It’s my committee and I’ll cry if I want to

Government in Britain is cloaked in secrecy.  They do that on purpose.  Always have.  As we get to understand more about what’s behind the facade, it’s almost always worse than we feared.

Almost always.

The early pioneer of the hipster movement, Walter Bagehot, writing in the 19th century explained how government in Britain works.  (And what a beard, eh?)

In ‘The English Constitution’ he distinguished between the efficient and the dignified parts of government. The efficient parts are those which do the governing – i.e. decisions are made and plans enacted.  The dignified parts are a cosmetic artifice which sell the whole thing to the deluded public.  That’s us.  Oh.

In Bagehot’s day, the efficient part constituted the cabinet, while the dignified part was made up of the Monarchy and the House of Lords.  The status of the Commons is subject to interpretation.

In the century or more since he wrote, power and influence have become more tightly focused in the Prime Minister and a narrow cabal of close advisers and influencers.  In the Thatcher years, we talked of an ‘Inner Cabinet’ of trusted advisers – maybe four or five key players.  Nowadays, it’s more likely to be made up of one or two key unelected Special Advisers (SpAds).  In the current set up, top SpAd Dominic Cummings is often described as the ‘Power behind No.10’.

A typical first week essay for British politics undergraduate might be to write a comparison of the respective power of the British prime Minister and the US President.  Contrary to the instinctive response, the PM enjoys much greater authority than his or her American counterpart.  This is partly because the PM commands the patronage of every official in a government position (basically everyone’s job is in their gift) and partly because the US President is subject to deliberate constitutional checks and balances, embodied in the separation of powers between the Executive (The White House) the Legislature (Congress) and the Judiciary (the legal system, in particular the Supreme Court).

This is all a bit depressing.  We thought democracy was alive and well and living in Westminster, when all it really means is that we get to choose between one all-powerful party leader and another.

It’s also clear that the 2020 Conservative government is moving towards ever greater centralisation of power, by removing those checks and balances that do exist in the British system.  The removal of Sir Mark Sedwill, Head of the Civil Service, by pressure from the Prime Minister’s office, is a clear statement of intent, as is the widespread talk of ‘Whitehall Reform’ (translation – the emasculation of the Civil Service, so they are more obedient to the Minister in charge of their Department).

But just occasionally, there’s a glimmer of hope.

Select Committees are an important part of the system of Government.  This is where bills being debated are examined by experts, and amended or revised.  The membership of these committees is generally cross-party and, contrary to the public-facing rough-and-tumble of The House, they are quite grown-up bodies with some capacity to make policy better rather than just to make it saleable.  This is good and important, and the Chairmanship of a committee is rightly a prestigious appointment, made by election from its members.  Not – importantly – appointed by The Man.

The Intelligence and Security Committee is not a Select Committee as such, but the same rules apply.  Only more so – being all about National Security, it’s even more important that this group has an objective, long-term focus and is not just a political lap dog.

So it was with great rejoicing that I saw the news today that Boris Johnson’s attempt to ‘shoe-in’ his political friend, Chris Grayling, had unexpectedly come unstuck.  Contrary to all the predictions (and pre-announcement press briefings – maybe a lesson in there) the committee elected Conservative MP and longstanding member of the committee, Julian Lewis instead.

It’s refreshing chink of light, where you might have thought there was none.  Remarkably, Mr. Lewis is a defence expert, strongly endorsed by previous committee chairmen.  Mr. Grayling isn’t.

No offence to my former constituency MP, Mr. Grayling, whom I have met and rather liked, despite his reputation for bringing calamity, wherever he goes.  But this is surely a victory for good sense, and a minor act of resistance against the forces concentrating power into No 10.

The PM’s office naturally responded by having a hissy fit and throwing Lewis out of the party.  A senior government source told the BBC that Mr Lewis “has been told by the chief whip that it is because he worked with Labour and other opposition MPs for his own advantage“.  Hmmm.  Definitely not because it frustrated a power-grab then.

