Leaders debates - lessons from Romania

"...finding a balance between using kid gloves and attacking your opponent is very difficult..."

Nearly all the pre-debate coverage last week tried to draw lessons from the US experience of presidential elections. But it’s not just the US that has them. Romania has had televised presidential debates since 1994, just four years after the revolution.

And to Romanian eyes, the British debates featured the typical British politeness of the candidates who barely engaged in any juicy attacks or cynical remarks, an audience so overwhelmed that the individuals asking questions had trembling voices when reading them from a piece of paper, the studio so grey it might remind one of the ’60s quiz games on black-and-white TV sets.

The most recent Romanian Presidential TV debate took place less than six months ago, on 4 December 2009, just two days before the vote, with 4 million people watching, out of a population of 22 million. And if there is anything to learn from it, it is that finding a balance between using kid gloves and attacking your opponent is very difficult.



Mircea Geoana, the leader of the Socialist opposition party, was leading in the polls for the whole period before the election. Moreover, footage had just been released on the incumbent Traian Basescu hitting a 10-year-old boy in the face at a presidential rally. Mr Basescu's campaign said the 18-second video that showed the president striking the boy was a dirty trick and the footage was "seriously altered", but by the night of the confrontation it had been shown dozens of times on television news channels, seen thousands of times online, debated incessantly, and become a major topic of everyday TV studio/ street conversation.

By assuming it had been vulgarized enough in the four days before the debate and that his winning card was talking mainly policy agendas and manifestoes, Mr. Geoana ignored the elephant in the room entirely. It was Mr. Basescu, who had all to lose in his bid for a second mandate, and with the leading two Romanian News TV channels against him, who brought it up. He found the balance between stressing the achievements of his administration, and accusing his opponent of protecting former “Securitatea” (Romanian Secret Police) and of running a dishonest campaign (with reference to the ‘fake’ video).

Basescu went on to win.

Oana Elisabeta Pop

Shorter, fairer, more polluted? The Lib Dem manifeso compared

"At worst, the government has provided too much and voters will actively want less. Either way, other parties can make gains..."

Following on from the previous comparison of the Conservative and Labour manifestos, what about the Liberal Democrat manifesto?

The first thing to note is the comparative difference in size. Whilst the Conservative manifesto was nearly 29,000 words long, and Labour’s over 30,000 words, the Lib Dems come in at a relatively svelte 21,668 words.

Another striking difference is the massive disparity in the number of times the word ‘fair’ (or ‘fairness’, ‘fairer’, ‘fairest’) was mentioned in the manifestos. In the Lib Dem manifesto this was mentioned 99 times, compared to 64 for the Labour manifesto, and just 12 for the Conservative manifesto.

Given that the Lib Dem manifesto was nearly a third shorter than the Conservative manifesto, this makes the difference even starker.

In their manifesto, the Conservatives used the word polluting only once, whilst the Lib Dems mentioned pollution 14 times. This suggests a qualitatively difference in each parties’ perception of environmental issues. It may be the case that this is a result of the Conservatives making aspirational (perhaps utopian) appeals about the environment, whilst the Lib Dems are focusing upon an existing problem that needs to be managed.

Labour made no references at all to pollution. This may be a result of their focus upon a ‘green recovery’ (largely in economic terms) rather than a more dedicated ‘environmentalism’.

More generally, the Lib Dems were far less likely to use imagery relating to ascending (‘rise’, ‘rising’, etc.; 110% less uses) or height (‘higher’, ‘grow’, etc.; 54% less uses) than Labour. In this respect, the Lib Dems were similar to the Conservatives, between who there were no significant differences.

This is consistent with a relatively less positive vision of the UK in measurable areas (notably the economy) of both past performance and future prospects.

Again similarly to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems are less likely to use words relating to time (‘past’, ‘decade’, ‘time’, etc.) than Labour (34% less uses). Also similarly to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems are more likely to invoke ‘abstract thought’ imagery (‘belief’, ‘choice’, ‘plan’, etc.) than Labour (37% more uses).

