Authenticity

Politicians with genuine beliefs are a powerful antidote to the Blair and Clinton years of spin and triangulation.

"The Secret Of Success Is Sincerity. Once You Can Fake That You've Got It Made."

- Jean Giraudoux, 1882-1944

Contemporary politicians are obsessed with communicating a good image to voters and there’s nothing wrong with using professional help to maximise the public’s responsiveness to a particular message. But, in a form of consumer democracy, Bill Clinton and (particularly pre-Iraq war) Tony Blair appeared to use opinion polls to find out what could win votes rather than the best way of marketing what they actually did (once?) believe in. This has helped to breed enormous cynicism about politicians’ motives.

All opinion surveys suggest that voters don’t trust politicians. They see them as fake. ‘B-L-I-A-R’ has been a top choice placard message for anti-Labour protestors. Only journalists are less admired than the political class.

Tony Benn and Ann Widdecombe

There are a few exceptions to this rule, however. Some politicians – now removed from the frontline – tour Britain and hundreds of people pay £20 and more to hear them speak. Tony Benn - good-intentions-liberalism-made-flesh – and Ann Widdecombe – a straight-talking-pro-lifer - are the two of the biggest crowd-pullers. They hold views that most people don’t agree with. Tony Benn believes in nationalisation of industry. Ann Widdecombe opposes all abortion. But in an age of insincere politicians their authentic exceptionalism attracts.

For the Conservative Party the reverse has been true. Its policies on Europe, immigration and crime are more popular than it is. A sour outlook is one explanation for this problem. The failure to gain moral ’permission’ for contentious policies is another. But an overall sense of opportunism has repelled many voters.

Signposts and weathervanes

Tony Benn divides politicians into two types. He says there are 'signposts' that point the way to a different kind of politics and there are 'weathervanes' that blow with the wind. He insists that voters instinctively prefer signposts to weatherwanes.

During the 2004 US Presidential Election the Bush-Cheney campaign relentlessly painted John Kerry as a flip-flopper. A TV ad pictured him windsurfing and Republicans joked: ‘Even his hobby depends upon wind direction’. In contrast, George W Bush was advertised as the ultimate ‘signpost’ politician. He once declared:

“I believe great decisions are made with care, made with conviction, not made with polls. I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind. I do not reinvent myself at every turn. I am not running in borrowed clothes.”

The same is true of religion. Britain’s fast-growing churches are evangelical and sure of their beliefs. The priests with emptier and emptier pews are those that have lost all confidence in the gospel message with which they have been entrusted.

A real belief in big ideas

President Ronald Reagan was widely known as The Great Communicator. But he did not believe that communication skills were his real asset. A real belief in right ideas mattered most, he said:

“I never thought it was my style or the words that I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, but they came from the heart of a great nation – from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

Reagan communicated many substantial things – he named communism as the evil that it is and big government as an enemy of enterprise and genuine community.

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