Started by Pioneering Academics Such As David Denver, Gordon Hands
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THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT APPROACH TO CAMPAigNING Started by pioneering academics such as David Denver, Gordon Hands and Justin Fisher,1 there is now a well-established tradition of research into the impact of local campaigning on British election results. This work, however, tends to be cross-party and to rely heavily on evidence such as officially recorded spending figures, election results, questionnaire findings and statistical analysis of all three. As a result, there is still very little written about the development of particular campaign techniques, especially where they were specific to one party for a long period of time. By Mark Pack. 6 Journal of Liberal History 83 Summer 2014 THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT APPROACH TO CAMPAigNING his article fills part of elections, and accusations that it (by the margin of seventeen to six that gap in the histori- was being dumbed down into an in 1983, and by seventeen to five in Tcal record, by considering election-only approach, was a regu- 1987). For all the importance the the Liberal Democrat (and before lar feature of Liberal Party debates SDP attached to bringing a sense that Liberal Party) campaign tech- over the future of the idea. As one of professionalism to the (as they niques, and the evolution of party of its seminal texts warned (and saw it) amateurish approach of the strategies and structures to support note that its authors felt the need to Liberals, when it came to votes them.2 issue this warning): ‘Community being counted it was the Liberal politics is not a technique. It is an Party approach that consistently ideology, a system of ideas for social did better. The Liberal Democrat transformation. For those ideas to It is no surprise, therefore, that inheritance from its become a reality there is a need for a comparing the different campaign predecessor parties strategy of political action. For that manuals produced for the two pre- The techniques, strategies and strategy to be successful it needs decessor parties, for the Alliance structures were not all created to develop effective techniques of and then for the Liberal Democrats afresh when the party was formed political campaigning. Those tech- reveals a strong continuity in both out of the merger of the Liberal niques are a means to an end. If they content and authors from the Lib- Party and SDP. Rather, the merged become an end in themselves, the eral Party through to the Liberal party inherited most of its initial ideas they were designed to pro- Democrats.4 Indeed, in many cases approach from its predecessors. mote will have been lost’.3 large pieces of text were copied over In establishing a campaign tradi- By contrast, the SDP’s roots were and then updated for new editions tion for their merged successor to predominantly in national politics or nominally new titles, so that even inherit, the Liberal Party had two and national issues, which did not where the author’s names and titles big advantages over the SDP: it had in the same way lead naturally to a are new, the continuity is still there.5 been around, doing campaigning, distinctive approach to local cam- Some of the SDP election manu- for longer and, at least as far as local paigning. A Labour MP who left als did have a distinctive approach campaigning was concerned, had his party for the SDP over Europe, from the contemporary Liberal been seen even by many in the SDP trade union power or voting rights Party ones. For example, the SDP’s as being the more skilled party. at a national party conference did firstLocal Government Election Hand- Moreover, in adopting com- not as a result adopt a different book, published in January 1982, munity politics in the 1970s, the approach from that of other par- highlighted the importance of Liberal Party had taken both a phil- ties to grassroots politics in the same ‘Policy Formulation’, which fea- osophical and a practical approach way that a Liberal attracted to com- tures as early as page 2, giving it a that venerated local activity and munity politics did. prominence that equivalent Liberal regular communication. It was Moreover, the relative results Party publications of the time did about being active on the doorsteps of the two parties in 1983 and 1987 not grant. But subsequent Liberal and via letterboxes all year round reinforced the existing percep- Democrat publications followed and not simply (as was traditional tion of the Liberal Party as being the Liberal Party and not the SDP with election campaigns) in the few the skilled exponent of grassroots choice of emphasis. weeks before a polling day. Elec- political campaigning. Despite a Liberal Democrat This documentary and authorial tions were, in the old Liberal Party tortuous process to ensure a ‘fair’ campaigning: trail from the Liberal Party through saying, but the punctuation marks allocation of seats between the two Brent Central in to the Liberal Democrats was also in community politics. Alliance partners, at both elections the 2010 election reflected in the nature of the grass- The degree to which community the Liberals were far more effec- (photo: Liberal roots campaigning that the Lib- politics should be about winning tive at winning seats than the SDP Democrats). eral Democrats specialised in. The Journal of Liberal History 83 Summer 2014 7 THE liBERAL DEMOCRAT ApprOACH TO CAMPAIGNING various techniques described below campaigns and careful targeting to Chris Ren- Also, for local council elections, all had antecedents in Liberal Party win local elections was well estab- targeting usually meant asking activities. It is hard to identify a lished and, in many parts of the nard liked to people to travel less far than for tar- distinctive SDP contribution, save country, successful. However, it geting at parliamentary elections. for perhaps one crucial one: many had not achieved similar levels of tell the story Parliamentary constituencies are in the SDP viewed themselves as success at a national level. considerably larger, and winnable taking the fight for Westminster of how he constituencies fewer. As a result, constituencies seriously, in a way going to your nearest target con- that the Liberal Party, with its – in Targeting met with the stituency might even mean travel- their view – undue concentration Part of the reason for this distinc- ling 100 miles or more. By contrast, on local councils, had not.6 tion between local level success and Liberal Par- going to your nearest target ward Westminster-level disappointments ty’s 1987 Gen- usually meant only a short trip, save was the difficulty of applying tar- for the most rural of areas. The need for leaflets geting effectively at parliamentary- eral Election Moreover, at a national level Central to this inheritance for the level elections. many believed that very little could Liberal Democrats was the role of At the local level, the Liberals Campaign be done to influence the chances leaflets. If one image can sum up in particular in their most success- in individual seats, if indeed that the approach to campaigning taken ful areas had honed a very strict Commit- was even the point of a national by the Liberal Democrats across approach to targeting, pouring campaign. Thomas (Jack) Daniels, twenty-five years, it would be a efforts into winnable wards whilst tee and was the Liberal candidate for Luton in piece of paper on a doormat embla- neglecting other wards – often 1966, recounted11 how despite his zoned with a bar chart and a head- in those doing no more than put- firmly told very low prospects of victory, he line screaming that ‘Only the local ting a candidate’s name on the bal- received an election visit from then Liberal Democrat can beat Party X lot paper, if that. But when it came that, ‘which Liberal leader Jo Grimond because round here’.7 to general elections, it was far less Grimond simply thought it was the Then Liberal Party MP David common for candidates and their seats the right thing for him to do to visit Penhaligon coined the phrase that helpers to similarly abandon no- everyone who was standing as a many activists have since quoted, ‘If hope seats and move instead to help party won candidate. you believe in something, write it on in winnable constituencies.9 (Par- That sort of attitude lasted over a piece of paper and stick it through liamentary by-elections were an at a general the decades. Chris Rennard liked a letterbox’. However, it was Chris exception to this due to the paucity to tell the story of how he met with Rennard, first as the Liberal Demo- of other elections usually taking election was the Liberal Party’s 1987 General crats’ Director of Campaigns and place on the same day – and it was just a matter Election Campaign Committee Elections, and then subsequently as no coincidence that this made it and was firmly told that, ‘which Chief Executive, who turned it into easier to encourage large volumes of luck, com- seats the party won at a general an effective seat-winning tactic at of help and that the party devel- election was just a matter of luck, general elections for the party.8 oped something of an expertise at pletely out of completely out of the control of the Both when Penhaligon first winning such contests.) central campaign’. That was a belief coined the phrase and during Ren- The relative reluctance on the control that he did not share and set out nard’s time in charge of the party’s the part of activists to move dur- to change, and during his time in campaigning, the party suffered ing general elections was in part of the central charge of the party’s campaigning from not only an absence of favour- because Westminster elections it did change radically.