But the resilience of “the left” as a group of individuals bound by a common purpose and committed to a cause is certainly worth admiring. They were heavily beaten in the election, but driven by a loathing (hatred in some cases) of the Conservative Party and a commitment to a more “progressive” Britain (however ruinous and contradictory their policy ideas for achieving such a Britain are) and through their myriad of organisations – 38 Degrees, campaigning organisations, charities, unions, blogs and forums – they are doing a fine job of opposing the Government and holding up reform. Creating narratives that pervade the media and muddy the intellectual waters. All this despite the fact that the electorate overwhelmingly rejected their vision for Britain in the last election.

The truth is that the Conservative Party lacks the ability either to dig in to cement changes or oppose ideas. Wherever “the left” goes it leaves structures, organisations, and machines in place which can trip up and slow down the advance of a reforming government (be it Labour or Tory). Through these organs, it is able to spread misinformation, rally supporters, create powerful media narratives and win over hearts and minds – despite the fact that it often lacks of a party to articulate its views convincingly.

Despite the lamentations of the right wing blogs about these organisations seeking to attack them for receiving state funding or not serving their members effectively – we shouldn’t just moan, we should be learning.

With traditional parties declining in membership, if concepts and ideas are going to survive post-Government (or be successfully implemented at all) they need foot soldiers – organisations and associations which are prepared to fight the intellectual and political battles which are required to achieve victory. Tim Montgomerie has written about this extensively on Conservative Home.

The ‘Big Society’ was an attempt to do that to some extent. Seeking to co-opt the voluntary and community sectors into the centrist Conservative project – using their energy to burst open the public sector, detoxify the brand and become the vanguard of a reviving of Britain.

But unlike the Labour Party which was always careful to protect and support the development of organisations it thought would be friendly or helpful, typically, the Conservative Party has abandoned these potential allies once the election was over.

Instead of using the levers of Government to protect, support and grow the voluntary groups, community organisations, charities and social enterprises – it has allowed them to suffer (disproportionately in many cases) at the ends of forces friendly to “the left”.

This is why in five years time, if the Conservatives do not win the election, they will a) find many of their policies overturned b) find that they have lost a lot of credibility with potential supporters and thus c) find rebuilding a coalition to defeat the Labour Party or Lab-Lib Coalition even harder than it was leading up to 2010.

The fact is that the Conservative Party needs to stop thinking of itself as an organisation, with the aim of attaining Government and start thinking of itself as a movement to deliver change.

A movement is not organised solely to get people elected or to vote for certain candidates. It is the coming together of various social groups around shared concerns to realise change in politics, in our economy and our culture.

“The right” does have some groups that do this. The Taxpayer’s Alliance for example, has been very successful in the media (if not achieving much awareness in the public’s mind). The Countryside Alliance (traditionally associated with the Conservatives) is a mass member organisation which can bring out scores of volunteers. But these are too loose and the Conservative Party doesn’t pay them enough attention when in Government.

This is an error. Although it will take decades to see whether this assumption is true, the 2010 election may be a turning point in politics. Thatcher managed to change the country because she was in power for a decade, Blair the same – time is a powerful weapon in politics particularly when you have the machinery of government and working majorities. But with a stiffening third party system and people’s weakening allegiance to political parties, this may not happen again for a long time.

Politics should perhaps be seen a bit more like trench warfare in the First World War – “bite and hold”. You advance (bite), then seek to hold what you have won against retaliation from your opponents, then prepare another offensive once you have secured what you previously won. The “blitzkrieg” that many political commentators on “the right” are looking for – where we sweep away the Labour years and advance on all fronts true “Tory” policies, will probably never come.

What is worst, by not preparing anything to defend the gains that we do make in the next five years, we might see it all swept away – like so many advances by the British before 1918.

However there are steps that can be taken to create a movement around the Conservative Party which will add it not only in elections, but also in securing its policies and driving change through the country.

 The Conservative Party should start at the youth level.

The Labour Party is particular is very good at mobilising and keeping young supporters engaged – both through national structures and also at a local level. This is important not only as it gives freshness to their party but also because it often binds these people too them for decades to come.

Too often, people are interested in Conservative politics in their youth, but drift away for decades because there are simply too few routes for them within party structure. Quotas for association officers should be considered, with at least 2 people under the age of 30 and preferably one under the age of 25 being given full roles. Instead of just throwing young people into unwinnable council seats, we should be trying to get more young people elected onto council seats that they can win.

The bait of greater say in local issues and potential advancement in terms of council positions will keep young people engaged and offer a strong incentive to keep involved in the party.

