Telling the Story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7255488.stm

Intersting article on the BBC site about the role of storytelling in politics. It examines the impact of the "Man from Hope" story that Bill Clinton gave to the US, and which turned his polls around and led to him becoming President. Tony Blair was obviously a successful proponent of the art too. For Gordon Brown, however, it is not something that comes so easily.

Is it a skill that he needs to learn?

I think that the problem can be that policy and detail, whilst vital to the success of programmes the Government implements, is too dry and disconnected for most people in the UK. Most voters don't have the time to pore through intricate detail of policy - rather they are looking for the narrative of why the Government or party campaigning for their votes is planning to implement ideas and what their vision is for the country. People want vision and inspiration - I think they then trust the parties to get on with the indepth details of how things actually work.
Gordon Brown is successful at the intricacies, but the narrative is not yet working. And we'll be in trouble if it doesn't. I think we partly lost the election in Scotland last year due to a lack of inspiring narrative. The Lib/Lab coalition Executive had been functioning very successfully and had lots of concrete, sensible ideas for the next term. The SNP, however, were light on realistic policies (as demonstrated by how quickly they've dropped a lot of them) but provided an exciting narrative - freedom and a bright new paradise of an indepedent Scotland. Now, I'm not suggesting that we sink to their level of putting across narratives based on myths and fallacies, but we do need to look at our vision and our inspiration.

Look at the US. The presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, is looking on the verge of being knocked out of the race by a freshman Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. He is light on specific policy (try reading his most recent book - lots of lovely rhetoric, not exactly much in the way of practical ideas) but he is exciting and inspiring. His narrative of 'Change' is inspiring voters, who trust that his energy and vision will be underlined by bringing in experts around him who can flesh out the ideas.

Gordon Brown is a man of great moral vision and commitment, and there is no doubt that he has a vision to make Britain a better, fairer society. He has touched on aspects of it during his time, but the travails of the recent months have forced him to become bogged down in the specifics of detail and policy. As a Party and a Government we need to overcome this and redefine our vision. We need to be strongly spreading it, demonstrating why we should remain in Government in Westminster, and return to Government in Holyrood.

A strong vision will show the paltry efforts of the other parties for the shams that they are. But if we do not share this vision, then we will suffer and Britain will take a different direction in the future from the society that we would like to see.