Hillary isn't the only woman in the Democratic Party

Should Barack Obama pick Hillary as his VP? On balance I think not; the narrative that Obama won on was that of a change, a new way of doing things. Hillary, as a Clinton, quite clearly doesn’t embody that narrative (and it’s in the rules of narrative that you have to embody it). To have a Clinton as VP would undermine his narrative and would endanger his election. Plus, it would be very awkward in the White House.

I always veered towards Barack Obama but I was very well aware of importance of Hillary’s position; the first woman to have run a serious campaign for the democratic nomination. I understood, in the face of the misogyny that she endured during the campaign, why she had to keep going. Why it was so important not to let the (largely male) party grandees pat her on the head and tell her to let the man through unimpeded. Even as someone who has leant towards Senator Obama during the campaign, I can see that a woman with a similar CV would’ve been laughed out of the race straight away.

So, do those of us who long for real diversity in politics have to sigh wistfully and just be grateful for all the ways, just by standing for the nomination, that she has made a difference to politics and women’s place in it; as candidates, as voters and as commentators. Politics, in the US in any case, has changed forever as a result. Should we just wait out the next 4 years?

Well, no.

An article from The American Prospect website has got me thinking. Just because Hillary would be the wrong Vice President, it doesn’t mean to say there can’t be a woman Vice President. As Dana Goldstein points out, in the VP contenders women make up 2 out of 3 of the top choices (if you discount Hillary herself). Goldstein goes on to say:

“We've experienced unprecedented interest from male politicos in women's participation in the electoral process. And demands for women's leadership have been given their fairest hearing to date in the United States, with Democrats nationwide expecting Obama to give close consideration to female vice-presidential prospects -- not only because there are a few wildly successful and talented women who would be great at the job, but also as a gesture of good will toward the feminist energy that animated so many Clinton supporters”.

And so:

“…in addition to Clinton herself, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas are among the top three most frequently-mentioned vice-presidential prospects, trailing only Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia.

The Vice President is a funny old job and can be fairly made into whatever the holder wants it to be. However, the VP must be good enough and at no point would I suggest that anybody without the right qualities to become the Vice President should get there just because of their symbolic value.

But if they were to meet the criteria and have a symbolic value, as a role model to half the world population, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

So, I’m going to count up the differences that Hillary has made for women in politics and hope those differences translate from the US to the UK. But I’m also going to hope that Barack obama, a symbolic candidate in his own right understands that value of role models and that leadership of change, of cultural change comes from the top.

Nick Clegg starts to tell our story

Today, I have starting to see evidence of a real narrative being built up by Nick. As the Free Think Blog mentions, Nick has been all over the papers like a rash today. And in his article in The Independent at last creates a story that will resonate with voters!

Hoo-bloody-ray!!!

It has been some time since the bloggers interview of Nick Clegg that I attended; I have to be truth had other things on my mind since then and have struggled to give the interview and my write up of it the attention it deserves. However, as I sit here in the eye of a storm, I find myself able to peruse and ingest the activity of Mr Clegg over the last few days and comment upon it. Almost always a pleasure, as I am only outdone in my regard for Nick Clegg by my Mum, who isn’t even a Lib Dem, but has been wittering on about him since 2005. And, she made Newport Library on the Isle of Wight order Barack Obama’s autobiographyat least 18 months ago, so she knows how to pick a winner, mark my words.

As anyone who has read the blog of the erudite, discerning and perceptive Neil Stockley will know that if we are to succeed in the breakthrough that Nick wants we need more than just the best policies in the country. We already have those and they haven’t always translated into electoral success. Key to winning will be Nick’s ability to define an appealing narrative, embody it, fit his actions to it and for us to back it up with a substantial range of policies. Well, big tick for us, as da-daaah: we already have the best policies in the country! So, it’s up to Nick to do his bit.

