Do parties have to be more honest with activists?
June 29th, 2008 
How much goodwill is squandered when you over-egg the pudding?
Well what came out the following day did not match the billing and I think that this raises issue for all parties about their relationship with their activists.
I was very struck by the following anonymous posting that was highlighted on the thread yesterday afternoon.
“Despite the wailling and gnashing of teeth on here about slogans, leaflets, personalities and whatever else, I would have thought it blindingly obvious that we weren’t going to win either Henley or Crewe. Perhaps we won the campaign - I am not sure the average voter cares one jot about that.
All I can see is that, by not being honest with ourselves, we are frittering away precious money and man hours, not to mention media and activist goodwill.
I’d prefer us to start spending the serious money currently being thrown on hopeless by-election campaigns in reinforcing and defending our current crop of seats that are under considerable threat from the Tories…..
If we don’t re-focus, I believe we risk overstretch - with the result that we will lose a large batch of Lib Dem / Tory marginals and still fail to capitalise on Labour weaknesses where we are in a close second.
This is the ‘meltdown’ scenario that I fear we are sleep-walking into by pretending the political backdrop has not substantially changed in the last year.
I, for one, am totally fed up with being told - by email, text and through the post - that we can win everywhere there just happens to be an election and all we need is a final push, another leaflet, more people etc etc, when it should be clear we simply can’t…
At the heart of the challenge facing Nick Clegg’s party is that large parts do not appear to have to come to terms with the changed political environment. The lesson from Henley is that the weak party for the foreseeable future is Labour - and that traditional easy pickings from the Tories no longer exist.
Mike Smithson
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And yet Clegg is wedded to the ‘anti-Tory’ strategy, despite its obvious inappropriateness. No doubt he has his instructions.
But the Lib Dems in Henley had a massive historic victory. They managed to slash the Con:LD ratio from a huge 2.057 right down to a tiny 2.045. Isn’t that worth boasting about in a few bar charts for the next ten years?
Glasgow East: I predict
Elaine MacSporran (SNP) 12,345
Hamish Bonkers (LD) 6,789
Cameron Madeupname (Con) 3,690
Sandal Truebeard (Green) 2,468
Jimmy McSlab (Lab) 1,066
Flash Gordon Approaching (deceased) (OMRLP) 345
James Hargreaves (Christian Operation Save Scotland From Gay Films Party) 23
John-Paul Benedict (Pro-Life Alliance) 16
Sheridan Liebknecht (Solidarity) 4
Rosie Luxemburg (SSP) 3
Tarquin McDesperate (UKIP) 2
David Icke (Miss Great Britain Party) 1
Haltemprice & Howden: I predict
David Davis (Con) 16,100 (64.4%)
Shan Oakes (Green) 3,800 (15.2%)
Joanne Robinson (ED) 1,420 (5.7%)
Tess Culnane (NF) 1,150 (4.6%)
Walter Sweeney (Ind) 480 (1.9%)
Jill Saward (Ind) 420 (1.7%)
Eamonn Fitzpatrick (Ind) 270
David Craig (Ind) 200
Hamish Howitt (Freedom 4 Choice) 180
George Hargreaves (Christian) 160
Mad Cow-Girl (OMRLP) 140
Thomas Darwood (Ind) 120
John Upex (Ind) 110
Christopher Foren (Ind) 90
John Nicholson (Ind) 60
Grace Astley (Ind) 55
Herbert Crossman (Ind) 50
Greg Wood (Ind) 40
David Pinder (New P) 35
David Icke (-) 25
Chris Talbot (SEqP) 25
Gemma Garrett (Miss GB) 20
David Bishop (Ch of the M Elvis) 20
Tony Farnon (Ind) 15
Ronnie Carroll (Make Politicians History) 10
Norman Scarth (Ind) 5
Total 25000
Turnout c.36%
The first stage of dealing with any problem is being honest with yourself.
The situation has changed, if the Lib-Dems fail to accept that simple truth and waste valuable political resources chasing ghosts then they will be damaged immensely and lose a potentially golden opportunity. They should now be using their activists and resources to build up defences against Conservatives and to challenge Labour, not trying to win seats against the Tories for which they stand no chance in this environment. If they continue down this path, they are in Denial.
