INDEX	Wednesday March 10, 2021
Why we lose
It's pretty clear that people don't want to know the details of politics so they follow opinion leaders, often in the media or media outlets themselves. The fact that the left constantly slags off the right doesn't help, because the right slags off the left and people believe both sides. Politicians are scum. People vote for their team, the ones who look and sound like them. Campaigning needs to be granular. For a start you need to have a ward based party which Labour gave up despite the fact that we recently had record numbers of members. Wards need to own their campaigns not councillors. They need to produce their own tatty leaflets which have the real stamp of localism, not stuff vetted by some council worthy. Data needs to be owned by polling district based campaigners so that they own their very highly local campaigns. This is the way it used to be done. It's called bottom up not top down. When the Labour Party gave up campaigning 20 years ago there was no physical image they could relate to (no local figure they knew and trusted as an opinion leader) so right wing figues (like business leaders) had a clear field. People also vote not for their interests but for the interests they perceive they will have when they are successful. Many think that if they believe it hard enough they will hit the jackpot, so they don't want people like the ones they intend to become to pay a heavy tax burden. Finally the system is very powerful. The Tories rarely get more than 40% of those who vote. Only 70% of those on the register even bother to vote (so the Tories are really only getting 30%). And many people never bother to register. Yet still the Tories take power. If you want to take power you have to drain the swamp not populate it with nicer reptiles.
Posted by Jonathan Brind.
INDEX
Wednesday March 10, 2021