Swiftboating 2015

The 2004 US Presidential Election gave rise to a new form of political terminology: ‘Swiftboating’.

For those of you too young or simply disinterested to remember, the term comes from a smear campaign conducted against Democratic Presidential Candidate and current US Secretary of State, John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign. The campaign group consisted of Swift Boat Veterans who cast doubts over the military service record of John Kerry – himself a Vietnam veteran – and was funded by wealthy Republican Party backers. The campaign group, described by the New York Times as launching attacks against John Kerry that were “orchestrated by negative-campaign specialists deep in the heart of the Texas Republican machine” played a pivotal role in the 2004 election.

Incumbent President George W.Bush didn’t posess a military record which began to stand comparison to that of his Democrat challenger and whether with the connivance of the Republican Party or not, the SBVT campaign was an attempt to stop this comparison from being made. A lavishly constructed, expensive smear campaign, ‘swiftboating’ quickly entered the political lexicon.

The techniques and practices of American political campaigning do not automatically enter the political environments of other countries.  However, for good or ill (often good) the American political culture does. The rise of the sound-bite, slick marketing campaigns, Presidential candidates in a Parliamentary democracy, TV debates, the arms-race of political advertising and latterly, the advent of the social-media infographic: like it or not, these innovations are here to stay.

But like their US Republican soul-mates, the Tories have now found the prospect of swiftboating their opponents irresistible. It’s been happening for years now, but a catastrophic start to the general election campaign for the Tory Party has pulled the swiftboating of Ed Miliband and other Labour figures forward ahead of schedule. Many expect this to be the most rancid, personal election campaign in British history and so far, it’s hard to disagree.  Every Tory setback provokes a response seemingly designed to take the tone of the campaign down a notch.

After a fortnight of predictably woeful NHS headlines (predictable because Cameron was told that his policies would result in the mess that he has created) a botched attempt to smear Labour’s economic proposals (so badly wrong that even Tory-friendly journalists had to disavow it) and a spectacularly mis-judged effort to torpedo the Leaders’ TV debates; the Tories are three-nil down after five minutes. Time, then, to go in studs-up, dive in the box and argue with the ref. For the avoidance of doubt, that’s the overwhelmingly Tory owned media warming-up on the touchline. Watch your lip son; go past me again and I’ll defame your late father…

Serious Westminster lobby opinion is divided about whether or not the debates will happen with some sane voices predicting that the Prime Minister wouldn’t allow himself to be (accurately) portrayed as a chicken to only then be forced to change his mind. The Tories may have already priced in that they can’t win on social media (who can?) and they know they can always (literally) rely upon an enthusiastically supine Tory press to defame and savage Labour’s policies and politicians. With no dissenting voices and supported by the government machine, many broadcasters are expected to dutifully cover ministerial walkabouts, press conferences and set-pieces. Those TV debates could change everything. For this reason they must not be allowed, seemingly at any price.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I’m partisan. That said, even independent observers would agree that the Tories have suffered a very poor start to their election campaign. So far, this means nothing electorally, but the effect will be to introduce the worst kind of swiftboating to British politics. Welcome to the 2015 general election.

Jamie Reed is the Labour MP for Copeland and a Shadow Health Minister