Now that we have had a week to analyse Gordon Brown’s desperate interview with Piers Morgan, it has been confirmed that this rather sad attempt to improve his standing has had no discernible effect on the polls. The Prime Minister of the country should not have done a base interview to improve his popularity, rather he should be (as he ironically used to keep telling us) ‘getting on with the business of running the country’. Regarding the death of his child, of course this was incredibly tragic, but it has absolutely nothing to do with his role as Prime Minister. It is simply a private tragedy that should have remained so. His willingness to discuss it on television reduces that tragedy and makes his efforts all the more lamentable.
The often-cited defence for Brown appearing on the Morgan show is that one has to do that sort of thing nowadays to be successful. People want to know the kind of person you are; they like to know the nitty-gritty. I am not convinced at all that this is the case, and the fact that Brown has faired no better since the interview would support such a view. Is it not on the media’s insistence that we know the deeply personal, not professional, details of our politicians? Yes, the public plays its role; we buy the newspapers and the magazines that detail all the personal titillation of the famous. But it is the media that provides the fuel for the fire.
Yet, just as Brown does not improve in the polls, neither does David Cameron. There are many reasons why the Tories are not improving on their position, but in part it is because of their willingness to submit to the argument I mentioned above. That is, that one has to do something (a particular interview) or act in a certain way (a sequence of photographs with celebrities) to have success in the election. In other words, there is too much analysis and time spent on trying to work out what the people want and then trying to act accordingly.
The new brand of Conservatives of which Cameron is a figurehead have built a significant proportion of their strategy around this premise. Of course, there must be a balance between practical and principle politics, but there is not enough of ‘this is who I am and what I stand for, vote for me if you want it, or if you do not, then don’t’. Instead we have ‘tell me what you would like and I’ll say that I believe that too and stand up for it’.
Piers Morgan is right: we do want to know what kind of person we are voting for, but we want to know their deeply held convictions and principles, not their very personal family tragedies or the trivial details of their everyday lives. David Cameron might do well to remind himself of this.
The often-cited defence for Brown appearing on the Morgan show is that one has to do that sort of thing nowadays to be successful. People want to know the kind of person you are; they like to know the nitty-gritty. I am not convinced at all that this is the case, and the fact that Brown has faired no better since the interview would support such a view. Is it not on the media’s insistence that we know the deeply personal, not professional, details of our politicians? Yes, the public plays its role; we buy the newspapers and the magazines that detail all the personal titillation of the famous. But it is the media that provides the fuel for the fire.
Yet, just as Brown does not improve in the polls, neither does David Cameron. There are many reasons why the Tories are not improving on their position, but in part it is because of their willingness to submit to the argument I mentioned above. That is, that one has to do something (a particular interview) or act in a certain way (a sequence of photographs with celebrities) to have success in the election. In other words, there is too much analysis and time spent on trying to work out what the people want and then trying to act accordingly.
The new brand of Conservatives of which Cameron is a figurehead have built a significant proportion of their strategy around this premise. Of course, there must be a balance between practical and principle politics, but there is not enough of ‘this is who I am and what I stand for, vote for me if you want it, or if you do not, then don’t’. Instead we have ‘tell me what you would like and I’ll say that I believe that too and stand up for it’.
Piers Morgan is right: we do want to know what kind of person we are voting for, but we want to know their deeply held convictions and principles, not their very personal family tragedies or the trivial details of their everyday lives. David Cameron might do well to remind himself of this.