Secondly, the Conservative Party needs to consider the way it interacts with local community organisations.

More fundraising should be done by associations for the benefit of local charities. Painting community halls, supporting fetes and street parties, shouldn’t just be done at election time – it should be done all year around. Members should be actively encouraged to become trustees of local charities, to donate money to local voluntary organisations (rather than just handing it over to the party) and seeking to create long term dialogue with these groups.

Closed party events often used to raise money to be wasted on ineffectual literature is not the way forward – it could be better used to support good causes in communities and build vital alliances there. To show that the Conservative Party and its supporters really are a movement for change, not just a bunch of individuals trying to win seats. Some already recognise this and are moving towards this kind of approach, but particularly in our cities, we need to see Associations thinking more innovatively.

Thirdly, we need to support the think tanks that can win us the intellectual battles.

More support needs to be given to them so that they can furnish the political debate with the intellectual ammunition we need to fight “the left”. As we have seen with the Health Bill debate, the charities, unions and other bodies which opposed the Government’s reforming agenda were far better at saturating the political debate with facts and figures.

With Mark Wallace reporting that think tanks like Res Publica are allegedly on the edge of financial ruin, we cannot allow important intellectual allies to be lost. Although I do not agree with all that the Centre for Policy Studies or Policy Exchange or Res Publica publish for example, they are vital for the energy and vitality of the Conservative Party and were a very important part in the recovery we experienced post-2005.

Donors should be encouraged to give to these organisations, and members should also be encouraged to join up to them. Moreover, we should be trying to create more of these organisations so that when battles over policy need to be fought, that we have the information and the energy to win.

Finally, the Government needs to seriously address the damage that is being done to “third” sector – not only to ensure that we can change our country for the better, but also to ensure that important political alliances of the future are not irrevocably damaged.

My discussions with those in the sector has showed that the Big Society rhetoric pre-2010 did make many change their view of the Party and they were eager to help reforming the state. Now they feel betrayed – not only due to cuts, but also because we haven’t kept our promises in opening up public sector contracts etc.

If action isn’t take quickly to protect the sector from those on in the public sector who want to hang the “third” sector out to dry to save “in house” services which they view as threat to their monopolies – then not only will these critical organisation disappear but they will spread a sense of bitterness against the Conservatives across our communities.

This must be avoided for the long term prospects of the Party.

I have written this as a piece about the Conservative Party as a whole, but I think there are lessons for centrist Conservatives in particular also. Again, often within our own party we are outgunned by the “right” of the Party – in intellectual and organisational terms. We need to be cleverer in the way that we approach winning battles within our own internal coalition if we are to see the Conservative Party continue to move forward as we would want it to.

But as Party we need to learn the lessons of “the left” – we need to build together a movement which can drive through change and withstand assault. Otherwise despite all the good work that is going on across Government, we may have to stand back and watch it all swept away in the future.

This seems to have had somewhat of a damaging effect on David Cameron’s leadership. There seems to be a sense, coming from Number 10 particularly, that it is better to hold back on major policy changes until 2015, when the hope is that the Conservatives will have won that much coveted majority.

There are two ways to look at this, and consequently two ways the situation could pan out. The first – the ideal situation for the Tories – is that they win a majority in 2015, shed the Lib Dems who are holding them back and push forward with serious reforms. All the policies that currently have the start date for change set for 2015 will come into force, and the party will push reforms on multiple fronts. Cameron will be hailed as a great reforming Prime Minister, and will help to reform some of the country’s most incomplete policies and systems.

The alternative is that, come 2015, the electorate have run out of patience with a Prime Minister who promises great reform but never delivers because he is tied into a Coalition, and is afraid of rocking the boat. Cameron’s five-year reign at the helm of the Coalition will be remembered as a time when he promised a lot but delivered little; when he became too tied down with Coalition debates to push on with important reform; and when he over-confidently thought he would be granted another term by the public.

It is, of course, impossible to tell at this stage which way the next election will go. There are still four years, and a lot could happen. The Coalition has promised great reforms, but to be effective it needs some of them to happen sooner rather than later. Whilst spending cuts are becoming more noticeable, the transforming reforms are still a future event, much lauded but not much seen.

The move from inside No.10 to hold out for a majority in 2015 is a gamble, and one that has a strong chance of backfiring. There are four years to go, not one. There is a lot of governing still to be done, and a lot of time for things to change. Tory backbenchers – not afraid to speak their minds – will become more and more frustrated and impatient. Rebellious votes within the Tories are already extremely high, and as frustration grows, these will become more frequent events.

