Confidence is a preference…

The Tories have stopped pretending to have changed. They’ve given up trying to convince us they are the party of the NHS, put down the Huskies and turned the water cannons on the hoodies they once hugged. The Tories have reverted to type and to form. And they’re doing so with a confidence bordering on arrogance. The worst part is – it’s working for them.

Confidence is an attractive quality. Even arrogance can seem attractive – particularly at times when so much is in doubt. The Tories may be marching the country over a cliff, but they’re doing so in a seductively assured way. Labour are right when we call out telling the Tories that they’re going the wrong way. But unless we can get the country to follow us, we won’t have the chance to lead them to safety.

This is a problem of politics not of policy. The way the Tories do politics is the model of politics people recognise. Decisiveness – even when the decisions are wrong – is a recognisable quality for uncertain times. The Tories blunder on in their arrogance, but the public are currently still – just about – forgiving them for it – because they need someone to do it.

In one of my earliest incarnations I worked in telesales, selling chemical cleaners and degreasers to businesses. This was long before the days of the minimum wage, and I was paid purely on how many units I could sell. I learned more about communication in the six months I did that job than I may have learned ever since. The script to which we worked was very specific on certain points. Obviously we accentuated the positives of our product. But actually, we didn’t get to the product until we were a long way into our call.

What we did first was build a relationship. We talked about music, we talked about family life, we talked about work or the weekend. The topic did not matter. It really didn’t. We could have talked about model railways, or football or the state of modern art. The point was to use phrases like “you and I both John…” “We know don’t we Jane…” “Wouldn’t you agree Jas…” building up a sense of camaraderie between myself and the potential chemical purchaser.

Politics has to be about reaching a consensus with the electorate. The Conservative way of doing this has always been to go for the hard sell. When Conservatives use the phrase “we’re all in this together” it’s not because they intend giving up their skiing trips to Klosters. It’s because they’re selling.

Now what we have found out over the last two years, is that to last in business, you have to have a product to sell. The Lib Dem/Groucho Marx approach of “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others” works for impulse buyers, but has little long-term viability.

But the right are incredibly adept at selling us a dummy. They have sold this false proposition for years and they sell it well. This may frustrate and infuriate us, but in the end we need to learn just a little bit of it ourselves.

At the moment, we spend far too much of our time talking about ourselves, or talking about the Tories and far too little time talking about the electorate. For the “people’s party” we cut them out of the conversation far too much. We use the phrases like “this is not fair to the public” but actually that’s talking about not with and for people. It’s a subtle difference, but it does make a difference in how inclusive a political speech can be and feel.

Despite recent wobbles, Labour are doing ok. The public are increasing adopting our messages of “too far too fast” and we have – as I predicted – stayed a nose ahead in the polls. We’ve got a pivotal year ahead of us, where fleshing out policies and getting public buy in for them will be essential as we start the journey to 2015.

We have a great offer. We have the right plans for the country and we know that they can and will work. But being quietly right or jarringly right or annoyingly right isn’t going to work. We mustn’t be ashamed to find the right ways to sell our policies.

All too often, the right in their confidence, will co-opt the mainstream whether it truly agrees with it or not. All too often the Left will reject the mainstream because it doesn’t agree with us quite enough. We can’t do that anymore. This is too important. You and I both know that, don’t we?