Testing
“…I believe we risk overstretch… “
This issue of ‘overstretch’ is a particularly accute problem for the Scottish Lib Dems. They have far fewer members, activists and supporters than any of the other 3 main parties; have less money than the SNP or the Tories (although perhaps more money than Labour); and yet they must defend a set of very dispersed seats (both dispersed in terms of being mostly rural, but also in terms of being dotted in different regions).
And not only are they under severe threat from the SNP and Tories in a number of seats that have been well-highlighted here at pb.com
- Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine
- Argyll & Bute
- Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk
- Gordon
- Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey
… but they are also, astoundingly, even under threat from the crippled Scottish Labour Party in two seats:
- Dunfermline & West Fife
- East Dunbartonshire
… and at the Euro, Scottish Parliament and certain council elections, they face votes dripping away to the Scottish Green Party too.
It is a pure nightmare for the Lib Dems. How on earth can they fight on 4 different fronts, at the same time? Especially in the Age of the Internet, where if they pretend that they are Yellow Tories in the Borders, or Yellow Tartan Tories in Argyll and Aberdeenshire, and then Champions of the Centre-Left in Dunfermline and Bearsden & Milngavie, and then Cuddly Hippy Communists in the studenty bits of Edinburgh and Glasgow, then they will get exposed for the utter charlatans that they really are.
And to really pile on their woes, consider this: Menzies Campbell and Malcolm Bruce are probably retiring. It may seem amazing, but I think that the Lib Dems are going to have to fight tooth and nail to stop the Tories gaining North East Fife.
So whenever you see one of the many pb.com Lib Dem rampers (you know who they are) blithely boosting about the Lib Dems being on the brink of taking Aberdeen South, Edinburgh North & Leith or Edinburgh South, just remembers this: back in the real world the Lib Dems in St Andrews are busy filling their breeks.
the problem for the Lib-Dems is figuring out a way to attack Labour without looking like their buddying up with the Tories. I feel that the Lib-Dems attack both Labour and the Tories to make themselves distinct from both groups. Clegg may be afraid that, if he stops attacking the Tories and focuses on Labour, the Lib-dems will just be seen as the other opposition party, rather than as a distinct political choice
Karl Rove Electoral Map Projection
http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=1474356&referralPlaylistId=949437d0db05ed5f5b9954dc049d70b0c12f2749
A Video
Mike, the issue is not just the LibDems having honesty with their activists; it is being honest with the public. ANd the betting community here too.
I’m sure that there is much in the Rennard by-election play-book which could fairly be described as “psy-ops” - messing around with reality to steer the voters and their opponents. These are most important in the last 7 days of the campaign and are all aimed at building “momentum” from “it’s a two party race!” to “too close to call!!”. Part of the psy-ops used to gain that momentum is to show that the smart money - those who bet on these outcomes - are moving towards the LibDems.
The “fantastically powerful” message e-mail above moved the Henley market from what - 15’s to 5’s? A huge shift in a very short time.
In the last week, we had Big Tall Tim offering a bet to the Tories that their majority would be no more than a 1,000 - and crowing that the Tories knew they were on the run when they wouldn’t take it. I eventually called his bluff, if only to shut him up. (By the way BTT - has that tenner gone to the doggies home yet?)
In the last 24 hours at Henley we also saw Big Tall Tim’s clear ramp:
Given the number of LD posters just gone up in Thame, Crowmarsh, Woodcote and Wheatley, I think an interesting result is very possible.
by Big Tall Tim June 25th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
This struck me as odd, but Mike’s initial reaction was exactly what must have been hoped for - should I be putting some more on the LibDem’s then? Is their momentum really building below the radar in a place which has had no polling? I happened to be at home and a short drive from two of the four places mentioned (Crowmarsh is only separated from Wallingford by a bridge!) and (off my own bat - I had no contact with even the local campaign staff) was able to confirm my suspicion that this claim was nothing like reality. (I leafleted Crowmarsh that evening and actually found several more Tory and one Green poster - but only the original solitary “Winning here!” - at the end of a cul-de-sac….) I got branded a “well-known troll” for my pains. So be it. The lie was revealed. If it hadn’t been, the markets could have been changed again - and people would have lost money.