David Cameron must not assume that he will win in 2015. He must make decisions and changes now. The proposals the Coalition are making are far-reaching and transforming – transforming systems that are desperately out of date, and have slipped far below where they should be. But as long as Cameron holds off on the big changes until he has a big majority, he will look weak and afraid. He is – Coalition or not – in charge. He is the Prime Minister, and he has a majority, even if it is not as strong as he would like.

For the sake of Cameron’s reputation and the Conservative Party, it is important that the next four years are a time of reform and of progress, not of stagnation and of treading water. Leaders who tread water for too long sink quicker than they expect. The time for David Cameron to act is not, not in 2015.

In fact most of politics is about this lead and reflect balance and you find that when one party tries to lead opinion in one direction the other party seeks to reflect current orthodoxy in an attempt to gain support. You also see parties with a weakness paint their approach as reflection rather than leading of opinion. You saw this latter effect most graphically in 1997 when the Labour opposition was at great pains to point out that they reflected the prevailing orthodoxy on economics. In the late 1970′s and early 1980′s the Conservatives under Thatcher went on an orgy of leading opinion into a new economic approach with mass privatisations and liberalisation of credit, deregulation and supply side reforms. Although the extent to which the government was leading opinion or merely reflecting it as it changed is something that could be debated ad infinitum.

The point is there is a balance that is struck and often a political party will lead opinion in some areas and choose the defensive option of reflecting it in others. It will usually do this after an appraisal of the priorities it wants to pursue. The times that I get most frustrated are when the reflection of current public opinion goes too far, as with the German government’s bizarre attitude to nuclear power generation. We also see it in some politician’s knee-jerk reactions on certain issues such as crime where the public seem to be considerably authoritarian and you then get a procession of politicians trying to out muscle each other in this area. The alternate view is just as dangerous as it tends to the view that public opinion is leadable in all circumstances and therefore policy is shaped that has no regard for the current situation. The Conservatives got into this rut in the early days of opposition.

I can see therefore where people have issues around the drugs debate because it appears that too often politician’s wimp out and reflect prevailing prejudices rather than seek to change them. This often happens in other areas too where policies are pursued to maintain a quiet life for the politicians involved. The Conservatives NHS policy was supposed to do that and certainly their exemption of the NHS from cuts was blatantly an example where reflection of opinion was deemed the order of the day. In terms of international aid the contrary view is taken and despite the widespread idea that aid should be cut the government is seeking to lead opinion on it by doing something different. This shows up that in different areas different approaches are taken. No politician or political party entirely leads opinion, or entirely reflects it. It is in the balance and the areas that are chosen for leadership or reflection that defines the character and success of a politician or party.

The shrewd politician knows when to lead opinion and when to reflect it, and more importantly when to stop leading and to start reflecting. Sometimes it is necessary to go a little way to your goal and then stop and allow opinion to acclimatise before setting off again. Politics is about leadership in my opinion so the emphasis has to be on persuading people to a different frame of mind. The danger in the era of focus groups and opinion polls is that the information is used to back up a reflection of public opinion rather than as a starting point for a leading of it. That is my only concern really that with the plethora of public opinion gathering mechanisms that politics gets the balance wrong between reflection of opinion and leadership of it. Perhaps sometimes we need to take a step back and work out that politicians do have a role in shaping public opinion because as Edmund Burke observed:

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Martin Lewis

Firstly it’s politicians’ jobs to sell policies they support. Secondly, treating tuition fees as equivalent to the cost of “two pints and some crisps” demeans a good education and undermines it as something worth working at, striving for and paying for. And thirdly, the policy is a done deal, and it’s now up to providers, students and the government to make it work properly, with good teaching and results rewarded by being able to charge proper fees; proper fees being rewarded by better teaching; and the government eventually not actually having to pay for universities at all but them funding themselves because they are great at what they do.

Someone said to me a few weeks ago that it was ridiculous having czars at all. I instinctively agree because if a politician can’t make an argument for his policies why should anyone else, and if politicians can’t figure out a decent policy then probably they’re not a very good politician… And yet…

Martha Lane-Fox

I look at the work of Martha Lane-Fox.  I see her engaging online with anyone and everyone. I read articles about her inspiring leadership, and her easy-going pressure, and the fact that she is delivering – against all the odds – a pretty serious programme of extending digital engagement through society and through the government. She is a czar that works.

