Or is it that our Prime Minister knows what is coming and has reconciled himself to unpopularity over the next two or three years? Rather than try – and fail - to win people over he sees his task as explaining what he is doing so at least people understand it even if they don’t agree with it. And this – as I was saying on the Today Programme this morning – is my main concern with the way the NHS reforms are being presented.
Taken together I believe the reforms shift us from a National Health Service to a National Health Franchise. I am not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing – there are arguments on both sides and shades of grey between. But it feels less than direct for the Prime Minister to present reform – as he did here at the RSA – as a pragmatic response to aspects of performance and budget pressures when it is in fact underpinned by a much bolder and more radical reconceptualising of health care.
Anyway, it was an honour to host the Prime Minister making such a big speech and let’s hope the RSA can start to establish itself not just as a venue for great lectures and events but a place people choose when they have something important to announce
RSA Animate
RSA Mobile
RSA Comment- RSA Projects Blogs
- Twitter @RSAMatthew
- RSAMatthew: On my way to RSA Xmas party - I won't stay too long as it spoils the fun to have the boss around
- RSAMatthew: @DAaronovitch Reading Sennett more like an artistic than a intellectual exercise - best to skip over the bits that don't work for you
- RSAMatthew: @AdamYogaPilates No Bovril but kep warm by indignation at Fulham fans who arrive late, leave early and keep jumping up to get a snack !
RSA Bookshop
The RSA Bookshop, in partnership with Blackwell's the UK's leading academic bookseller, offers Fellows and friends an opportunity to purchase books and to explore our speakers’ ideas in greater detail. Visit the RSA Bookshop.