Wizard of Oz
Here's the article by Rachel Sylvester in The Times which portrays 2015 as a 'Wizard of Oz' election which explains why David Cameron tried to soften the Tories image in their manifesto launch, while Ed Miliband tried to make Labour seem more credible.
Head or heart? It’s a Wizard of Oz election
By Rachel Sylvester - The Times
Both the main party leaders are reverting to type, terrified at the consequences of failing to win over floating voters
Fifteen years ago, the American pollster John Zogby devised a question that he used to get below the surface of voters’ reactions to politicians. “Imagine you live in the land of Oz,” he asked. “The candidates are the Tin Man, who is all brains and no heart, and the Scarecrow who is all heart and no brains. Who would you vote for?”
Using this unconventional measure, he became one of the only pollsters to correctly predict the result of the 2000 US Presidential election. Although traditional polling showed Al Gore well ahead of George W Bush, the Tin Man was neck and neck with the Scarecrow. Zogby decided this was a more accurate measure of public opinion when voters were either embarrassed to say what they really felt or uncertain of their own minds. Political instincts run deep and they are as emotional as they are rational.
Now with just five weeks to go until polling day, Britain is heading for a Wizard of Oz election. As the political leaders set off down the Yellow Brick road in search of the Emerald City, David Cameron is the Tin Man, who is seen as competent but lacking in compassion and Ed Miliband is the Scarecrow, who is perceived to have his heart in the right place but is not trusted on the economy. Nick Clegg is the lion, who is criticised for lacking the courage of his convictions after abandoning his pledge on tuition fees. Perhaps Ukip, the Greens and the SNP are the flying monkeys who are trying to throw them off course. Whatever the ups and downs of the campaign - whether they are caused by fluctuating polls, leader’s debates or policy disputes - this will at its core be a contest between the head and the heart.
What is so striking, as the campaign officially launches this week, is the conventionality of each mainstream party’s identity. This is the most unpredictable - and therefore exciting - election for years but the two men who could be Prime Minister are behaving entirely predictably. Neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband has been able to throw off the stereotypes surrounding their parties. In fact they seem to be almost deliberately seeking to reinforce them, in an attempt to shore up their core support, even though an outright majority is only possible by reaching out beyond the political tribe.
The Tories’ campaign message about the long term economic plan could have been written by the Tin Man. It has little to soften it around the edges and will be enforced with an iron discipline by Lynton Crosby, the real life Wizard of Oz. Michael Gove’s calls for his party to win over the electorate’s hearts as well as their heads by reminding people that the Tories are “warriors for the dispossessed” have been ignored. Instead, the Conservatives seem happy to behave as if they have hearts of steel - whether they are promising £12 billion of unspecified welfare cuts, pledging to bring down immigration or mounting vicious personal attacks on the Labour leader. “Nasty but efficient” is the enduring Tory brand and Mr Cameron has given up on trying to shed it.
With curious symmetry, Labour is meanwhile pursuing what could be called the Scarecrow strategy. In a passionate “hell, yes” performance up against Jeremy Paxman last week, Mr Miliband poured out his heart about his desire to tackle inequality, and the harm done to his relationship with his brother when he decided to stand against him for the leadership. But he came over all straw-brained when he was asked about whether the Government he served in had spent too much or where the cuts to the public services will fall if he wins power. Labour launched its business manifesto with an emotional appeal about Europe and the campaign priority will be to pull on the heartstrings by urging people to vote Labour to “save” the health service. If being “well-meaning but hopeless” is Labour’s long-standing image problem, then Mr Miliband is doing little to overturn it.
There is an interesting mixture of arrogance and insecurity in the failure by the Conservative and Labour leaders to reinvent their parties. On the one hand, both are so convinced of the strength of their own argument that they do not feel the need to win over non-believers; on the other, each also feels that their only task so close to an election is to secure the support they already have rather than trying to shake up the system. The bitterness and negativity that will only intensify between now and May 7th derive from the fact that each party is going into battle from a position of weakness rather than strength. They are fighting fear with fear in the hope that by attacking their rivals they will protect themselves by turning attention away from their own faults.
It is, of course, only the leaders who have reached out beyond their tribe who have won overall majorities – Margaret Thatcher turned her party from one of estate owners into one of estate agents, while Tony Blair appealed to voters who liked guacamole as well as those who favoured mushy peas. But without a ruthless and utterly focussed commitment to modernisation, political parties naturally slip back into their conventional tram lines. With just weeks to go before polling day, Mr Cameron seems strangely complacent while Mr Miliband lacks strategic clarity.
This may be why the campaign has such a retro feel. Yesterday’s “Labour tax bombshell” claim was the latest sign that the Conservatives are hoping to replicate the success of their campaign in 1992, but that was more than twenty years ago - before the age of the mobile phone, the internet and Twitter, and before the young people voting for the first time next month were even born. To return to the Wizard of Oz, it is as if the two main parties are living in the black and white part of the film when the rest of the world has already turned into technicolour.
Not surprisingly Dorothy, represented by the electorate, is attracted to the bright primary shades of the smaller parties even if they also seem lurid. Ukip, the Greens and the SNP are tapping into the disillusionment voters feel about the failure by the mainstream politicians to acknowledge their parties’ shortcomings and address them. They are also exploiting the inability of the Westminster establishment to reinvent the way in which politics is done at a time when tribal loyalties, and class-based allegiances are breaking down. The anti-politics mood is the cyclone that is sweeping through this land of Oz but the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are behaving as if nothing has happened.
