"It can only get better"

An analysis of the dire state of political communications before the General Election in the UK.

Transcript

“It can only get better”

With a general election coming on 4 July, why are political communications so dire? Trust in politicians is low. People are fed up with politics. Foreign holiday bookings for June rose as people tried to escape the constant political news. This is all a challenge for the political parties. Are they rising to this with positive, motivational campaigning? Are they painting a bright, optimistic future?

First up: never mind the optics. Examples. A soaking-wet prime minister announced the general election in the rain outside number 10 because that has always been how it is done. A teetotal prime minister (good on you for that) was directed by his comms team to pretend to like beer. He visited the Titanic Museum in Belfast - for sinking ship memes. Then invited Conservative Councillors to pretend they were workers at a factory visited by the Prime Minister so the questions weren’t hostile. Official pictures were taken of the Prime Minister under an ‘exit’ sign on a plane.  At least the Prime Minister has been busy campaigning. The rest of the Conservatives appear to be on holiday.

Second up: attack yourself. Is Labour so sure of winning that they can spend time on McCarthy-like purges of their party? Was there any other news from Labour, apart from that they would continue the Conservative Party policies of restricting immigration, giving corporations the go-ahead to screw the less privileged (a policy called ‘wealth creation’), continuing the GB Railways project that the Tories started, spending on defence but never mentioning Europe or the climate emergency? The parties are trying to appeal to everyone with nothing, really. Haven’t the Conservatives been attacking themselves for a few years, and where has that got them?

Third up: stunts are back. Sir Ed Davey has been doing a daily stunt to bring some attention to the Liberal Democrats when the news media focused only on the Conservatives and Labour. Falling off paddle boards, downhill biking, watersliding, and baking. But how does this really advance a political vision?

Fourth up: social media advertising by the political parties is evolving. The parties have found that highly targeted advertising isn’t the most effective way to persuade people to vote for them. And anyway, Meta - whose marketing pushed the benefit of targeted ads - now doesn’t allow that for political campaigns after the reputation-damaging episode with Cambridge Analytica a few years ago. Social media advertising is cheaper in June than in November, so we will see massive political budgets spent on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube with broad campaign topics or memes attacking each other. Many people watch YouTube on their telly. Advertising on YouTube is, therefore, a way for parties to ‘speak to the living room’ and not just on a personal device (ITV doesn’t allow political advertising, by the way).

Fifth up: say nothing. A recent YouGov poll put the Green Party as the second most popular party. Yet they have said nothing. There are no policies and no vision that I am aware of. Or could it be the scenario to point number three - that the news media is treating the general election like a US presidential contest and not covering news wider than a Sunak vs Starmer bid? 

Where is the positive messaging? A vision for the next few years? Where is the creative comms to persuade people that it is worth voting for the party that best supports their views for the country rather than voting for a merry-go-round? Why is the general election portrayed as a boxing match between Sunak and Starmer?

It can only get better. Can’t it?

[Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash]