As a former journalist who just worked on progressive campaigns during this election; there are a couple of basic truths that it is important for UK progressives to accept otherwise we will condemn ourselves to an unending spiral of failure and bitterness. #thread
Firstly; #Labour didnt lose because the media was against it. This might feel like a warm blanket in the post-election freezing wind, but it’s crap. The way digital information has developed means that narratives are mostly formed online before the papers magnify them
We dont live in the 1970s, 20 million people dont watch Panorama every week (trust me, i worked there), newspaper readership is falling; and - vitally - most people now form views on issues based on what friends and family say online. There is academic work on this. Check it out.
A cursory look at Facebook ads library in late Oct showed that the Tory Party had been harvesting data by sending ads to gauge the responses of voters constituency by constituency. Come the election, it looked to me like they new exactly where the votes they needed were
Labour’s leadership was overly reliant on... well, ive thought about this a lot... blind, pseudo-religious belief in the idea that the British people were crying out for socialism. Ive worked in the Middle East and incompetent paternalism is something i recognise from afar
My great uncle, an old solider once told me, “when things dont go your way, first look to see what you did wrong before you seek to blame others.” This is the spirit that Labour needs to address the reality we are in now.
It’s not that Dominic Cummings is a god of comms. It’s that Labour’s comms were broken. I saw no evidence of any serious attempt to develop audience profiles. Labour’s entire campaigning approach is based on identifying people who already support the party
This last point is key; all those volunteers, all that money is just preaching to the choir. What happens when you are facing an opponent who wants to convert your flock? Well, we found out the answer when the exit poll was announced
These are all operational issues; there’s also a big fundamental question; what is Labour for? Is it a party informed by socialist principles or is it a vehicle for socialism?
Postscript on media; look at a couple of egs; Farage and Tommy Robinson - both vilified (rightly) by the media; but both worked the idea that any coverage is good. They used access to media to land core messages to core audiences. Often through performance rather than statement
It is just not good enough to say “the media was against us”. It’s a cop out and crass self justification.
Final post script; @DatapraxisEU, who I worked alongside during the election, has just issued these evidence-based findings. Main points; the Tories ddint get loads more votes, Labour lost Remain and Leave voters; views of leadership were a big factor. dataprax.is/tory-landslide…
The report also shows Labour lost voters from the 2017 election to other Remain parties. This really annoys me because I heard A LOT of people talk as if the 2017 voter numbers were locked in. Highly recommend reading @paulhilder’s exec summary