This is probably a result of Labour attempting to play upon their past reputation for governing, whilst the Lib Dems (who have no recent governing experience) attempt to suggest alternate prospects.

Interestingly, this is a dangerous strategy for Labour. Recent scholarly work has shown that voters can have a ‘thermostatic’ perception of issues (discussed in more detail here). They vote for a party because the party offers them something that they want; once that want has been met other wants and needs come to the fore.

At best, the government has successfully given people what they wanted and they have ceased to want more. Playing on this in an election risks isolating voters by reminding them that you are no longer offering to fulfil new ‘wants’.

At worst, the government has provided too much and voters will actively want less. Either way, other parties can make gains. Attempting to trade on past performance – by looking back at the wants you have met in the past – may bring less reward than some in the party might hope.

All differences noted are significant at the 95% level, unless explicitly stated, and all percentage comparisons are corrected for relative differences in size. Absolute word usage numbers are uncorrected.

Jonathan Rose

Now that's what I call a poll

"Who said elections were dull?"

Until the debates, every opinion poll during the election had shown the Conservatives on 38+/-3, and Labour on 30+/-3. The YouGov poll published in the Sun today is the first to show movement beyond the sort of fluctuations you get from sampling error.

And how. It puts the Lib Dems in second place, with 30%, behind the Conservatives on 34%, with Labour now trailing in third (28%).

There are multiple reasons to be at least cautious about a) assuming that things will stay like this, or b) trying to work out what that means in terms of seats. These are explained very well at the superb UK Polling Report website.

But the one thing we can be certain of – it’s certainly livened things up. Who said elections were dull?

Professor Philip Cowley

Creating the Big Society?

"There are many problems with localism, from its potentially damaging effects on democracy and equal and universal services to a bias towards certain groups..."

Despite Labour’s odd choice of cover, it was the Conservative manifesto that looked the most unusual last week. It was presented as an invitation to ‘join the government’ – to set up our own schools, to elect local police chiefs, to run the local post office, and to form co-operatives to deliver local public services.

In itself, this could just be dismissed as an attempt by a party to offer something different without requiring any extra spending, but it’s not just them. Although each party wants to paint the other as returning to their big or small state roots, there is in fact now a consensus in British politics around the agenda of localism.

Partly, the roots of this lie in Thatcherite individualism and Blair’s ‘choice’ agenda. But New Labour, influenced in the 1990s by think tank Demos, also introduced the idea that creating connected communities was the answer to many of the problems of our increasingly individualistic society.

Social capital was Blair’s ‘magic ingredient’. Increased funding for community organisations, Local Strategic Partnerships and teaching schoolchildren to be ‘active citizens’ were all meant to empower communities, and inviting co-operatives and social enterprises to run health services, and individuals and businesses to resurrect failing schools as Academies were all Labour policies.

There are many problems with localism, from its potentially damaging effects on democracy and equal and universal services to a bias towards certain groups becoming more involved. But the most obvious issue at the moment is its workability: how do you create empowered local communities without greater state intervention or expenditure?

Crucially, research suggests that civil society has to be built up over time in order for it to have a positive impact on politics. It is not created simply through reductions in the size of the state, something that Cameron, despite some of the rhetoric, does seem to have realised.

He says that ‘collaborative democracy’ and an army of community organisers can march us into a new era of localism. For this to happen, however, he needs all of us to start volunteering. What could provoke this kind of change?

The Conservatives keep repeating one word: responsibility. They have been involved in research into the moral development of character and say they want a ‘cultural change’. Though they don’t go into detail, they even say they’ll use ‘the latest insights from behavioural economics’, whatever that means, to foster participation.

Indeed, is imposing one set of values on the population ever a good idea? ASBOs and the New Deal have already attempted to enforce certain behaviour, but most people are unlikely to voluntarily respond to Cameron’s invitation unless there is a clear benefit for them.

It’s not only about a lack of time (as the Guardian’s Jackie Ashley has argued), which can be bit of an excuse, but about the situation people find themselves in.

During the recession, volunteering has increased, but without resources and support these people will stop when they can find jobs.

