10 things Ken can do to win

“Will Ken Livingstone win in London? No.” Thus spake Labour optimist and serial predictor of front-runner success Dan Hodges. But Hodges’ provocative sally in November’s Progress did give voice to a genuine concern felt by many party activists as to the uphill battle Ken faces in winning back City Hall next spring. But as the game heads into the last round let’s spend a little less time reflecting on how defeat may come and some more time on how Ken does win. So here’s what I’d tell Ken:

• Be a fighter: At the moment Brand Ken has somehow ended up viewed as the ‘Experience’ candidate whilst Johnson is the ‘Change/insurgent’. But with London suffering from economic tumult, the aftermath of the riots and the continued threat of terrorism the city needs a champion. Ken’s superior poll ratings on ‘Good in a crisis’, ‘sticks to what he believes in’ and (Team EdM take note) the sacred ‘strong leader’ number mean that Londoners are already inclined to favour Ken but only if the campaign is about serious matters, not frivolities. Which leads me to:

• Meet the voters where they are on “Boris”: simply saying ‘Tory Boris Johnson’ ad nauseum won’t convince the voters that that loveable rogue with the comic hair and silly japes isn’t fit to be mayor. Playing up that frivolousness though as inappropriate to voters’ real concerns in these serious times instead plays into voters’ pre-existing views of Boris and opens the door to…

• Paint Boris Johnson as unfit for service: escalate the attack with ever stronger contrasts between Ken’s ‘On your side’ record and John’s mega-salary part-time mayor job. In this, the attack line on Johnson’s self-confessed “chickenfeed” £250k newspaper column top-up is a good one. Escalate the attack even as you…

• Double down on ‘Fare Deal’: this policy is vintage Ken: pro-Londoner, an issue intuitively understood as a mayoral matter and a great campaigns piece for the footsoldier legions activated through the ace Mike Joslin’s efforts with the superb YourKen site. But go further. Ken’s move from a call for a 5% cut to a 7% cut earned points even from the Evening Standard. Is there room in the TfL budget surplus for a 10% cut? And make greater play of your commitment to re-introduce the non-zone1 travel card option: perfect doughnut-issue for the outer borough voters.

• Your ace-in-the-hole: the Olympics. You helped win the Olympics for London and Boris Johnson will seek to benefit from the delivery of the games. You should develop a theme of warning against a fat-cat games, warning that it doesn’t get taken over by corporate interests and must be in touch with Londoners. And it makes for a perfect image in your stump speech: talk about snatching back the Olympic torch from Boris Johnson’s hands at the very last moment before the Games and going on to and win for London.

But that’s the easy stuff for you Ken. Now here’s the hard bit:

• Kill the leaflets: the Labour Party is addicted to delivering leaflets, and it made sense during times when we had only small numbers of activists. But the volunteer hordes that your field team is organising mean that individual conversations with voters en masse can and must be your campaign’s focus. A big hit on Jan 3rd at tube stations after Johnson’s fare hike works but let that be the end of it. Why? Because voters are inundated with pizza leaflets all the time, their impact per the godly Yale GOTV studies  is minimal at best. There’s better things to do with volunteers (like the cool rally last month) and, critically…

• Register voters! This is your secret weapon in the campaign. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of young, low-income or minority voters unregistered in London: natural Ken constituencies. Doorstep conversations as follow-ups to community voter registration campaigns with councillors, faith leaders, trade unionists and community activists could well hold the decisive new votes pool that you need to put you over the top – especially when combined with your vital voter ID drive.

• Ease up on the e-mails: the daily deluge of e-mails will have diminishing returns. And when every call to action is an ‘URGENT Call For Action’ these cease to have meaning so use them on more of a segmented and targeted basis. This may well mean centralising messaging and campaign control even more to better co-ordinate that flow. Thankfully you can trust your staff to do that now so…

(Marcus adds: I originally wrote “ease up on the texts and calls” but upon relfection that should really just be e-mails – the call volume is fine and the texts are used quite sparingly actually. I stand corrected.)

• Let your staff do the thinking, you be the candidate: In Simon Fletcher and Patrick Heneghan you finally have a senior staff worthy of the challenge of beating Boris. So let them get on with it while you spend more time on the stump. No more weekends, no more foreign trips, no more policy wonk-a-thons. Time spent not meeting voters is time wasted.

• Remember, you’re running for Mayor of London not Secretary General of the UN: so drop the Venezualian solidarity stuff, the obsession with Chinese climate change and any commentary at any time on any element of American foreign policy. Instead, stay focused on Londoners job, transport, the economy and the Olympics. That’s what voters want from their mayor, that’s what they deserve. What’s more, that kind of focus allows for an even greater contrast with out-of-touch Johnson.

Marcus Roberts is the Deputy General Secretary of the Fabian Society. He writes in a personal capacity.