ConservativeHome's General Election Review (executive summary here/ contents page here), concluded with ten recommendations. One of them was this recommendation for an External Relations Unit.
The future of political communication - like the future of all communication - is about delivering targeted products to ever larger numbers of smaller groups. Macro or broadcast messaging still matters but micro-messaging or narrowcasting will be the difference between winning and losing elections.
A successful political party won't just have a big economic message but it will have effective, finetuned messages for groups interested in human rights abuses in Burma, who care about wetland preservation or the taxation of classic cars.
Team Cameron needs to develop better relations with leading third party organisations - both within and, most importantly, outside the Conservative Party.
Good relations with think tanks, charities, representatives of minority communities and thought-leaders matter for a number of reasons:
- They are a source of ideas for policy innovation and policy improvement;
- Trusted third party organisations provide more persuasive endorsements for policy initiatives than newspapers or politicians;
- In the internet age access to the supporters of third party organisations has never been more important or easy.
At present Team Cameron have a poor record of nurturing relations with the Conservative coalition. James Forsyth's Spectator article from January this year captured the problem perfectly. By way of example, despite their enormous contributions to the Conservative Party's decentralisation and political reform policies Douglas Carswell and Dan Hannan have received no formal acknowledgement of their input. There should be a regular traffic of ideas and insights between the authors of 'The Plan' and 10 Downing Street. Someone or some entity needs to make that traffic happen.
David Cameron should establish an External Relations Unit to develop constant, high quality relations with the leading charities, think tanks and campaigning groups in the country. The Downing Street model needs to be integrated into similar operations in every department. The ERU - or whatever it is called - must be headed by an individual known to have access to the Prime Minister.