Pb.com is now part of the political infrastructure, like it or not. Mike’s political leanings are well known, but I trust that for the long term benefit of this site he would want to distance himself from any attempts to improperly manipulate the markets - from which ever party that might come. But in this instance it was the LibDems - and it looked for all the world like they were treating the betting community like pawns in their by-election end-game. All the sadder when being done by someone who had the respect from being one of the earliest posters on the site.
Here’s one for SeanT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7479758.stm
I didn’t get an invite to Abu Hamsa’s birthday. Where do I complain?
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised coming from the safety-first Swedes that gave us Volvo’s with their lights always on. But where will it end? Where do we stop if we aren’t to offend folks feelings? Will they even have to rewrite Abba songs? Will we have to sing “The winner takes –it all– a pro-rata division of the spoils” “Gimme gimme gimme a man/woman/pre (or post) op transexual/hermaphradite after midnight”?
Agree Mike!
Political parties, short on funds and membership, squandering money on pointless by-elections and unobtainable seats in general elections.
Labour in particular should be honest, withdraw from all the Libdem/Tory marginals in the South/South West, citing financial reasons and the need to concentrate on its own Labour/Tory marginals.
Look what’ happened in The David Davis by-election(the Male Menopause by-election) Labour aren’t standing, the whole thing has died-the-death. When the result is declared, Labour won’t have to put up with, post Henley type headlines ‘cos it weren’t there.
Taking Henley as an example, Labour should consider withdrawing its candidate at the GE, and twinning Henley with a nearby seat (Reading ?) and Henley members helping out there and providing finance etc.
Who knows where such tactics could lead? Hopefully a new party of the, ‘Centre Left’ one fit for the 21st century.
Second thread I’ve put a second thread up - When did you become a Brown doubter? after being very taken by Alan Watkins in the IoS this morning.
Should parties con their activists? Depends on the calibre of your supporters and how blinkered they are, for the LD’s I would hazard that it does not play well.
“I reproduced the above mass email sent to Lub Dem activists” Freudian Slip?
It would appear that at least some Lib Dem activists have finally woken up to the reality and are now discussing openly what many Tories on this site and others, have been saying for months. To continue a policy of solely attacking the Tories both in the HOC and at elections whilst giving Labour an easy time or even tacit support will alienate LDs further in the eye of the electorate.
Within the past year, the political dynamics have changed 180 degrees, the Tory lead in the national polls is not just a statistical quirk, they are translating directly into wins at By-elections, Mayoral election and hundreds of council seats up and down the Country. We have an extremely unpopular Government at present with little chance of recovery in the foreseeable future, if the LDs wish to be seen as serious players and a viable alternative to the Tories, they need to win something more than a parish council. Labour’s northern heartlands are vulnerable; the Tories have made some in-roads there but are still weak, that is where the LDs are stronger and where the battle lines should be drawn and resources best served.
Oh yer, and ditch Clagg.
Lib Dems like Lord Rennard also need to acknowledge that the politics of personal destruction -i.e. picking a [Tory usually] opponent’s so called weakness and hammering it time and time again is now both nasty AND ineffectual. In a seat like Henley with a sophisticated electorate, it repulsed a number of voters as does babying them with a slogan such as “a strong voice for our area” from a candidate from Plymouth!Lib Dem campaigning is ossified in about 1994.
15 **** The Stewart Jackson Comedy and Irony Team Returns ****
Oh how we chortled at those nice Tories in Cheadle and tittered at those Bromley Conservatives ringing endorsement of “Many Jobs Bob” and the encore in Ealing South had us rib tickling in the aisles.
If the relative ‘no change’ gap between the Cons & LDs from Henley is maintained it does support the view that a retrench and defend policy might just prevent a large number of orange seats turning blue at the next GE is the South and offer them some scope to attack Labour in other places.
