Donal Blaney: You cannot beat somebody with nobody

Every week the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the Young Britons' Foundation, Donal Blaney, explains one of Morton Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process. Morton Blackwell is the Founder and President of the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

This week’s Law of the Public Policy Process focuses on a key fact that even the most skilled campaigner must recognize – you cannot beat somebody with nobody.

Gordon Brown is undoubtedly “somebody”. For all his faults, and this week’s Pre-Budget Report shows that he has many, he is undoubtedly a past master at arrogating power to himself and destroying anyone who dares to come into his path.

He has ruthlessly dispatched pretenders to his crown, chief amongst whom are numbered Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and (ultimately after a decade of internecine warfare) Tony Blair himself. Machiavelli would be proud. It remains to be seen whether John Reid will fall by the wayside as well.

On the Conservative side of the Commons, Brown has also effortlessly dispatched people as diverse as Ken Clarke, Peter Lilley, Michael Portillo, Francis Maude and, to some degree, even George Osborne.

The same concept of a seemingly unbeatable “somebody” is Ken Livingstone. A series of candidates have thus far tried to defeat him (both for the Labour nomination and for the mayoralty itself) but nobody was sufficiently “somebody” to be able to defeat him thus far – worthy though many of those putative opponents may have been.

There is undoubtedly something that cannot readily be identified that marks out a “somebody” in politics or any other walk of life. All too often it is defined as charisma or that ubiquitous “X-Factor”. It doesn’t simply come from being in power. Many people who have “it” (and are consequently a hard-to-beat “somebody”) are not in power at the outset of their journey up the greasy pole.

Some initially have power by association (such as Hillary Clinton or Winston Churchill) whereas others marked themselves out for greatness early on despite not previously having been close to power (Margaret Thatcher prime among them).

The London mayoral elections are perhaps the most interesting and time-relevant illustration of this week’s Law. To beat the “somebody” that is Ken Livingstone, it is pointless for the Conservatives to run a “nobody”.

No matter how worthy any of the proposed candidates for the Tory nomination may be – and no matter how right their solutions to London’s myriad of problems are – if they do not have the electoral credibility, clout and personality to give their campaign a kick-start, there is little point in standing against Livingstone who (as well as having the advantage of incumbency) is a formidable campaigner with a personality and profile as large as his ego.

There is of course one potential Tory candidate who ticks all the necessary boxes.

He is respected by the media (who go so far as to give him a fair wind).

He has repositioned his Party brilliantly such that he is listened to by the electorate, particularly floating voters who have ignored the Tories for a decade.

His values accord both with Islington and Notting Hill, albeit that they may not resonate as well with Inverness or Nottingham.

He has personal wealth, has excited the interest of donors, is charismatic, embraces different cultures and ideologies, and has shown in the opinion polls that he has what it takes to deliver London for the Conservative Party.

That man is, of course, David Cameron.

He is sufficiently “somebody” that he would be able to beat Ken Livingstone and there are enough able lieutenants in Parliament who would be able to take forward and develop his agenda to take the Party forward to power nationally too.

Greater love hath no man than this – that he will lay down his wish to be Prime Minister for the greater good of Londoners and the Party that he leads.

What better way would there be of propelling the Tories to power in 2009/10 than for Cameron to win the mayoralty? One wonders whether a grassroots campaign can persuade him to do so…

Of course the likelihood of David Cameron standing for Mayor is about as likely as the Conservatives giving a cast iron pledge to cut personal rates of tax. But it does highlight the problem the Party faces in looking for a credible “somebody” to beat Red Ken. And with London’s infrastructure crumbling as fast as British society is decaying, London is crying out for an alternative – perhaps any alternative – to the current occupant of the mayoralty.

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Comments

[Derek]

Don't forget that every "somebody" was a "nobody " once! If an unknown candidate can gain enough publicity and capture the imagination of voters then why could they not become the David who could slay Goliath. Admittedly in the real world they would need money and backers - but they need not necessarily be a "celebrity", as long as everyone gets behind them.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Interesting! I am not sure whether DC would beat Red Ken, in fact I doubt if he would, but it might still be a good idea...