Both the main party leaders are reverting to type, terrified at the consequences of failing to win over floating voters
Fifteen years ago, the American pollster John Zogby devised a question that he used to get below the surface of voters’ reactions to politicians. “Imagine you live in the land of Oz,” he asked. “The candidates are the Tin Man, who is all brains and no heart, and the Scarecrow who is all heart and no brains. Who would you vote for?”
Using this unconventional measure, he became one of the only pollsters to correctly predict the result of the 2000 US Presidential election. Although traditional polling showed Al Gore well ahead of George W Bush, the Tin Man was neck and neck with the Scarecrow. Zogby decided this was a more accurate measure of public opinion when voters were either embarrassed to say what they really felt or uncertain of their own minds. Political instincts run deep and they are as emotional as they are rational.
Now with just five weeks to go until polling day, Britain is heading for a Wizard of Oz election. As the political leaders set off down the Yellow Brick road in search of the Emerald City, David Cameron is the Tin Man, who is seen as competent but lacking in compassion and Ed Miliband is the Scarecrow, who is perceived to have his heart in the right place but is not trusted on the economy. Nick Clegg is the lion, who is criticised for lacking the courage of his convictions after abandoning his pledge on tuition fees. Perhaps Ukip, the Greens and the SNP are the flying monkeys who are trying to throw them off course. Whatever the ups and downs of the campaign - whether they are caused by fluctuating polls, leader’s debates or policy disputes - this will at its core be a contest between the head and the heart.
What is so striking, as the campaign officially launches this week, is the conventionality of each mainstream party’s identity. This is the most unpredictable - and therefore exciting - election for years but the two men who could be Prime Minister are behaving entirely predictably. Neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband has been able to throw off the stereotypes surrounding their parties. In fact they seem to be almost deliberately seeking to reinforce them, in an attempt to shore up their core support, even though an outright majority is only possible by reaching out beyond the political tribe.
The Tories’ campaign message about the long term economic plan could have been written by the Tin Man. It has little to soften it around the edges and will be enforced with an iron discipline by Lynton Crosby, the real life Wizard of Oz. Michael Gove’s calls for his party to win over the electorate’s hearts as well as their heads by reminding people that the Tories are “warriors for the dispossessed” have been ignored. Instead, the Conservatives seem happy to behave as if they have hearts of steel - whether they are promising £12 billion of unspecified welfare cuts, pledging to bring down immigration or mounting vicious personal attacks on the Labour leader. “Nasty but efficient” is the enduring Tory brand and Mr Cameron has given up on trying to shed it.
With curious symmetry, Labour is meanwhile pursuing what could be called the Scarecrow strategy. In a passionate “hell, yes” performance up against Jeremy Paxman last week, Mr Miliband poured out his heart about his desire to tackle inequality, and the harm done to his relationship with his brother when he decided to stand against him for the leadership. But he came over all straw-brained when he was asked about whether the Government he served in had spent too much or where the cuts to the public services will fall if he wins power. Labour launched its business manifesto with an emotional appeal about Europe and the campaign priority will be to pull on the heartstrings by urging people to vote Labour to “save” the health service. If being “well-meaning but hopeless” is Labour’s long-standing image problem, then Mr Miliband is doing little to overturn it.
There is an interesting mixture of arrogance and insecurity in the failure by the Conservative and Labour leaders to reinvent their parties. On the one hand, both are so convinced of the strength of their own argument that they do not feel the need to win over non-believers; on the other, each also feels that their only task so close to an election is to secure the support they already have rather than trying to shake up the system. The bitterness and negativity that will only intensify between now and May 7th derive from the fact that each party is going into battle from a position of weakness rather than strength. They are fighting fear with fear in the hope that by attacking their rivals they will protect themselves by turning attention away from their own faults.
It is, of course, only the leaders who have reached out beyond their tribe who have won overall majorities – Margaret Thatcher turned her party from one of estate owners into one of estate agents, while Tony Blair appealed to voters who liked guacamole as well as those who favoured mushy peas. But without a ruthless and utterly focussed commitment to modernisation, political parties naturally slip back into their conventional tram lines. With just weeks to go before polling day, Mr Cameron seems strangely complacent while Mr Miliband lacks strategic clarity.
This may be why the campaign has such a retro feel. Yesterday’s “Labour tax bombshell” claim was the latest sign that the Conservatives are hoping to replicate the success of their campaign in 1992, but that was more than twenty years ago - before the age of the mobile phone, the internet and Twitter, and before the young people voting for the first time next month were even born. To return to the Wizard of Oz, it is as if the two main parties are living in the black and white part of the film when the rest of the world has already turned into technicolour.
Not surprisingly Dorothy, represented by the electorate, is attracted to the bright primary shades of the smaller parties even if they also seem lurid. Ukip, the Greens and the SNP are tapping into the disillusionment voters feel about the failure by the mainstream politicians to acknowledge their parties’ shortcomings and address them. They are also exploiting the inability of the Westminster establishment to reinvent the way in which politics is done at a time when tribal loyalties, and class-based allegiances are breaking down. The anti-politics mood is the cyclone that is sweeping through this land of Oz but the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are behaving as if nothing has happened.
