The iron triangle of leader image, party unity and economic competence

Writing for The Parliamentary Monitor at ePolitix.com, Sir Bob Worcester of MORI warns against premmature judgments about David Cameron's leadership.  Sir Bob says that there are currently too many 'don't knows' in the voting population to make clear judgments yet.  By next month, however, he hopes to be able to report how the 'don't knows' have broken and a more useful assessment of the Tory leader should then be possible.  Sir Bob writes:

"According to the ‘Political Triangle’ model derived for Harold Wilson back in the 1970s, ‘leader image’ accounts for between a quarter and a third of the forces that might cause the swing voter to consider moving from one party to another."

Other underlying indicators of electability are party unity and economic competence.  Sir Bob's conclusion:

"At the last election, Labour had a 30-point lead as the party with the best policies on managing the economy among the third of the electorate who considered that to be one of the most important issues on which they might make up their mind, or switch. Will the Cameron/Osborne team be able to dent that lead or raise its salience among those who might return or switch to them?  If Cameron can convince the millions of former Tory voters who have stayed at home these past three elections to return to the fold, he’s a third of the way there. If the boundary revisions cut the way that many expect, that could move them another third of the way, and if  the Tory vote improves, we could well be in hung Parliament land by May 4, 2009."

Comments

[Richard]

In the past we had great ideological battles between capitalism and socialism. Now we have to contend with nonsense about which leader looks more "modern".

I really hope Cameron's policy announcements bring political debate back up several levels.

[James Hellyer]

It's interesting that Sir Bob Worcester appears to accept the Tebbit analysis - much derided by modernisers - that millions of Conservative voters stayed at home in 1997 and have done so ever since.

Having accepted that part of the analysis (as laid out in his "Explaining Labour's Landslide" books), one must question the wisdom of the party distancing itself from the sorts of policies that used to attract those people to the Conservatives.

[Martin Smith]

Presumably the wisdom is that it banged the drum so hard on those themes in 01 and 05 and people still stayed at home.

[Mark Fulford]

Labour have benefited from the perception of a strong leader and an equally strong Chancellor. The Brown-Balls double-act should be easier to challenge – but to win the economic competence argument we need to add credibility to our treasury team while making more of a noise about Brown’s failures. I like Osborne, but he’s not playing rough enough yet.

It's interesting that Sir Bob Worcester appears to accept the Tebbit analysis - much derided by modernisers - that millions of Conservative voters stayed at home in 1997 and have done so ever since

Likelihood to vote slumped between 92 and 96 and has never recovered. What I remember most from that time was frustration at the in-fighting over Europe. Rather than particular policies, could it be that the third part of the triangle, infighting, was the Conservative problem?

[James Hellyer]

I think the corruption and manifest uselessness of the Major government was the problem, not infighting.

MORI's analysis showed the election was lost on Black Wednesday, with everything afterwards merely exacerbating the defeat.

Presumably the wisdom is that it banged the drum so hard on those themes in 01 and 05 and people still stayed at home.

We did't though. In 2005, Michael Howard dwelled on immigration not because it was right wing, but rather because it was one of the few areas his platform differed from the government's, and that polling evidence showed was popular. Similarly in 2001, Hague fought the election on a similarly tangential issue (saving the pound).

[Account Deleted]

I think the problem is that we need to come up with ideas which differentiate us from Labour without making us look like the extremists they try to portray us as. Simply repeating non-core issues (immigration/EU/Crime) or believing we have to shout louder is nonsense. We need to have (I hate to fawn over the Editor) more 'and' policies, and also just some more clear thinking about what some new conservative policies might look like.

For instance, a radical, pro-market and One Nation (in the sense of helping those most in need) policy in education might be to pay different types of teacher (i.e. Maths versus English) different amounts.

I went to a good Grammar School and had pretty good teachers in every subject. My cousin goes to a failing inner city comp and is coming up to her GCSE's.

Her maths/science and language teachers are appalling. My mother (who is a teacher) went to a parents evening, and said that she wouldn't let them teach 11 year olds, let alone people in the run up to GCSE's. The humanities teachers, on the other hand, were not so bad. Not great, but not so bad.

Why - because maths/science and language students earn much more in most jobs. Thus, only the worst or most dedicated ones who are interested in the subject become teachers. And the dedicated ones certainly don't end up in poor schools.

No company would pay the accountants the same as the PR department - unless it wanted crap accountants, so why should schools pay teachers the same for all subjects?

Moving to issues like this is what the Conservative Party should, and quite frankly, needs, to be about. There is no point just jettisoning policy after policy unless we begin to come up with serious alternatives which show that we care about everyone.

I personally agree with Grammar Schools, but DC doesn't - fair enough. But we need to flesh out what we do believe in, why it is authentically conservative, and why it is better, (for everyone).

Until we do we will not really improve in the polls. The policies need to be simple and create a narrative the electorate can hear. Note for those stuck in 2001/5 that means a new narrative, not the old one with the hearing aids turned up.

[Editor]

1AM: "We need to have (I hate to fawn over the Editor) more 'and' policies, and also just some more clear thinking about what some new conservative policies might look like."

Such fawning is to be encouraged, 1AM!

[Victoria Street]

The only 'and' we should be caring about is...
presenting a coherent conservative vision 'and' winning the next election.
Simple innit?

