'Pershonalities' v 'ishoos'
Tony Benn used to upbraid the media for focussing on what he called "pershonalities" and not "the ishoos". Some Newsloggers obviously agree, .
John wrote that the media was interested in personalities but then pointed fingers at the politicians for not having explained their policies properly. Jonathan wrote that UK politics was becoming similar to the 'who-can-come-up-with-the-most-dirt-about-their-opponent' politics of the US.
But there's one intriguing fact that suggests they are wrong. It tells you a great deal about what David Cameron is up to.
Simply attaching the word Conservative to a particular policy proposal significantly reduces public support for it - in other words people who take a view of an issue take the opposite view once they know which personalities support it.
The reason for this is fairly obvious and well documented. It's less and less common for voters to choose parties on the basis of their class or ideology - in part, of course, because fewer of us can tell the major parties apart.
You may believe this is a thoroughly bad thing or you may think its evidence of a mature emerging consensus. Either way it makes the personality of leaders vitally important. Labour had been changing its policies and structures for many years before Tony Blair reached the top. The fact that he was young, middle class, English and a family man with young children and a successful career wife embodied that change for many voters, and served as a reassurance to many nervy of voting Labour perhaps for the first time.
The Tories too have been changing some of their policy stances - becoming more positive about public spending, the environment, international development, etc - in the past few years. The buzz in the political classes is because some believe that David Cameron may do for the Tories what Blair did for Labour.
The question is whether the problem with the Tories is personality or, , being in the wrong place on the fundamental issues - tax, Europe, the war with Iraq, etc.
I'm 
Comments
I think Ken Clarke as ever makes excellent points with regard to the fundamental issues.
I for the life of me can't understand why Cameron wishes to cause a argument over Europe. How many of the electorate have even herd of the groupings in the EU Parliament? Even myself as a Undergraduate in Politics would struggle to tell you the groupings. Ken Clarke is right, what is the point of Cameron pursuing this issue? Perhaps he wants to follow Blair in more ways than one and show that he can stand up to his party like Blair did with many issues. But he could play into Labour's hands who are saying that Cameron is just a rebranding exercise.
I wonder what this means for Clarke, will he still head the taskforce on democracy? I guess after his weekend comments he is not in Cameron's good books.
I think it's very unhelpful of Clarke to say the Tories are wrong on the issue of Europe. The EPP, which Cameron wants the Tories to leave, includes MEPs from Merkel's CDU. Markel has publically declared she wants to re-introduce the EU Consitution during the next German presidency of the EU. This is something the Conservatives voted against, and which France and Holland rejected. For the Tories to stay in such a group within the EU would be foolish, and betray promises.
Isn't Tony Blair Scottish not English? Although he hides it well..
Politics has always been personality lead - ever since the days of Charles and Cromwell. I have just helped one family member write a project about the First English Civil War. You cannot fail to notice the Personality Clashes between Charles and the puritanical parlimentarian John Pym; each of them in there own way used their personality to focus the ideas and paranoia of their followers.
Blair and Cameron have no option but follow in these deep footsteps. Party leaders are the salesmen of the political system. The back benchers might fight for the power, the front benchers might set the targets, but it is the leaders that will ultimately sell the policy or not.
Blair has been accused of a presidential style leadership, ignoring the opinions of his cabinet. But in reality this has been the case with every prime minister since the post was invented - it has just been less covered up with Blair!
Cameron knows this and has already made headway in setting up his sales credentials with the potential tory voter. He knows that it is not the fine detail of any particular policy that will win the day, but his SELLING of the policy that will count.
Don't believe me? The Libs have some pretty good policies, but look at their sales record!
Nick, I agree that personalities are vitally important where there is confusion or nervousness about your policies. A trustworthy politician or, perhaps more importantly, a politician who appears to be trustworthy, can persuade wavering voters to support their cause.