When I asked Nick about this at the bloggers interview he didn’t provide me with the answer that I was looking for. Well, not to start with. To be fair (or unfair) I wasn’t expecting him to give me the perfect answer, because if he had then that would’ve meant he understood what a narrative was and why it was so important and would therefore be doing it and I wouldn’t have to ask what our narrative was!! You can breathe again now. And I could have asked other pet questions such as what are you going to do about the dearth of women on the Lib Dem green benches (even the ones we’ve got are all but invisible at PMQs) and what are we going to do to court women voters?

So, really I wasn’t asking him what our narrative was but rather more obliquely: do you understand what a narrative is and what are your ideas for what ours should be? With a subtitle of: and isn’t it about time you got your head around it and gave us one? Because how hard is it? And have you not read Neil’s paper on Liberal Democrats and narrative?

I have been told that I’m not always as patient as I could be.

Well, Nick started off well: it’s about being a liberal, changing the way we do politics, lots to do with power both in politics and in business and then he proceeded to drift far, far away from the path I was willing him down and started to provide me with a list! A list! Aaaarghhhh!

Tempted as I was, sitting next to him, to fling my notepad on the floor and give a Chinese burn for answering a question on narrative with a list, I interrupted his flow allowing him, patiently, one more item on this ever increasing list. He kindly demurred and let me rephrase my question. Did he think using words like liberal was enough of an: here I stopped speaking and mimed pulling at the heart strings ‘emotional pull?’ he completed for me.

Yes.

Probably not, was the answer and this is where his response changed and he got back on the path and I was able to stop scowling and start smiling at him again.

Nick was clear that whatever else the next election is about, it will be about change, much in the same way as the 1997 election. The political challenge will be for us to lead the definition of that change with more authenticity that the Tories. Phew!

And today, Nick started to do it in a way that I thought was not just convincing but sustainable in both his Policy Exchange Speech and his article in the Independent. In his article on Democracy he starts off by outline the ‘crisis in which the public feel ever more alienated from, and angry towards, the political class’. That political class is out of touch they:

"read and watch the cottage industry of views spawned by the commentators. But Westminster politics has become a minority sport. Apathy, frustration and cynicism have won the day.

But people do still care. There’s nothing more disingenuous that politicians claiming that the public doesn’t care, that a culture of contentment has rendered people indifferent.”

He goes on to describe the people who come to his town hall meetings:

“…they shout because it’s personal, because it matters, because it’s part of their real life. The contrast with the contrived anger and noise in the House of Commons speaks volumes. It shows people do care. They do care about the world they live in. They just don’t care about party politics".

He then identifies that we are at a turning point and that it’s up to all of us to grab the opportunity:

“In 10 years' time we will look back at this moment and either see it as the beginning of a real, vital transformation in our politics, or a missed opportunity that killed off public faith in politics for a generation or more.

There are deep forces at work: social, cultural and political identities have become fluid as old political ideologies are replaced by a web of religious, ethnic and demographic distinctions between people that no longer fit into the rigid mould of two-party politics”.

And which path should we take?

“Overturning the vested interests that protect the status quo is always tricky. But I am certain that once it begins, and people see that change really is achievable, the tide will be unstoppable. People have been locked out of politics for too long. Cynicism and apathy have taken root. Self interest and a lack of imagination blinker the political class. But change is possible – and inescapable if we want to rediscover the democracy that once made this country great”.

This is more like it! This is just the ‘story’, the emotional bit, which I’ve pulled out from the article which is littered with some of the policy initiatives that would support this narrative. But it is these emotional bits that are important. People generally vote with their emotions, not after having done a compare and contrast against all the available party manifestos. Let’s face it, when Vote Match in the Mayoral lections told you to vote for someone else, other than Brian Paddick, did you?

First you must grab their attention. If you don’t have the polices, you won’t keep their attention (which is what will happen to Cameron, if he’s not careful) but all the policies in the world won’t get you in power if you can’t engage the electorate in the manner they wish to be engaged in.

