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FT editor Roula Khalaf picks her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The author is a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s PM.
With the referendum still a long way off, even the most inflammatory campaign can only do so much: it cannot completely change the perceptions of a public that has had practical experience of the government and has been observing the opposition for years.
So we should not demand too much from parties in their pre-election pitches and should allow for a little excess. But what we are witnessing now, a third of the way through the election, raises the question not only whether party campaigns are having a positive effect, but whether the way politicians speak is actively harming their standing with the electorate.
Leaving London for Radio 4 was enlightening afternoon The idea of the show is to broadcast from a different part of the country each week (in our case, from a constituency randomly selected from a borrowed lottery ticket) and our journey has only just begun, so without wanting to overstate it, it’s striking how everyone we meet is completely unimpressed with what they’re hearing.
Of course, we are used to lazy pollsters where disengaged voters say “They’re all the same,” “They’re in their own interest,” “They’re all lying,” etc. But this year, it feels like there’s a deeper sense of disillusionment. It’s actually engaged voters who are speaking disdainfully of politicians’ claims.
These people are hoping that they can watch the debates and read the news and learn something about proposed solutions to their problems. I don’t think that’s what they got from last week’s two televised debates, or from much of the campaign so far.
They understand that there are hard decisions to make. They are desperate for intelligent debate about some of the decisions that lie ahead. Without it, they feel like a fake war. Yes, as good citizens, they will follow the news, observe the missteps and gaffes, and make their decision (most of them will vote), but they will stay away from the campaign itself.
What I realised while talking to people about the major policy debate over Labour’s £2,000 tax increase last week is that most people are too smart to waste time trying to understand the dishonest Tory calculations or Labour’s counterarguments. They are interested in more interesting things.
You might be tempted to explain your disillusionment with politics by saying that politicians promise too much and then fail to deliver, and there’s some truth to that charge: promises about taxes, for example, have been broken for decades, to the point that savvy citizens tend to ignore them.
But when we accuse politicians of overpromising, a picture emerges of them painting a vivid picture of great things that are going to happen, but that doesn’t seem to be what they’re doing. If they’re overpromising, it comes across as not speaking in clear English about what hard choices they’ll be making.
Yes, it’s tough to ask elected officials to tell voters how they’ll approach raising taxes, knowing that they’ll lose the votes of people who want them to make a different choice, but pretending there are no trade-offs can deeply frustrate voters who know there are.
Is there a better way? I sometimes think it would be a great boon to politicians to broadcast secret recordings of them speaking privately about national issues. The public might find their unedited thoughts more impressive than their public ones.
But is traditional media playing a role in changing the way we debate? It is extremely powerful in its crucial function of holding politicians accountable – attacking lies and half-truths, exposing the weaknesses of ill-considered policies, and publicizing thoughtless actions. It is also a virtue that the media gives voice to voters and their grievances.
Overall, what is missing from our public debate is a sufficient forum for candidates to talk relaxed about their politics – without talking directly about the detailed costs of their manifestos, or speaking to a 45-second stopwatch, or talking about their parents – to talk about life, Thatcher, Blair, the war, the US, the EU – in a format where they won’t be overwhelmed with rebuttals every step of the way.
I’m not sure exactly what you could do to make a discussion more engaging. Maybe make it like a game? Maybe get them to talk after they’ve had half a glass of wine? Or maybe get them to play scenario games and present them with hypothetical dilemmas and have them solve the dilemma themselves.
I think there are many voters who are hoping for more interesting debates, so I think it would be good to have some innovative ideas.