Nat Wei

I then look at Nat Wei. He recently resigned as Big Society champion, after reducing his hours earlier in the year, and is taking up a new role at the Community Foundation, focused on delivering the ends that the policies he’s been working on inside government are the means for.  He was a czar that didn’t work out (even though I think he did some great work, his role was never properly defined and I’ve also heard – though don’t know for sure – that No10 went back on all sorts of agreements that were thought to have been made).

Setting aside whether or not the Big Society is any good, there are some instructive differences between the two roles.

I don’t want to be uncouth about this, but Martha Lane Fox largely doesn’t need to earn money to live on; Nat Wei does. She was already embedded into government before May 2010; he was not. She had a very specific brief, a large team, cash, and most importantly specific deliverables. He did not.

So there are probably some lessons we can learn from a rational comparison of the two. But perhaps the most useful thing we can take is this: the government has to be serious about delivering changes. Similarly, that czars are only any good if there are actual policies to change and crucially, the government has to be willing to change them.  And finally, and perhaps most importantly, that just one person talking and evangelising is never enough. It needs sustained focus from all parties involved, it needs commitment from them all, and it needs willingness to look at things differently.

So having said I instinctively agree that czars are a bit of a waste of time, I’m actually a fan. I think they can inspire, they can force focus, they can add huge experience and they can really make governments and the rest of us sit up and listen. But they – just the same as all of us – don’t operate in a vacuum; and their appointment cannot be a substitute for action.

This movement is seeking to create a “Purple Book” in an effort to articulate its vision and is part of an attempt to woo back the Liberal Democrats. Sylvester states that “in fact it is possible to see scope for a new Lib-Lab alliance, grown out of the liberal Centre rather than the social democratic left”.

This is a possibility. But I think that the article – and the Westminster village – is ignoring how closely the Purple Book and the ‘Red Tory’ or Centrist Conservatives are starting to align.

The Purple Book will, the article says, focus on some common themes such as the “role of government and decentralisation” – decentralisation, of course, is one of the most radical parts of the Tory modernisers’ project. It will also talk about the “need to move away from reliance on a big State and redistribute power to individuals and communities” – again, that’s sounding familiar…

The truth is that the Blue Labour/Purple Book agenda and the Red Tory/Centrist Conservative agenda are converging very rapidly.

Both move beyond the legacy of Thatcher and the rampant free market fundamentalism/individualism which it represented. Both reject the Fabianism of the Blair years which embraced managerialist government with its targets, centralisation and command/control politics.

Both sides are converging (more so than the Liberal Democrats, who despite last week’s setbacks are wedded far too much to the special interests of local government) on the idea of breaking politics out of the traditional shackles of elections, parties and formal democratic institutions and directly empowering citizens, communities and their chosen organisations – whether they be charities, voluntary groups, social enterprises, co-operatives or unions.

In hushed voices you can sometimes hear modernisers speak of Cameron’s grand project to break the Liberal Democrats in two – bringing the “liberal” Orange Bookers into the fold and leaving the old “Labour-leaning” wing of the Party floating back into irrelevance. This is a bold strategy, but why stop there?

The really grand strategy would be to break the Labour Party in two. Divorce the centrist “Blairite” wing of the party (read – the electorally successful part) from the “Old Labour” wing.

This would give the Modernising Project the broad, centrist base that it has always wanted and needs if it is going to win future elections. Cameron used to call himself the “heir to Blair” and much of his success has been convincing voters who supported Blair to support him instead. So he should be focusing on generating intellectual links with the Purple Bookers in order to make his claim reality.

Sure, there is a great deal of partisanship, decades of prejudice, myth-making and suspicion, and this might take years to achieve – but this would be a true re-alignment of politics.

The Big Society will require decades to fully embed itself and needs years of electoral success – we need the broadest coalition possible. Orange Bookers, Purple Bookers and Centrist Tories – working together. This could be the future of British politics.

Ever since the early 1990s and the victory of Blair, it has been the Conservatives who have been on the intellectual back foot. Finally, Cameron & Co have given the Tories the intellectual advantage. The Labour Party from David Miliband to Jon Cruddas can see that the Big Society is a fantastic opportunity to build a new democracy and a new economy. “Blue Labour”/ Purple Bookers/New Labour – they all want to get in on the act – but fortunately for Conservatives, we currently hold the high ground.

So let’s at least starting trying to co-opt them in the early stages of the project, while Ed Miliband continues to dither.

If successful, it could see a radical centrist Government in power for the long term and give us the chance to build the new kind of Britain that we all want to see.

As I’ve written before, I was most disappointed by both campaigns. I was really looking to be persuaded on the merits of AV and instead was basically told that voting yes meant locking the Tories out of power forever. While I don’t think this is actually true, it was a monumentally stupid strategy to only talk to people who the campaign felt comfortable with (and that applies to their refusal to engage with, for example, Nigel Farage, and to their insistence that lots of Facebook, Twitter, discussion groups and stunt activity was enough to win).