The Big Society has to exist before you remove the state, and it takes time, money, and recognition to build. If people don’t feel part of communities or engaged with their local area, they will not be encouraged to do so by being given a ‘right to bid’ and run services or a ‘right to buy’ the local pub.

What is needed is reform alongside funding. In their manifesto the Tories acknowledge that this means an ‘active role for the state’. We probably need more of this to help society grow.


Chris Wood

Still not talking about immigration?

"...this may backfire by pushing at least some voters to the BNP and other small parties, as well as contributing to large-scale public resentment..."

In last night’s debate, the first question put to the three main party leaders was about immigration. Based on the responses, the differences between the parties on this issue are likely to be perceived as relatively marginal.

All three argued for controls on migration. Gordon Brown emphasised the recent controls that his government put in place based on a points system and pointed out that net migration had already been declining in the past couple of years. David Cameron claimed that immigration was still too high and needed to be reduced further and that his party would introduce an immigration cap, as well as reforming the border policing system. Thus, while his approach is more restrictive than Brown’s (Brown is opposed to an arbitrary cap), there is also no (or little) attempt to appeal to potential far-right voters in any of what he said.

Perhaps ironically, Nick Clegg’s policy – to allow migrants only to go to regions that need them economically – is an approach with the potential to be the most restrictive. Spain’s 1985 Foreigners’ Law, which introduced similar additional regional/provincial bureaucratic processes for legal entry into Spain to work, has been claimed to encourage illegal migration because the legal procedures were so onerous. It also potentially resembles old guest-worker policies in places like Germany, where labour migrants were tied to a particular job and were not allowed to work for other employers once they had been granted entry into Germany.

Despite this early discussion of immigration in the debate last night, it is clear that, as predicted, none of the three wished to make immigration a key issue. It was not mentioned in any of their opening or closing statements. Rather than ‘playing the immigration card’, Cameron in particular (but the other two leaders as well) focused on the technical details of immigration policy, with none arguing for an immediate halt to migration.

Yet immigration was the second most important issue after the economy mentioned by British citizens in the March Ipsos Mori poll. As argued previously, ignoring the issue like this may backfire by pushing at least some voters to the BNP and other small parties, as well as contributing to large-scale public resentment at a political class that seems unwilling to address one of the issues that has been of major concern to the British public in the past decade.

Dr Lauren McLaren

It's only words/and words are all I have

"So what happens when we compare the Conservative and Labour manifestos?"

Manifestos not only inform us about the sorts of issues which parties consider important at the election, they also provide crucial insights into how the parties think about these issues.
You can get some sense of an answer to these questions can be gained from reading the manifestos carefully, a more systematic approach is to analyse the text of the manifestos in order to determine the types of words that they use to describe their positions – as explained here.

So what happens when we compare the Conservative and Labour manifestos? Some differences between the manifestos are immediately apparent. The most obvious difference is that Conservatives are more likely to use words that relate to chaos (such as ‘disorder’, ‘ruin’, ‘wild’, etc.) than Labour (112% more uses). The Conservatives are also more likely to use words relating to ‘restraint’ (‘control’, ‘discipline’, ‘halt’, etc.) than Labour (32% more uses). This may not be surprising given the Conservative’s ‘broken Britain’ claims. What may be more surprising is that Labour are more likely than the Conservatives to use words relating to ‘moral imperatives’ – such as ‘duty’, ‘law’, ‘principles’ (22% more uses).

Labour are also more likely to use words relating to ‘growth’ and ‘height’ (60% more uses). A plausible interpretation of this suggests that this is a result of Labour attempting to play up its record on producing economic growth. Strengthening the case for this interpretation is Labour’s greater usage of words relating to ‘time’ (‘past’, ‘decade’, ‘time’, etc.) (40% more uses). Contrasting with this is the Conservative focus upon words relating to rank orders (‘consistent’, ‘original’, ‘rank’, etc.) (25% more uses) – almost certainly relating to a pessimistic view of Britain in a comparative setting.

