Sat-Nav politics

'Sat-Nav politics' was perhaps the one half-memorable expression to emerge from the 2007 LibDem leadership contest between Chris Huhne and the just-victorious Nick Clegg.  At the start of his campaign, Mr Clegg offered this soundbite:

"The result is the 'Sat-Nav' politics we are seeing today: Turn this way to shore up the core vote, that way for the floating vote. Go left for the approval of the Mirror, right for the Sun."

YouGov's Peter Kellner has also spoken about this tendency.  He has noted that with political parties all using the same opinion polling and focus group systems they are all converging on similar themes and tactics.

It's one of the more interesting debates in politics.  What do voters really want?  Politicians who are simple delegates or politicians who think for themselves?  "Authentic" politicians like Tony Benn and Ann Widdecombe - who eschew fashionable opinions - tend to be amongst the most popular.  Benn has divided the world's politicians into 'weather vanes' and 'sign-posts'.  Ultimately, sign-post politicians succeed, he argues.  Tony Blair, however, enjoyed his best approval ratings when he judged every move according to focus groups.  Things started to go wrong for him and New Labour when he tried to lead public opinion on issues like the war in Iraq.

Comments

[Tony Makara]

All these contrived metaphors are getting to be too much what with David Milliband describing parliament as the 'Cockpit' of the nation and Gordon Brown's 'Moral compass, where will it all end? All the talk is of action but they don't seem to be getting anywhere.

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