Equally the obvious rebuttal to the No campaign’s argument that “extremists’ votes count more than your first preference” was to say that your first preference carried on counting in every round but they missed that entirely.

Basically the yes campaign only wanted to talk to people like it, were so convinced of the merits of their case that they thought they didn’t need to argue it, and thought shiny celebrity endorsements were enough (who was it who treated voters as if they were stupid?).

But the most wrong thing the Yes campaign did was to pretend that AV would ‘solve’ the ‘problem’ of safe seats, ensure all MPs had the support of more than 50 per cent of their electorate, and make MPs work harder, be more honest, and not cheat on their expenses. All of which is just patent, disingenuous nonsense, and treats voters like idiots.

I think the No campaign was on exceedingly shaky but not outright false grounds on its cost calculations (though I think we should be prepared to pay a sensible amount to ensure our democracy is fair).

I think that their attacks on Nick Clegg were unkind – but they were, after all, more or less true, and the same accusations of breaking promises could indeed be applied to the Conservatives as well. And, as I noted at the time, the pre-emptive ‘We didn’t batter him as much as we could have done’ was an interesting piece of protective spin.

I’m as keen as anyone to hold politicians to account – but I think the Lib Dems (and the Tories) had no real choice other than to compromise when they drew up the Coalition Agreement. I want them to make the case for what they believe, without being yelled at for daring to stray away from received wisdom, innate prejudices or the party line. But that does pre-suppose that they are also prepared to proof their ideas against wilful misinterpretation (which yesterday’s David Willetts’ outing seems to imply they cannot).

As I’ve said above, the successful No argument that some voters’ votes count twice was nonsense – but the fact that the Yes campaign failed to counter it shows how dismal their campaign was, and I suppose, in the end, it depends on your interpretation of ‘vote’.

Another of the successful things the No campaign did was to bog down the Yes campaign in rebuttal. If the Yes campaign had properly attack-proofed its campaign, that wouldn’t have been such a difficulty.

I didn’t like the No campaign. I thought they failed to defend FPTP to begin with, and only after some months did they finally get round to the ‘fair’ argument that it means everyone has one vote, of equal value. But anyway, enough of that – I thought both campaigns were off-putting; but the interesting thing will be, what lessons do the political parties draw from them?

I’ve written before about single-issue campaigning, and about how I’d love to see fewer whipped votes, MPs being allowed to explore an issue with the public, full accountability for all MPs to their constituents every election-time… And I’ve also spent a lot of time pondering whether this blog, and our Twitter and Facebook pages are really of much use at all in anything other than talking to the people who are already interested and committed.

I recently attended an Adam Smith Institute event on whether Twitter killed the Blogging Star (answer – probably not, as 140 characters is too few to have an argument); something that caught my ear was that online communications generally achieve three key things:

-          They remove the capacity of politicians to constantly triangulate – because there’s full disclosure to all, always

-          They ensure consistency – because there’s a record

-          Somehow, online feels a more intimate medium, more direct and therefore there’s a closer connection.

I think all of these are good things – and it will be interesting to see what model the political parties take up for future elections. As Paul Waugh notes in his piece on the digital war during the AV campaign, there are plenty of lessons to be drawn from both campaigns.

But perhaps the most fundamental thing is the lesson we can draw from the No campaign about coalitions. No – not the Conservative/Lib Dem one. But the building of coalitions of interest. I really never thought I’d see that many Labour MPs working with Conservative MPs (or vice versa). It is to the enormous credit of the No campaign that they understood the need to build that coalition of interest; and I hope that this is the key lesson that the Conservatives (hopefully not anyone else!) draw from the AV experience.

To return to Mark’s post. I said that I thought he had drawn some wrong conclusions. One of those is that there will be no accountability for the claims made and the way the campaigns were run. I think that’s not necessarily true – in a different way to perhaps he meant it. I think that these campaigns were fascinating try-outs for how to run political campaigns in the UK, and that what worked, and what was emotionally successful will be fascinating to chew over.

A small anecdote to finish off. I was at a 30^th birthday party in Essex on the weekend, for a friend with two small children. He’s not at all well-off, runs a small business, and isn’t very interested in politics but he feels he should vote and know the gist of what’s going on. I overheard him say to someone that he’d gone off David Cameron in the last few weeks – he saw that I’d heard, was profusely apologetic, but I asked why (he’s basically our target vote in a marginal seat).  He said he didn’t like the aggressive campaigning that he’d seen recently – there was no positive reason to vote with DC. I think that’s hugely instructive.