Winchester as well as putting the change of tide theory to the test and the notion that the Conservatives will sweep all before them
South of the Severn/Wash, will also test ‘incumbency’(in this case a well documented troubled imcumbency) to destruction.
Any news on when the Winchester B/E might be yet ?
If this seat were to fall it would probably be the catalyst for a changed in the LD seats market from the high 40’s to the mid/low 30s.
Clearly attacking Labour has to be their best hope (in the short term at least). The problem is half of their Members know it and see it as a blindingly obvious change of tack. The other half hate the Conservatives with such an ingrained passion that they would rather die ‘rushing the guns’.
A joy to behold !
Jack W “Oh how we chortled at….”
So Jack W you finally come out of the closet and admit to being a Lib Dem something most of us had believed for several years.
Seriously, how about giving us the benefit of your experience by commenting on the theme of this article?
18 TC. No …. I use the ARSE “we” …. that is the seasoned eye and nose of one who recognises bullsh*t when confronted by it !!
17. Again FWIW, my opinion on a Winchester by election has not changed. There is very little chance for the reasons previously outlined here at 38.
As for Henley and what it means for LDs in the south, I’m no psephologist and stand to be corrected but I don’t see there’s much solid data to work with.
I don’t know how to tell what happened in the detail. For example, did the Tory turnout fall by more than the average, to be replaced by LD 2005 votes which were, in turn, replaced by Labour switchers? Or did very little happen beyond a reduced turnout with the Labour vote hardly turning out at all?
The first is great news for the Tories because at a GE the Tory vote will turn out in full and in many southern seats there is very little Labour vote left for the LDs to squeeze. The second doesn’t tell us much of interest.
19
Jack w,can you please give the primary school toilet humour a rest its so childish and boring.
21 simon. Then don’t read it !!
Yes, parties do need to be honest with both the public and with their members. Apart from any disillusionment factor, you end up looking stupid if you claim you are going to win a seat or run it very close, and then end up finishing miles back.
It is now two and a half years since the Lib Dems won a by-election, but it is over eight years since they gained a seat at a by-election from the Tories. Partly this is down to the lack of opportunities - only two Tory seats have come up at a by-election since Romsey - but it is also because of the changed circumstances. The Lib Dem leadership’s thinking, and their tactics, are stuck in the 1990s.
Perhaps (to be charitable), they genuinely thought they were in with a chance in Henley - but if so, it was a woeful misreading of the constituency and is at least as big a failing.
I don’t believe that Clegg is the Lib Dem’s problem (though I do think Cable or Huhne would be better). Various Lib Dem / Liberal leaders had a slow start and improved during their term, and Clegg does seem the kind of nice, inoffensive chap that many look for in a third party leader (though it does imply that the Lib Dems are only interested in remaining the third party). Their problem - which Clegg shares - is that it seems to have become ingrained that they are a an anti-Tory party. No doubt that has something to do with the number of MPs who have Conservatives as their principal opponents, but also because of the membership, which is somewhat to the left of the parliamentary party: they like nothing so much as seeing Tories defeated.
If that kind of thinking does not change, they’ll not only be doing their supporters a disservice by pandering to their desires against their interests, but could be missing a big opportunity. For the first time in many decades, Labour is extremely vulnerable - lack of money, support and apparent beliefs. The Lib Dems are the party best placed to replace them on the centre left. It is a massive goal and will require some sacrifice, but the potential winnings are even bigger: this is their chance to “prepare for government”, and Clegg is going to fluff it.
When I make my projections of by-elections, I use the change at the last general election, the most recent by-election in the region, the votes at the last council election in the wards that make up the constituency and the European Elections then adjust for turnout. If the seat is a true Lib Dem target, then the Lib Dems should be within 10% of winning based on that forecast. More than 10% behind is not a Lib Dem target
I note that Jack W has declined to give us the benefit of his thoughts on the impact of deceiving his fellow Lib Dem activists…
The article points out a serious mistake that the fulltime LD campaigners made. Taking their activists for granted and believeing that is ok to lie to them.
