Political discussion in the 21st century

I thought I'd go for a weighty title to this post to cover the banality of the insight which follows....

Over at the BBF, Hamer outlines his take on the conduct of political discussion in the UK. Hamer refers to mass postcard campaigns and the tendency to characterise much of current political engagement (or not) as 'issue politics'. I wanted to leave a comment on his blog - but for some reason Blogger wasn't letting me log in and post one - so I thought I'd do a post of my own.

Hamer accurately describes what happens when a mass postcard campaign is launched and targeted at MPs. Constituents fill in their name and address on a pre-printed card (sometimes not even managing this onerous task) and then MPs respond with a letter which might include one or two original sentences of their own but usually tends to include the bulk of a PLP Resource Centre standard response.

As a fellow Labour bag-carrier this all rings true but I wanted to add a few remarks of my own on this.

Mass campaigns do often suggest that an easy fix is available. Campaigns can, by implying there is a simple 'yes/no' response to an issue, contribute to a what might be described as a 'binary' opinion of the politician (i.e. good/bad, usually depending on the MP's response to the campaign in question) rather than acknowledging that the issue may be complex and that any response may need to be equally complex.

Postcard campaigns and similar may hint that a simple solution is all that is required rather than impress that any progress probably requires messy compromise and dull negotiation. However, it has to be acknowledged that a mass campaign needs to have a simple message to be successful. It would hardly empower people to action if the campaign was "SAY 'NO TO POVERTY; ONCE WE SUCCESSFULLY NEGOTIATE WITH THE WTO, EU, US AND EMERGING ECONOMIES, AND DEVELOP A HIGHER STAGE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BEYOND CAPITALISM".

I would imagine that many people who send in these postcards do realise the limits of these campaigns but know that MPs might be inclined to take notice of at least the subject area - if not necessarily agreeing with the thrust of the whole campaign - if they get a heavy mailbag or two on it. For example, the reason Cameron got interested in green politics is that there is some political capital to be made out of appealing to environmental concerns. This suggests that campaigns, such as Big Ask, might be effective in prompting a debate on what is to be done in a particular policy area. Of course, the charities/NGOs will have their own agenda to peddle but the campaign could serve to open up a wider debate on policy options rather than just being a narrow monologue between Government and the NGO/charity in question.

While the campaigns may be simplistic, FoE and Greenpeace policy bods, for example, wouldn't claim there were simple solutions to, for example, climate change no matter what their broader campaigning indicates. I would imagine that they see their campaigns as useful in trying to shift the terms of debate and giving them the political weight to go to elected representatives with some mandate to speak on the issue.

Also, these campaigns do get people interested (beyond just copying a standard letter) in policy areas which might be a good starting point for further discussion and engagement with the political process. Characterising this 'issue politics' as mass political engagement might be wide-of-the-mark. However, and Hamer didn't argue contrary to this, in an age when there is less to separate the political parties than in earlier times, it is understandable that issue politics might have a greater attraction than traditional political channels.

But, at the end of all that, I do agree with Hamer's fundamental point which appears to be that politics is complex and that there needs to be an acknowledgement that there are no simple answers, that we need to engage on this basis, and that we should not berate politicians for trying to find an answer to these questions.

Not a controversial thesis but one which could definitely improve our political discourse and not just Question Time.