I want the Tories’ next election campaign to be properly thought through, with policies that aim to do the right thing. I want them to build a coalition of support through positive persuasion, not fear-mongering (which is one of the reasons I am so fed up of CCHQ press releases saying that Labour would have cut NHS spending. Money spent does not necessarily equal good outcomes – something that we’re happy to argue for elsewhere). I want them to understand that they need to persuade people of the merits of their case, not distort and smear and undermine people who, after all, will have been our partners in the period leading up to the election or who have (hopefully) done their job properly as an Opposition.

One truly ridiculous phrase was used by Ed Miliband at the launch of the ‘Yes’ campaign when he described the AV referendum as a “choice coming down to hope versus fear”:  clearly his speechwriters have been reading ‘The Audacity of Hope’ again. This phrase has no relevance to the argument at hand (though I may have got it wrong and in fact each Election Day in the UK sees municipal buildings filled with people angrily waving their voting slips and demanding AV so that they can stop cowering with fear under the evil yoke of FPTP). It is out of all proportion to the issue under discussion.

As well as irritating the occasional Platform 10 contributor, this kind of overblown and meaningless rhetoric has some more worrying consequences of which British politicians in all parties need to become more aware if they do not want the public to become increasingly disenchanted with the political classes.

Firstly, soaring rhetoric set expectations so high that reality is bound to disappoint – just look at what has happened to Barack Obama.  No matter what he has achieved so far on issues like health reform he was always bound to disappoint simply because his speeches were filled with the kind of inspirational phrases and words that Ed Miliband’s speechwriting team is clearly jealous of.  Obama’s team appear to have woken up to this just before he took office in 2009, with Obama saying: “I want to be realistic here… Not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on [sic] the pace that we had hoped.”

It can also lead a cynical public not just ignore but actually discount any actual accomplishments as mere fabrication. One of the most widely criticised aspects of the later years of Blair’s government was the tendency of Number 10 and the Cabinet to spin what were often only minor achievements into glorious triumphs.  New Labour’s obsession with headlines obscured the very real progress that had been made on, for instance, education reform, the minimum wage or the Northern Ireland Peace process. 

Similarly, the various rapturous and high-flown speeches that Gordon Brown made as Prime Minister to try to re-energise his leadership were met with widespread derision, as were similar rhetorical efforts to kick-start an “economic recovery”; quite sensibly, the UK decided not to place their trust in a man who had, despite his talk of being “Not flash – just Gordon”, been so in thrall to headlines, pollsters and spin, that he fluffed the question of the 2007 election, made misguided attempts to talk about the Arctic Monkeys and tried to hedge his bets, media-wise, by arriving late at the signing of the Lisbon Treaty.

What the public actually wants is not highfalutin yet ultimately meaningless speeches, but honest and straightforward communication from a political class that doesn’t treat them like children yet respects the need for clear explanations.  So far, Cameron’s government has generally avoided the Ed Miliband “hope not fear” trap, perhaps having recognised that no matter how much you irritate the electorate by telling them hard times are ahead, you’ll irritate them a great deal more if you try too hard to dress it up with pretty words.

However, in terms of communication – as fellow Platform 10-er Fiona Melville has pointed out here before – the Coalition Government’s record has been less than exemplary.  Cameron and his Cabinet either appear unable to properly explain and lay the PR groundwork for complex ideas like health reform or the Forestry issue, or they sound like a bunch of policy wonks stuck in their ivory tower and completely disconnected from the public – like Letwin and his comments on the holiday habits of Sheffield residents, or Willetts and his easy-to-misconstrue remarks about feminism and social mobility, or indeed this morning’s outing for allowing universities to open up more places to people who pay for them privately. We need a senior MP or Minister who can go from media outlet to media outlet and explain complex ideas in workmanlike language.  Margaret Thatcher had her Norman Tebbitt. Tony Blair had his John Reid.  Cameron currently has no-one – despite the high hopes for Eric Pickles when he was Party Chairman. Now that he is Secretary of State at Communities, he has been very good at picking fights with councils, but less good at explaining why the localism agenda should matter to “the man on the street”.

This flaw is exacerbated by another long-running Conservative problem: no vision.  In the run-up to the 2010 election, the public remained unaware of what the party stood for.  We had dozens of policies and programmes, but no overarching narrative to communicate to the electorate, one that tied together all these individual policies into a coherent whole that they could really get to grips with. Very little has changed since then. Cameron has tried to create a storyline from his “Big Society” idea, but although there are some good policies here, it seems so far to have mainly consisted of empty sloganeering.  They have not yet managed to defuse voters’ suspicion that the Big Society is nothing but a cover for ideological cuts. 