Henley was not a new occasion for such deception and there are signs that the LD activists are already voting with their feet. One LD activist noted that the final weekend had 400 LD people supporting at Henley whereas at their “victories” the number was 1,000. At C&N Rennard partly blamed their setback on the Conservative volunteers being many times those of the LDs that went.
After Henley within the LDs the words of their campaign leaders will resonate even less well with the activists. “Remember Henley” when the party said things were close and the 400 that came now know that they wasted their efforts on a futile campaign that wasted sweat and treasure.
10 amounts of £10k spent defending 10 LD seats would have been a better use of the resource. Add in probably almost as much again in C&N. That Rennard does not understand that is something that Clegg’s southern MPs are likely to have a word with him about.
15.I did question the Libdem strategy, and I asked if it would backfire in a seat like Henley.
19.Sorry JackW, I don’t call BS if the points raised are valid, and in this instance I think they are.
25 TC. Misrepresenting the Jack W Committee doesn’t make it true old fruit.
As for Henley I suggest you digest the very sober analysis of that well known Lib Dem, David Herdson, on the meaning of Henley, post 152 - 9.15am 27 June :
“Con: Very good, but not spectacular. Almost impossible to do spectacular when starting with such a big lead. Comfortably seeing off all challengers and getting a decent sized vote is as much as could have been asked for.
Lib Dem: Disappointing for them but not worse. Increased share of vote but further back overall. Missed opportunity to sweep up a lot of Labour votes, but must have held most of their own from 2005.
Lab: Horrible result with the only consolation being that Henley was never even close to being a target. Embarrassing to finish behind Greens, never mind the BNP. This is not Newbury or Christchurch where Labour voters were tacitly or otherwise advised to vote tactically, the votes they lost were real ones, whether or not they mattered in the bigger scheme of things.”
…………………
26 ChrisD. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the Stewart Jackson MP Bullsh*t Ratio.
The LDs would be far better off targeting money at the seats they need to protect. A further problem is for them is that it doesn’t appear entirely clear which seats they should be protecting. Personally, I struggle to see Eastleigh turning blue or indeed Westmorland, despite how marginal they are. Harrogate on the other hand, even with its large majority, is one they should keep a close eye on.
One common theme that political parties should live by, ‘do not lie to the electorate’, that should also include ‘do not lie to your members’.
I didn’t believe the ramping from some lib dems over Henley and was proved right, that there are people doing such ‘work’ stops me from joining the party, in fact joining any party.
Don’t treat us like idiots, don’t treat us like voting (or campaigning) fodder, tell us the damn truth.
The splash might not have been as big as people were expecting, but at that stage of the campaign it was just slightly possible that the Lib Dems could have won. Until the final week, the Conservatives seemed to be doing absolutely everything possible to lose the safest Tory seat in the country. They picked a candidate with at least a perceived degree of dodginess with regards to green belt development - and that played massively on the doorsteps. Then they started slowly with their own literature and what they did put out was simply rebuttals against the Lib Dems stuff. The only piece of anti-Government stuff that they ran in the first two weeks was a George Osborne letter, but that got lost among all the other junk. They had no consistent message and the Lib Dem stuff was working. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the campaign started off with an even bigger Tory lead than it ended. It was clear that the Lib Dems were gaining ground massively.
But then the Tories got their act together. They realised that their campaign was tanking and they might even lose. I understand that they ditched their campaign manager (not Chris Grayling, the real one) and switched to an anti-Government/pro-Boris/don’t mention the Lib Dems line. This is what they should have been running all along and it worked. Gone were the hilarious rebuttals (including the letter from their candidate with the immortal ‘if you listened to the Lib Dems you’d think I wanted to bulldoze the whole coun try’ which only served to put that image into voters’ minds).
So, at the time that the email was sent out, the Lib Dems were behind but closing rapidly and needed to mobilise the highest numbers of supporters in order to have a chance. As it turned out, the change in Tory tactics together with some rather nasty polling day calling by the Cons meant that the Lib Dems couldn’t win after all. But you shouldn’t judge the email with anything other than the knowledge that existed at the time.