Finally, and importantly, the Conservatives are more likely to use words relating to ‘abstract thought’ (‘belief’, ‘choice’, ‘plan’, etc.) than Labour (25% more uses). This suggests a Conservative manifesto built more upon an ideologically driven vision of the future and a Labour manifesto built more upon past facts.

All of the above differences are statistically significant at the 95% level, and comparisons in word usage have been standardised for the different length of manifestos. Unstandardised, the Conservative manifesto is 28768 words in length. The Labour manifesto is 30517 words.

And before any Lib Dems complain, analysis of their manifesto will follow.

Jonathan Rose

Avoid, Avoid, Avoid

New research into the political views of a group of women in the 24-35  age group on lower incomes - or the 'Lambrini Ladies' as we call them - has discovered many interesting and serious things (about which more later).

However one of the more amusing findings is that when asked if they would snog, marry or avoid the leaders of our three main political parties 89% wanted to avoid Gordon Brown, 66% would flee
David Cameron and 63% would give Nick Clegg a very wide berth.

As I will reveal later the Lambrini Ladies have more significant reasons for being disengaged from politics but if any of the leaders think they can exploit their sex appeal they had better think again.

Professor Steven Fielding

Think tank in sloppy logic shocker

"...doing something that almost 80% think is daft is a curious way to reinvigorate the political process."

The age of majority has been the subject of two major independent reports in recent years. The first, by the Electoral Commission came out in 2004. It recommended against lowering the voting age to 16. The second, by the government’s Youth Citizenship Commission, came out in 2009. It too did not recommend votes at 16.

I need to declare an interest here, as Vice-Chair of the YCC. I cannot speak for all of my fellow commissioners – some of whom were in favour of votes at 16, some against – but one of the most frustrating things about the debate was how disingenuous many of the arguments were, especially those put forward by those who favoured lowering the voting age. You’d hear repeatedly about how people could get married at 16 – but without mention of the fact that (in England and Wales) it requires parental consent to do so. Or you’d hear about how people could pay tax – cue the cry: no taxation without representation! – without mention of the fact that taxation isn’t age-related: indirect tax (about which ‘no taxation without representation’ was first uttered) is entirely age-neutral, and even income tax begins at the point at which sufficient income exists, not at any specific age. Sometimes these errors and elisions were just the simplifications that inevitably creep into political campaigns, but at times the number of such weaknesses did raise the suspicion that they were in fact covering up a pretty weak case.

The thinktank Demos have just published a report arguing for votes at 16, and sadly it’s full of exactly the same kind of flaws. One paragraph is a particularly stunning example:

Being able to join the armed forces at 16 is just one example of an age-differentiated right that lends support to an argument for lowering the voting age to 16. The ‘Votes at 16’ coalition states that some 4560 16 and 17 year olds were serving in the armed forces as of April 2007. Of the first 100 British soldiers to be killed in the ongoing war in Iraq, at least six were too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election.

Leaving aside the fact that the Demos authors appear to have just accepted the evidence of the Votes at 16 coalition without verifying it (not something I would recommend), there are two huge sleights of hand going on here.

The first is in the word ‘serving’. Because whilst it is possible to serve in the armed forces below the age of 18, frontline service is supposed to be avoided until 18. So despite the line in the report’s conclusion about denying the vote to those who are fighting and dying for their country, there should be no such cases. Also note – only mentioned later in the Demos pamphlet – that joining the armed forces below the age of 18 is only possible with parental consent, because society does not see 16-17 year olds as able to make that decision alone.

Ah, but you say, what about the ‘at least’ six casualties, ‘too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election’. And here’s the second, and by far the worst, sleight of hand. All of those listed, terribly young though they were, were 18 or 19. All, in other words, were old enough to vote. Hence the curious construction of that sentence: it is not ‘too young to vote’, but ‘too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election’. Note here the belittling of all other elections such as local or European elections – presumably Demos thinks these aren’t real elections? – because that would not fit the authors’ arguments. And then try to follow the logic to its conclusion: to insist that all members of the armed forces cannot serve in front line roles – with all the attendant risks – until they have had the chance to participate in a Westminster election would require lowering the voting age to 13. Only then could we be certain that no one aged 18, or 19, or 20, could die serving in the armed forces without having had the chance to vote in a Westminster election. Perhaps this is what they think? If so, they should say so. Else, there is the danger that this appears as a pretty despicable bit of shroud waving, using the deaths of young soldiers to advance an otherwise weak argument.