Nick embodies this dissenting individual narrative very well himself from the ‘cacti episode’ on a school trip to his determination not to carry an ID card. He embodies that idea that he is one of us not part of the Westminster bubble, by being, well, refreshingly normal. It’s one of the things that made me not just vote for him as leader but give up a days fee to drive him around south west London during his leadership campaign. He embodies the listening through his town hall meetings.

So, the narrative I think he’s in the process of defining goes a bit like this:

The political classes, Brown and Cameron are out of touch and only interested in themselves. Whilst all around people are voicing their concerns nobody will listen. But me, I will listen; I do listen. We have an opportunity to move away from this rotten, self serving, two party politics and get back to listening to what people not the Westminster bubble want. Take that opportunity and we will go back to being the great country that we once were but vote in either the Tories or Labour and you won’t get anywhere.

It probably could do with refining and I’m not sure how it fits into Neil’s narrative archetypes but I am today, am really rather happy with this. I still need a bit more on how wonderful it’s going to be in this once again great country of ours but this is a real start.

One other bit of positive narrative embodiment from today? Well, an article like this in the Sun, is not going to do our Nick any harm at all!!

The Danny Alexander Interview

It was a cosy and intimate affair in the Leaders office for our interview with our Work & Pensions spokesperson and Nick Clegg's chief of staff, Danny Alexander earlier on this week. Chocolate Easter Eggs in lieu of the traditional doughnuts were handed out and the Millennium Elephant took his position on the coffee table (separating me from the chocolate but then that is probably a good thing!!).

Now, whilst the notes I made on the answers to everybody else's questions are copious, my notes on Danny's responses to my own questions are a little threadbare. I am a very active listener, you see, and this requires me to be looking at the person that is talking to me rather than taking notes. If I am going to make a habit of this interviewing lark it may well be worth investing in one of those dinky little dictaphones – or investigating whether my iPhone does the job (surely it does??). So, I'm afraid there'll be no verbatim quoting in this posting!!

As Danny is in charge of preparing the manifesto my questions focussed on what he thought was the Lib Dem narrative, our manifesto and also what we were planning on doing on making our policies attractive to women voters.

His somewhat predictable but slightly frustrating response to the questions about the role and structure of the manifesto (I wasn't the only one asking, by the way, Alex started it) was that it wasn't just him writing the manifesto and there was a whole manifesto sub committee on the Federal Policy Committee and he wasn't going to start second guessing them. He could however report that there is going to be a pre-manifesto document, that will be much shorter and stake out the 'mission' of the party. That's perhaps a safe line to take, especially knowing Lib Dem activists who sometimes seem to me to be unable to countenance any actual leadership by the elected representatives put in charge of these things but I found a little disappointing.

This is a failing in my interview technique, I guess, I'm sure I could have been more aggressive but I was disinclined to be so (seeing as he's one of our own; and I've never done it before and it would have felt rude). However, I do need to develop Eddie Mair like tendencies, rather than John Humphries, because on reflection I think it's possible to provide ones own thoughts about how it should be without usurping the role of the committee that you are chairing.

The pre-manifesto will have themes such as being anti-establishment, pointing out how Labour and Tories work for vested interests and the Lib Dems are the only ones arguing for a dramatic change. Picking up on his remarks about themes I asked him what he thought the narrative should be, and here I make no apologies here for my lack of notes as compelling narrative should stick in the brain without them, but it went a bit like this:

Politics and the country is being run by both Labour and the Tories to deliver what a whole series of vested interests want and not for ordinary people like us. When David Cameron says that society is broken he is wrong; it is politics that is broken not us. Only the Lib Dems are radical enough to break up this cosy consensus.

Which is fine as far as it goes and rather similar to the manifesto themes and not quite tugging on the emotions enough to be a narrative. For my money I would like to see not just an analysis of what happened in the past and what is happening now but some idea of where voting Lib Dem and a Lib Dem government will take us in the future; I want our narrative to give me a glimpse of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I want to know what's in it for me as a voter not just that the Lib Dems are radical and anti-establishment.

