There is an old addage: “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters”. Never is this more true when talking about economic issues, which are usually baffling to non-experts (and, as recent history has shown, equally as baffling to experts too).
Terms like ‘quantitative easing’ or ‘fiscal stimulus’ bear little relation to the lives we lead: Jane Bloggs is more concerned about paying her bills, then whether the Bank of England is creating money to buy bonds.
But Gordon Brown is a substance man – not bad in times like these – and his oratory shows it. Consider this section from his New Year’s message:
The scale and speed of the global financial crisis was at times, almost overwhelming. I know that people felt bewildered, confused and sometimes frightened.
That is why the response had to be swift and decisive.
That is why we acted so quickly to get money into the banks. Not for any desire to finance bankers, but because if we didn’t it would have put at risk that which is most important to you and me – your jobs, your homes, your savings, your standard of living.
What keeps me up at night, and gets me up in the morning are the hopes and aspirations of the British people. My guiding principle, at all times, is the welfare and well being of British families and British businesses.
All of this would have been put at risk if we had not intervened and simply done nothing, as some would have had us do.
This will be a challenging year for the economy but I believe, with the right policies, we can build a better tomorrow, while dealing with the challenges of today.
The failure of British governments in previous global downturns was to succumb to political expediency and to cut back investment across the board, thereby stunting our ability to grow and strangling hope during the upturn.
This will not happen on my watch.
The lesson of this crisis is that we do not let recession take its course, yield to defeatism, or simply muddle through and just hope for things to get better.
The message is – we take action: we are providing an extra £60 to pensioners immediately, on top of the winter allowance; increasing child benefit from January 1st to £20 per week; and helping 22 million basic rate taxpayers with a £145 tax cut. Added to that, the cut in VAT this year will knock around £275 off the average family household bill. Not to do this would be imprudent.
Today the risk of attempting too little is a greater threat than the risk of attempting too much.
But then contrast this with a speech David Cameron made in January:
So let me tell you my vision of a good future for our economy. It’s an economy where government and its citizens live within their means, save for a rainy day, waste not and want not. It’s an economy where everyone has the chance to own their own home with space to live and breathe – and where we work to live, not live to work. It’s an economy that’s more productive, where people can work shorter hours and spend more time with the things that matter – family and friends. It’s a better balanced economy where we spread ownership and opportunity throughout Britain, so it’s not just concentrated in the hands of the few in one corner of the country. And it’s a more modern economy, where we create rewarding, good-paying jobs in the green and technological industries of the future.
If we achieve this vision, our country will be both richer and happier – with our standard of living and our quality of life rising together. And let us be clear, the quality of life matters. It matters a lot. It is not just something for the good times; not just something for the richest. The richest in our society can already buy themselves a decent quality of life: it’s not the rich we need to worry about. So our economic vision is not driven by money alone, but by our view of what is right.
Spot the difference? Gordon’s tone is matter-of-fact, laden with economic terms and sprinkled with figures from policy announcements. David’s tone is soft, empathetic and somewhat lyrical.
Being in Government shouldn’t prevent Gordon, or Labour, from talking in more poetic language. Instead the electorate is bombarded with fact after fact, or with terms used by policy wonks but which aren’t always understood on the doorstep. At this time in the economic cycle, the party needs to appear sympathetic to the needs of the electorate; Labour needs to focus on people in its communications, not policies.
The same Labour communications technique has been in use since 1994, and has worked well for three elections. But in this new economic reality, isn’t it about time it was decommissioned?
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