The same sloppy logic unfortunately applies to much of the rest of the report. There is, for example, a section of the comparable rights and responsibilities of young people, which does not note that many of them have been rising in recent years – with 16 year olds today denied things that would have been available to them a decade ago. These are all inconvenient facts, but they are ones worth noting in any balanced weighing up of the evidence, which Demos claims to be doing.

The bit that the report does get right, however, is that this not a popular move amongst the wider public, no matter how much ground it is gaining amongst elements of the Westminster village. Whilst it rightly notes that public acceptability is not the only guide to reform, doing something that almost 80% think is daft is a curious way to reinvigorate the political process.

Professor Philip Cowley

Spinning the manifesto

Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has been in charge of drafting Labour’s manifesto since 2007. So he has had a long time to get it right. Over the weekend Miliband claimed in a Guardian interview that the manifesto will prove Labour remains best qualified to lead ‘the next phase of national renewal" and that it "will reform both the market and the state" and help “rebuild our politics”. This is good, classic New Labour stuff – ‘renewal’ ‘rebuild’ and ‘reform’ all evoke memories of 1997.
However, the elements Miliband chose to highlight suggest a shift in emphasis since then, with some signals of a change of direction - and one that might embarrass at least one leading member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet. It also poses a key question about the future of one of New Labour’s central policies.

The manifesto will apparently introduce a People’s Bank to help rebuild what Miliband described as the ‘fabric of communities’. The Bank will be linked to the growing number of co-operative credit unions across the country that help the poor borrow money on favourable terms. The Bank will be accessed through Britain’s 12,000 Post Office branches. This marks a decisive change in direction for the Post Office under Labour, giving it a greater public service role than implied by Peter Mandelson’s on-off-on-off attempts to part-privatise it since he became Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1998. Indeed during Labour’s time in office at least 4,000 post offices have closed in the face of much public opposition.

Miliband also claims the manifesto will include a ‘radical’ increase in the minimum wage. It currently stands at £5.80 but campaigners like London Citizens want it increased to £7.60. Miliband was coy about quite how high it might go, and he was not pressed on how this marked another change in direction from when the measure was first introduced in 1999. Many employers – and the Conservatives – claimed a minimum wage would bring disastrous economic consequences. Blair of course wanted to appease business but he also wanted to adhere to one of the party’s few pledges that favoured the trade unions. This meant ripping up what had been Labour’s stance under John Smith – a minimum wage set 50% of male median earnings initially, rising to two-thirds over time – and instead establishing an Independent Low Pay Commission, to decide on the rate, which led to complaints that it was set too low. The minister responsible was – maybe you have guessed? - Peter Mandelson. In his Guardian interview, Miliband was not pressed on how Labour will increase the minimum wage, given that it is set not by Government but by the LPC. Is his interview a sign that Labour intends to remove the LPC and allow government directly to set the minimum wage?

The problem for Labour in proposing ‘radical’ change, as Miliband claims the manifesto will do, is that skeptics will ask: why has it taken you till now? Shoring up the ‘traditional’ Labour vote, making sure they turn out come polling day, is one likely explanation of Miliband’s spinning of the manifesto. But there might be another. Miliband employed a number of caveats during the interview: there were lots of ifs, mights and maybes. The manifesto is still in a state of flux: the Prime Minister and Lord Mandelson have yet to approve it. It is more than possible that when they do, caution will reign and some of Miliband’s promised ‘radicalism’ watered down. In talking to the Guardian, Miliband might, then, have been doing two things. Boosting Labour’s message in advance of the imminent election campaign while also sending a signal to what remains of the party’s members. Should Labour lose and Brown fall on his sword, it would be very useful for someone spoken of as a likely leadership candidate – as the BBC’s Michael Crick has done recently to be the man known to have fought for a ‘radical’ manifesto.

Professor Steven Fielding