Absolutely, Alex, but that isn’t what this is all about - it’s actually all about Mr Smithson’s growing sense of (self) importance.
He wasn’t involved in the Henley campaign, but was happy to use an internal party email to hang a story on.
For all his faults, Mark Littlewood - the ex-LibDem spin doctor - hit the nail squarely on the head in this piece in the Torygraph on Friday.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2706.xml
@30
“I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the campaign started off with an even bigger Tory lead than it ended. It was clear that the Lib Dems were gaining ground massively”
“They realised that their campaign was tanking and they might even lose. I understand that they ditched their campaign manager”
Do you have the slightest evidence to back up any of this or the other flights of fancy in your post?
We often get ramping garbage but post 30 takes the biscuit. Frankly, by theend of week one it was known that the very local Lib Dem was also very local to his would be resients in Plymouth. A stupid and ineffective lie.
30 is pure wishful thinking.
We can imagine the Conservative team meeting “right we have sacked the campaign manager, make sure we let the Lib Dems know”
Face up to it Lib Dems, your so called by election machine of smearing and dirty tricks is hitting the buffers.
33. and 34.
I don’t know that the Tories changed their campaign manager except from hints on Con Home. What I am sure about is that the Tory campaign changed tack completely. From being all about reacting to the Lib Dems it changed to being pro-Boris/anti Brown. In effect, what it should have been all along. I cannot imagine that this was planned.
Why was the Lib Dem campaign successful in the first two weeks? In a small part because of the amount of effort being put in, but also because of the bloody awful Conservative effort. The Conservative tactics in the first part of the campaign were truly terrible and gave the Lib Dems a sniff. The last week restored balance but I maintain that the result would have been much worse for the Lib Dems without their literature and much worse for the Tories without the change of tack. To be honest, I think both are no-brainers - effective campaigns work (at least to a small extent. I certainly don’t consider that the ramping Peter. For one thing, there is no market and I certainly don’t have any money on (perhaps try choosing a different pejorative - try a dictionary).
Stephen Kearney was not local to Henley except in as much as he moved there straight after selection and signed a long lease. But the sting of that attack was slightly drawn by the fact that Boris only moved to Henley after being selected. I think it did make a difference that SK was not local, but not as much as it could have.
Having argued that we need to rethink our strategy in a changed landscape with a resurgent Tory party, I agree with your analysis Mike. Crewe and Nantwich was a wake up call, reinforced to some extent by Henley. I arrived on polling day to be told it was “neck and neck”, did they think I’d go home if they said anything different? As someone who may be seen as a tad to the left of the party I have no problem with fighting Labour. They have betrayed and taken for granted the very people they claim to represent, most worrying is the number of their ex core supporters they have driven into the arms of the BNP. As a trade unionist I am particularly bitter at the way they have betrayed the trade union movement. The problem we have with just attacking the Tories in order to hang on to our Lib Dem/Tory marginals, is that it leads us to try and ape Tory policies - mad but true - and I say that based on more than a hunch being a member of the party’s Federal Policy Committee. So, a wee bit more honesty, a reappraisal of our campaigns strategy and a commitment to offering the radical anti establishment alternative our leader is calling for, that would be my response for what it’s worth!
The Lib Dem campaign probably achieved something around a 10% swing to the LDs from six weeks out.
Alex is right that it probably would have been bigger had the tories not pulled out all the stops in the last week.
Is that a good enough result for the Lib Dems?
Probably not.
Is it enough to provide some reasurance that they can campaign successfully in seats they are defending?
Probably.
Linda Jack is right that a strategy of trying to look like the Tories will win the LDs nothing.
They need a handful of distinctive positions to campaign on.
37. Another post that mistakes conjecture for fact.
What EVIDENCE is there that there was any swing to the Lib Dems at any stage of the campaign? Do you have access to polls we haven’t seen? No, of course you haven’t. It’s just your own personal flight of fancy.
I really don’t understand what value you think there is in posting such nonsense.