Rhetoric is not communication. A glut of disparate policies is not a vision.  Cameron has so far avoided the pitfalls of the rhetorical strategies of Obama, Blair and Miliband by using workmanlike language, keeping expectations low and maintaining a space where future Government achievements can be recognised and absorbed by the public.  Communicating well with the public shouldn’t involve an appeal to the lowest common denominator or treating them like idiots, as has happened in the AV campaign.  We should instead trust the electorate to respond like adults to adult arguments and balanced rhetoric, delivered by someone who sounds like they have some empathy with the average UK citizen.  And if the Conservatives are able to join this to a gripping narrative, then we place ourselves in an excellent position for the next general election, regardless of the outcome in Thursday’s referendum.

In December, when I met the Yes campaign, I was keen to find a killer argument for AV.

In January, when I met the No campaign, I was eager to hear their killer rebuttal and why we should keep first past the post.

We do have problems with how our democracy works. I spent two years working on pro-democracy campaigns abroad, which really made me think about how ours operates. I think we have a body politic that generally isn’t very accountable, that fails to really explain what it’s doing (and be honest about why and how and what that is – the positives and the negatives), that only pays attention to voters when it’s election time, and that fails to take into account the changes in politics, awareness and issues since the 1950s.

They can start to be addressed by proper recalls, proper open primaries, full reselection processes for all MPs every election, more localism, more transparency and frequent, proper boundary reviews.

They cannot be fixed by AV. Proper proportional representation might go some way to addressing some of them.

The Yes campaign told me MPs are lazy and venal. Given that I know a fair few MPs, I know that this is simply untrue. They work hard, they do a lot of incredibly dull and unnoticed work, and they really do have a desire to serve their constituents – even every single minister I’ve ever met has said that the thing they most enjoy is helping their constituents with their problems. They also told me that AV would remove the concept of a safe seat – which is just nonsense; we ourselves vote to make seats safe.

The No campaign told me that a different voting system was expensive and unfair. I disagree profoundly with both statements – if we value our democracy we should be prepared to spend enough money to make it work properly, and I can’t see what’s unfair about allowing people to express preferences; your first preference is counted in every round that your candidate is still in the voting.

The Yes campaign’s arguments are not arguments for AV – they are arguments for recalls, open primaries, full reselection for all seats every time – and no tactical voting. And their refusal to accept a turnout threshold completely blew out of the water any pretence they made of wanting majoritarian support for anything.

While I accept that they were running a negative campaign, by definition, the No campaign’s arguments were not arguments for FPTP until very late in the campaign – their change to one person, one vote was the best thing they did and they should have done it earlier.

I was seriously contemplating not voting today. I don’t care very much which system we have out of AV and FPTP – I don’t think it would make a huge difference. But I think if AV passes, and is shown to not make the sweeping changes the Yes campaign has been promising, that will disengage voters even further.

I voted no because the Yes campaign failed to persuade me.  The No campaign hasn’t persuaded me either (though they are the only people who’ve sent or offered me any campaign literature).

I voted no with reluctance. I want change. I just don’t think this one would make any difference.

Indeed every time I’m out campaigning I always wonder why any political party spends money on spin doctors, since the electorate seems so able to see through their sorcery.

In Southbourne we have a mixed electorate ranging from social housing to Georgian residences situated behind pristine gardens with the spring blossom making them stand out in this unseasonably fine weather – a broad spectrum of opinion which is representative of a wider canvass. This being my first election in Sussex I wondered with some trepidation how the cuts and the Coalition would play out. But thus far I’m pleasantly surprised.

No one welcomes the deficit reduction, but almost everyone I’ve talked to on the doorstep sees it as a regrettable necessity with many having their own suggestions for government savings (mostly far beyond the powers of a prospective District Councillor!).

There is a resounding NO to AV -the Yes campaign has clearly called this one badly. I’m hearing a consistent message that FPTP is tried, tested and safe and even natural Conservative voters acknowledging that the result in 1997 was a clear and decisive message to a tired and divided government. Of course I far prefer the 1979 and 2010 examples!

AV comes across as confused, complicated and unnatural on the doorstep with the referendum as unnecessary and in the four figure “focus group” I’ve so far addressed I’ve yet to hear anyone believe it would make any impact on MPs expenses.