[Huntarian]

I think the corruption and manifest uselessness of the Major government was the problem, not infighting.
MORI's analysis showed the election was lost on Black Wednesday, with everything afterwards merely exacerbating the defeat.’
James is right put shortly ‘it’s the economy stupid’, Black Wednesday was the nadir of the Major government, and although Lamont carried the can, don’t forget that it was Major who was Chancellor when went joined the ERM. Clarke then prolonged the recession with crippling interest rates which he maintained for about 18 months longer than necessary, and succeeded in handing Brown all the benefits in 97. No wonder so many Tories stayed at home!
In DC we have a leader who looks like a winner, but we will only persuade those stay at home Tories to vote for us if we can demonstrate a return to economic competence, married to the traditional Tory values of small state, quality public services, local accountability and fiscal responsibility. The economic competence argument is the one we really have to win. It’s just amazing that Brown is getting away with all his spin. We need a sustained attack on the damage he has caused to the economy with the 43% of GDP tax bills. If we offer a re-branded version of socialism, these self same stay at home Tories will stay firmly anchored to their armchairs, and hand Labour its fourth term.

[houndtang]

Yes of course, the Tories lost three elections because they were insufficiently right-wing. Just as Labour lost four elections because they weren't left-wing enough.

[malcolm]

How many times are we going to have exactly the same argument? Does any pollster have any evidence that 'stay at home Tories' stayed at home because our policies were too close to that of Labour?

[John Hustings]

"How many times are we going to have exactly the same argument?"

Oh, maybe every time someone makes the stupid claim that Howard was campaigning on a "right-wing" platform?

[James Hellyer]

The Conservatives lost three elections because they weren't good enough. Trying to pretend it was because they were "too right wing", when they really either fighting on issues irrelevant to the electorate (the Euro), or fought on fringe concers while surrendering the common ground (immigration at the expense of all else), or had long lost the confidence of the nation, is simply disingeneous.

For too long the Conservative Party has run away from the Common ground of politics and has only been willing to open discourse on fringe issues, ignoring areas like the economy and meaningful comment on the public services.

All David Cameron seems to be doing is finding new fringe issues for the party to lose itself in.

[James Hellyer]

Does any pollster have any evidence that 'stay at home Tories' stayed at home because our policies were too close to that of Labour?

Yes, MORI did. I refer you Robert Worcesters "Explaining Labour's Landslide" series of books.

[AlexW]

With all due respect to Sir Bob, I take his observations with a pinch of salt after his early call of an Kerry Presidency. I also seem to recall that over the course of the campaign in May, MORI had everything between a 5-point Tory lead and a 10-point Labour one.

[Old Hack]

Bob Worcester's credibility is only as strong as his polling, which is quite often inaccurate by comparison with ICM or YouGov.

[James Hellyer]

Sir Bob Worcester isn't responsible for MORI's polling, and the books I referenced in fact draw on polling data from all UK polling companies. So all in all, I dismiss your attempts at well poisoning out of hand!

[Goldie]

Sir Bob is a raving Socialist and as such not to be taken at face value.

[Editor]

I'd be grateful if people would be careful about what they say about Sir Bob and MORI. We're dealing with professional reputations here...

[Richard]

I'm still prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt for now. If in a year things haven't improved and Cameron starts ditching the popular core Tory policies (Europe and immigration) then I think we ought to be concerned.

Much as I dislike the puerile obsession with style and rebranding I accept that it is a political necessity in the current era. Let us hope that Cameron's rebranding exercise is successful, no matter how much we might cringe at it.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"If in a year things haven't improved and Cameron starts ditching the popular core Tory policies (Europe and immigration) then I think we ought to be concerned."

Well our immigration policy has already been shelved so we're halfway there!

[Sean Fear]

Bob Worcester's political views are irrelevant to his record as a pollster (as are those of Peter Kellner at Yougov or Andrew Cooper at Populus). None of them does anything other than to try to survey popular opinion accurately; political polling represents about 1% of the income of the polling companies I've mentioned (the vast majority of their income is derived from market research). It's just not in any polling company's interest to manipulate figures according to the political bias of its leading figures.

Personally, I find MORI's methodology strange - but their eve of poll figure for the last election was well within the accepted margin of error.

[Mark Fulford]

For the last 10 years voting Conservative has been something that most people only admit to in a whisper. To change that we’ve got to stop being a party of squabble and failure. We’ve got to unite, pick a few good, relevant battles and win them.

The ODPM would be a good start – a totally incompetent, irrelevant department but an issue where Tony Blair can’t simply change his position to cover ours.

[malcolm]

Thank you James.As it is unlikely that I will be able to read these books for some time is there any chance that you could recap the salient points please?
I ask because I attended a CWF debate recently where both Danny Finkelstein and Bruce Anderson dimissed the 'Tebbit theory' of 'stay at home Conservatives'out of hand.I assumed the did this because of polling research.
I have to admit that what they said fitted with my own experience as I have not met anybody wwho refused to vote in the last two elections because we weren't 'Conservative' enough.

[Jon White]

As always, Malcolm, wise words. I don't think we're Conservative enough, maybe you don't either. But we're going to vote Tory whatever. It's the others that we have to convince, and we still have the perception amongst many voters that we are the uncaring Conservative Party. These are the people who will ultimately decide if we take office again.