I'm not altogether sure what David Cameron's battle plan is, or should be. Elections are always won in the centre ground, so the Tories could either wait for Labour to mess it up (which happens to all parties sooner or later) or try to snatch the momentum from Labour.
The longer Labour is in power, the bigger the gap between promises and delivery. So there is scope for the Tories to win the election on policies even though both parties will compete on the centre ground. For example, policy vote winners might be to restructure the hugely complex tax system, which acts against the lower paid because of its sheer complexity. Or to make comprehensive education work like it was supposed to, to give the best for all and not to average down.
Cameron's personality is important. But the more the Tories can produce relevant issues the more the word 'Conservative' will be an attraction rather than a deterrent.
Related to the subject of presentation, I'm surprised that there has been little commentary (unless I missed it) about the adverts that appeared in this weekend's papers asking for people to contribute to the Tory policy reviews. But instead of being branded under the Conservative logo, they were branded under the name "Cameron's Conservatives". Is this a further mirroring of "New Labour" and the first evidence of rebranding? If it is, it is a very personalised form of branding and a very risky strategy that will only work if Cameron himself becomes popular with the wider electorate.
Tony Benn saying that is quite funny.
You have to have personailty and the right policies to get along in politics. The public are too often considered so superficial that they will vote purely on the basis of looks and personailty. You can have those, but if there is nothing else, the public, being far more sensible and intelligent than the media give them credit for, will see through this more often than not.
Personalities get you into power. Any political party can have any number of well thought out policies but they are worth nothing if you're not in power to implement them.
Ken Clarke, poor old Ken Clarke... He's a bit like a stuck record isn't he?
While I do not agree with Mr. Tony Benn on many issues, I agree with him on the need to focus on issues instead of personalities. Every election in the USA has been frought with personalities instead of issues. There have been personal attacks as well that have nothing to do with issues. Then the two main parties [Republicans and Democrats] unite [although briefly] to attack the Independents, Greens, Libertarians as half baked when some of their appraches to issues such as Health Care, Foreign Policy has made more sense than those of traditional party politics. In an attempt to address Health Care Issues, I wrote two books: "Cutting Health Care" and "Defensive Documentation and More". Another issue with Mr. Benn that I agree with is on the need to have knowledge of the latest digital technology. I am doing that right now with my digital camera.
Nick
Perhaps the reason why the public complains so often and so loudly about "Parties all sounding the same" is precisely because they are all chasing the same group of voters.
It's our electoral system that distorts the entire political landscape by forcing individual parties to target (using increasingly sophisticated social profiling methods) a narrow group of swing voters in marginal seats.
Labour has a majority of 60-odd in the current house. In the most marginal 34 constituencies won by Labour in the May election a grand total of 30,000 votes swung all of these seats for the party forming the government.
I realise this a slightly skewed representation but this startling fact demonstrates very clearly why political parties cannot differentiate themselves by adopting more radical policies to attract an ideologically sound core of voters. In so doing they risk alienating this sacrosanct group of target voters and losing key marginal seats.
For example, this explains why the Lib Dems had to ditch their local income tax policy, because it didn’t play well with the target audience, even though it may have appealed to a solid base of natural Liberal Democrat supporters.
Until and unless we adopt some form of PR for Westminster elections we will continue to witness all mainstream party leaders in the now familiar race to claim the centre ground.
Me and many of my friends were able to vote for the first time this year but some did not for the simple reason that they did not know who to vote for. i knew the way i would vote for a long time leading up to the election and hearing my friends talking about not voting really angered me. the reason for their lack of interest "all the parties are the same anyway it makes no difference who i vote for."
I do believe many people vote another party as they dont wish to have the other in, the best of the bad bunch you could say. maybe with two younger personable leaders of the main parties the younger generations will feel more involved and willing to vote.
I saw David Cameron on his first PM's question time and i was impressed and he is sure to lead a strong opposition and suddenly the idea of a Tory Government isnt quite as scary! I wish him good luck and may politics become even more interesting, if PM's question time is anything to go by it will be!!!