With a by-election on the cards in Wellingborough after the decision to suspend Peter Bone for six weeks, it's time to take a look at the town's Conservatives. What sort of candidate will they choose? What sort of campaign, if given their head party by the national party, will they fight?
We have a clue in the shape of a document circulated to Tory activists in the town in 2020 and leaked to the Huffington Post.
The website's report on it said:
In a section calling for grassroots campaigners of Boris Johnson’s party to “learn” from Trump, the document says the president successfully managed to “weaponise fake news”.
“Trump has learnt that a ‘lie can go round the whole world before the truth can get its boots on’,” it says.
“If you make enough dubious claims, fast enough, honest speakers are overwhelmed. If someone tweets ten dubious claims per day and it takes you a week to disprove each one, then you are doomed.
“Trump uses this tactic to dominate the news and to crowd out legitimate politicians.”
The local party then instructs campaigners to “say the first thing that comes into your head”.
It says: “It’ll probably be nonsense, but it knocks your opponent out of his stride and takes away his headline.
“You then have a few seconds (possibly minutes) to reword it, say that you mis-spoke, were mis-heard, or whatever.
“You may get a bad headline saying that you spoke something silly, but you can live that down. Meanwhile your opponent is knocked off the news-feed.
“It runs counter to everything that traditional politicians are taught – viz. never say anything that is not 100% accurate. The problem is that 100% right, two weeks late equals defeat.
“Sometimes, it is better to give the WRONG answer at the RIGHT time, than the RIGHT answer at the WRONG time.”
Telling voters to F*** Off didn't work in Tamworth, so maybe they will try to ape Trump in Wellingborough.
In all seriousness, assuming that document is genuine, it ought to be printed on a leaflet and put through every letterbox in the constituency, in order to make sure that Conservative Party voters get to see it. I am not a Conservative, but I know many people who are, and they would be appalled and disgusted by tactics like this. I expect that most "armchair members" of the Conservative Party would be horrified as well. The Tories I know don't think of themselves as warriors struggling against an enemy - they think of themselves as decent people who want to do the right thing, for themselves, their families and their country. A campaigning method of institutionalised dishonesty is inimical to everything they hold dear.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first comment.
ReplyDeleteWhilst it might be a truthful message, it is somehow regarded as negative campaigning. A lot of voters believe that all aspirant politicians are liars or in it for themselves, so any message to ethical potential Conservative switchers needs to be very well targeted and very well worded. Otherwise you are reinforcing anti-politics attitudes. You might filter indicated voting habits, social values and demographics but you'd just have identified Tory Private Eye readers who had read the story already.
ReplyDelete[A vocal segment of the middle class population believes that inflating work expenses, road traffic offences and insurance fraud are not "real" crimes. Just mistakes. Perhaps we should be encouraged by middle class tolerance, pointing out that some people make an awful lot of mistakes. I dunno.]