For those sufficiently enthusiastic to follow in detail (which I have to say isn’t many) the Chris Huhne threat to take legal action is viewed as laughably absurd.

Ed Miliband plays very badly – “the one who backstabbed his brother isn’t he?” if he is mentioned at all.

Overall I’m seeing an electorate who whilst not entirely happy are absolutely realistic about the challenges we are facing at present time. Indeed one of the most often heard calls is for more robust action on some core Conservative issues such as the Human Rights Act.

I’m also seeing a welcome enthusiasm from my Conservative colleagues (three of us are on the slate) with hard work and no complacency in engaging the voters whose trust we hope to earn. Indeed I often hear “oh you’re the only politician I’ve seen” which seems amazing given that we are one year into a government making radical and very necessary, but potentially very unpopular, changes.

Whilst there are some gripes (forests didn’t go down well) the message I’m hearing is for our Conservative-led government to stick with it, a unanimous thumbs down to AV even from the generally politically uncommitted and a refreshing desire to have a short chat over the garden gate before going back into carry on with their lives whilst this enthusiastic candidate moves on in the spring sunshine to see if their neighbours agree.

However, while sometimes preaching the valid, resounding points above, No to AV have focused to a great extent on the projected cost of adopting the Alternative Vote. Anyone who has followed the posters and literature released by the No campaign will most likely remember those which suggested a figure of £250 million. The new-born baby needs a maternity unit not AV, and the soldier needs bulletproof vests not AV, they say. However, it is clear that this figure of £250million is either a calculated estimate at best, or an exaggerated partisan attempt at worst. Whilst it is inevitable that AV will cost more than first past the post even in the long run, there is still no concrete evidence to back up this figure. In fact, it should be observed that the majority of this estimated sum is the cost of holding the referendum, and will be spent regardless of whether AV is backed at the ballot box or not; in which case the whole argument of mentioning the cost becomes simply invalid.

Back in February, I thought that the No campaign were making a huge mistake by taking this route. I thought that the issue of cost was a petty argument, and really did nothing to explain why first past the post is a voting system worth having more than AV. I thought that No to AV would be criticised for negative campaigning, and that the Yes campaign would continue to extend their lead towards a comfortable referendum win.

It seems now, I was wrong. A recent poll by ComRes shows that the more people find out about AV, the less they like it. Support for the Yes campaign has remained static; they’re not persuading people (36% in January to 37% now), while support for the No campaign has risen from 30% in January to currently 43%. The pollster indicates that the majority of people who answered ‘Don’t Know’ in January, have now transferred their support to the No campaign. One has to therefore commend the No to AV campaign, which the ComRes poll suggests is working. A recent BBC Question Time provided evidence for this supposition. After the issue of AV was raised in the debate, the majority of input from the panel members was met with lukewarm applause, most probably from those who were committed supporters one way or the other on the issue. That was until a panelist mentioned suggested that millions of pounds would be wasted on AV; then, it seemed, the whole audience were applauding.

The No to AV campaign seem to have realised the fact that the majority of people are not greatly interested in the detailed arguments for and against different systems of voting. For most, it is an extremely dry topic. With this understanding, they have therefore run a campaign which, yes, has been negative, but which has landed its core messages with the average voter. Indeed, No to AV have also found success with the simple fact, they say, that the winner can sometimes end up not being elected. I would argue, even as someone who will vote No on May 5th, that if a candidate receives a slim margin of votes, that this does not necessarily mean that they are the most popular candidate in general terms. However, to the majority of people who only look briefly at both sides of the argument, it is ludicrous to them that the person who comes first may not always win the contest. The No to AV campaign have capitalised on this, as indicated by the support the campaign has received from a group of famous sportspeople; in other words, people who are somewhat beacons for the ‘first past the post’ idea. The most recent video released by the Conservative No to AV group for example, called ‘AV Sports Day’, is however, in truth, pathetic – there is a clear difference between the contest of a running race and of an election, but the message nonetheless has been successful.

Neither the cost, nor the fact that the candidate with the most votes may lose are the reasons why I do not support the change to the Alternative Vote. I am more concerned by the fact that it undermines the principle of one person, one vote by allowing supporters of outsider parties to have their second preferences counted first. I am also concerned that AV would make coalitions more likely, which will create less decisive government, and will make it far easier for politicians to break their manifesto pledges. However, it has to be said that the No to AV campaign has been successful at transferring the balance of public opinion at least to neck and neck, if not slightly in favour of a No vote. Neither side of the argument can afford can be complacent in the run up to May 5th, but it really does seem that all is to play for and that any result is still on the cards.