It is however further than we have got for many years in defining a narrative for ourselves. The interview originally with Nick was meant to mark his first 100 days; we will be seeing Nick finally at the beginning of May and I hope that he doesn't leave it much longer than that before he defines what the future is going to be like!

If you read back over previous blogs you will see that I have been very excited by how important the women's vote has been in the US Democratic primaries and how both candidates have had to court the women's vote. The Tories have noticed this and published a policy paper to address issues that impact women such as rape convictions, equal pay, childcare provision; and David Cameron was rather compelling on Women's Hour on how much he wanted to welcome women into the party (whether the rest of the party is so keen remains to be seen). I wanted to know whether the manifesto group were thinking of doing anything special given how important the women's vote could be in the next general election.

I think if I had required Danny to give a one word answer to that it would had to have been 'No'. He started off by saying he thought women were just as concerned as men about mainstream measures; which I don't argue with but in the end I think he understood that I was talking about presentation and packaging of those policies to make it clear to women what's in it for them. He mentioned something else about family friendly policies in the workplace and childcare, given that being able to work and get childcare is key to lifting oneself out of poverty.

Firstly I get a bit narked when politicians conflate family friendly policies with women friendly polices; after all, what about women like me that don't have children, of which there are more and more? Plus men should be just as interested in family friendly policies.

Secondly, my feeling was that his lack of thought around marketing ourselves to women was just a lack of thought rather than an antipathy to it. I think we will really miss out on a lot of votes if we ignore the women's vote. After all sorts of other organisation absolutely understand that if they want to reach a certain section of society they need to mould their message to appeal to that group. That's not patronising that paying due respect. But then until we, as a party, start understanding that campaigning is not the same as marketing I don't think we'll be getting much further on that one.

Then came the most joyous part of the interview for me: Helen Duffett, one of my fellow interviewers, started to ask Danny about neo-natal care and classes and their funding and availability. There followed a few minutes of sharing experiences (not mine, see above comment on no children) of neonatal classes and how important they can be to new mothers, families and those wishing to avoid post natal depression – especially relevant given all the work that the Lib Dems have been doing on the lack of mental health services.

These sorts of conversation are rarely held outside WLD or at least in mixed or majority male fora; it was a new experience for me!

I would like to thank Danny very much for standing in for Nick at such short notice and giving us an hour of his time. I do think that we are closer to defining our narrative than we ever have before and I get great comfort from having spoken to Danny. I think there's more work to be done though as I fear we're still confusing themes with narrative and they are very different things.

I had not met Danny before and I found him very pleasant and rather modest. When asked by Millennium Elephant (on behalf of Stephen Tall who couldn't make it so had written in with a question) whether being Nick's Chief of Staff was like being Leo McGarry in The West Wing he first of all suggested that the team that worked for him were more talented than the West Wing team but that his job was much more to do with administration.

Well, I think Danny could afford to be a little less modest and still not be in danger of being arrogant; I think Nick is really quite lucky to have him!

Feeding the counter story: why do we do it??

What’s the Number One Lib Dem counter story? You know, the comments that are made every time to tell people you are a Lib Dem in the office or up the pub?

Yes, that’s right, there’s always some snide comment about the Lib Dems sitting on the fence.

Except that up until yesterday, and the abstention from voting on whether to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty or not, I always thought it was a bit unfair.

Did anybody count the number of times they mentioned Lib Dems and sitting on the fence on the Today programme, this morning? Well, no, I didn’t count either but it was a lot.

You know, there’s counter stories about all politicians and political parties but I’m sure we must be the only one that invites the counter story around our house for a slap up dinner!!

It will blow over; we will all move on. But what a self inflicted mess!! What is logical (and whether it was is a moot point) is not always politic. Having fed this particular counter story, good and proper, it’ll just be one more barrier to overcome on the way to power.

Grrrrr.