My theory is, the next general election is not worth winning. It will be a poisoned chalice, just like winning in 1970 or 1974 or indeed 1992. Whoever wins is doomed to failure, the wheels are coming off the economy etc etc. Hence my opinion that DC is not the heir to Blair, he is the next Ted Heath.

[Tam Large]

The problem is that David Cameron is not just "somebody" - he is turning himself into "somebody else"... called Blair...

[John Coles]

True, Tam Large, but he's ever such a nice chap - and the BBC and the Guardian quite like him. What more can a Tory ask?

[Denis Cooper]

I reckon Damian Hockney could beat Ken Livingstone, but then he's not a Tory.

[Paul Kennedy]

Just checked, it is the 9th of December. ;)

[Matt Davis]

Well done Donal Blaney a totally correct analysis of the difficult reality of finding a suitable London Mayoral candidate. The somebody/nobody way of looking at it is without doubt the only way of assessing whether a person has a genuine chance of beating Livingstone. Never forget that a psephological breakdown of voting patterns at the last London Elections clearly demonstrated that a significant number of voters opted for the Conservatives for the GLA but then voted for Livingstone for Mayor.If we do not find a candidate with the charisma, profile and media skills to equal the incumbent then we will not win and London will continue on the downward spiral that Livingstone is so keen on, especially with the new powers that the Mayoralty is to gain. No I don't have anyone to suggest, I wish that I did, but one thing is for sure; it isn't any of those who have so far put their names forward unfortunately.

[Donal Blaney]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/

Here is the Mayor's first approach to his new friend Hugo Chavez. Quite why the Mayor needs a foreign policy is beyond me!

[John Moss]

One person who could be an anti-somebody - which might be just as effective - is Eddie Lister. The man who made Wandsworth.

He acheives the opposite of what Matt describes, people who vote Labour at General Elections vote Conservative in council elections because he gets the job done. So socialists back him and his council because, correctly, they see him delivering for the people they care about.

Now he has stepped down from the Council and had a little rest, can't we persuade him to stand?

[Matt Davis]

I like that idea John, Eddie Lister would tick most of the boxes that most people have on this one. Hope he would like the job.

[Derek]

Here's my suggestion - we back Lee Rotherham who wants to win in order to abolish the whole bureaucracy of the London Mayor. I think that is an admiral aim and is Conservatism in action.

[Modern Conservative]

Surely the point that Donal is making is that Mayor of London is such a big job and that Ken has such a big reputation that we need somebody who has forged their reputation with the public before they run for Mayor.

From that point of view Lee Rotherham and Eddie Lister aren't going to cut it.

While early selection can help counter this I think it's a valid point. However the problem is that because whoever is selected is facing an uphill struggle plausible candidates like IDS, Boris Johnson or John Major don't want to seem to go near it. This being the case we are left with people trying to forge their reputation instead of fighting on their reputation.

I'm not sure if it's possible to square this circle.

[Joe V]

I worked at City Hall for 9 months and I can tell you that the Tories in the place should be making a splash and getting known for what they do there but they are too afraid. They make no headway and if a great mayoral candidate cannot come from them, that is a real sign. To adopt your ideas (which btw are right imho), they should be using the platform to go from being nobody to somebody. One of the comments mentioned Damian Hockney who was UKIP and is now 'One London' on the Assembly. Well the point is that he is not afraid to state free market pro business views and without fail makes the Standard and local radio and tv news more frequently than most of the Tories on the Assembly. A few months back he was on every national news calling very effectively for the resignation of Sir Ian Blair. A Labour member at the Assembly said to one of my team that Hockney is clearly trying to position himself to be known just enough to be treated credibly in the Mayoral elecions as a colourful but knowledgeable insider. His group also made some pretty accurate predictions about the Olympics and were not afraid to put together a logical policy alone two years ago - the Tories were running scared and simply never stated their views (which in private accorded with Hockney's). The guy is a classic example of someone who is not quite nobody (now), is in the game, has charisma and presence, but only has enough of all this to pull it off if he were running for a bigger party. I know it might seem strange to some, but if the Tories could not find a candidate to the liking of all, I can see why the person who wrote the comment thought Hockney could do it. You would certainly get a genuine Tory!

[Serf]

Surely we need to destroy Red Ken somehow, to make the whole election thing a little easier.

Lets have a little gutter politics.