It’s a good job there are some checks and balances left.  So, three cheers for the Committee system.  And, forgive me for getting all sensible for a moment, but if the Defence and Security Committee does what the name implies, then that’s really rather important to our future safety.

Having looked like becoming just another dignified part of government, there are still a few bastions of the efficient after all.  For now.

 

 

Marketing bollocks of the highest order

I do love a bit of strategy humbly bumbly.

Within limits.

Newy Brothwell, the wily old Creative Director at DDB, used to have one wall of his office dedicated to examples of ‘marketing bollocks’.  He’d have key quotes and strategy slides pinned up there, stating meaningless, confusing tosh in deluded language.  My favourites were the overblown, hyperbolic assertions masquerading as some kind of ‘brand promise’.  They were all absolutely real, trawled from his years spent working with people like me, who talked utter bollocks for a living.

I could sit for ages in there, just soaking it in and chortling from time to time.

I was reminded of this recently, when some colleagues* asked me to contribute to a (admittedly rather hastily assembled) new brand strategy.

The document wasn’t excessively long. It was intended to be presented in a one-hour call, including time for Q&A.  Let’s say 45 slides worth.

In those 45 slides, I noted, we talked about all of the following (and not in a ‘we won’t be wasting time with one of these’ kind of way):

Brand essence

Brand personality

Brand positioning

Brand promise

Brand territory

Brand values

Brand identity

Brand vision

Brand mission

Brand architecture

Brand opportunity

Brand landscape

Brand spirit

Product promise

Meaningful Brand Idea

Premise/promise/proof

CPP (I forget – something product promise?)

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to suspect a certain lack of clarity here.

The fabulous irony here was that the launch in question was arguably not even a ‘brand’ at all.  But that’s getting off the point, and tempting me into the kind of esoteric detail I’m here to decry.

In these things, I tend to refer back to my favourite marketing professor, Mark Ritson.  As I recall, he reckons you should ignore all this tosh and settle on a single quality or association that distinguishes your brand from its competitors.  Some people call it the vision, some call it a promise, I tend to describe it as the positioning – and so does Ritson, so that’s what it is.  Everything else is pretty much affectation.

More specifically, on clarity and simplicity, he says:

“The greatest initial test for brand positioning is whether your brand manager can remember it unaided. Then ask your chief executive. Then ask the porter from downstairs who meets more customers than your chief executive and brand manager combined. If all three come up with the same basic concept, you are in the 1% of companies who are in with a chance of brand-building.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Try this as a test on your favourite brands. If you’re a brand manager or if you advise them, try it on your own brands.  Most fail.  Even the big, successful household names.

This exposes the whole world of brand malarkey as a hotbed of bullshit and smoke & mirrors.  (Stating the obvious alert – sorry about that)

At this point it would be traditional to blame the consultants, who are trying to justify a big fee.  I don’t though.  I blame the de-skilling of marketing to the point where we’re so ignorant as a profession that we don’t see what matters.

I would like to make that my own personal point of difference.

 

(*Apologies to those – you know who you are – who actually felt the same way.)

 

Culture, Relativism and Black Lives Matter

“Fire burns in Hellas and Persia, but men’s ideas of right and wrong vary from place to place”

This is Aristotle’s assertion in his Nicomachean Ethics.  I reckon it’s the best description you’ll get of moral relativism.  Simple, clear and true.

If you can get your head around moral relativism, then much of the madness of our current moral dilemmas begins to melt away.

What am I on about?  OK, rewind a bit.

In the wake of the horrible police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the western world has been engaged in a period of re-evaluation and reflection, fanned by the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement.  This has led us to some heated disputes, and violent scenes on the streets.

The first thing to say about this is that racism is a massive problem.  The disadvantage experienced by non-white people in western society is a grim reminder that we’re not as civilised as we think we are.  When it reaches the point of suspects dying in custody – not once but regularly – then it’s genuinely shocking.  Being outraged is reasonable.  The explosion of protest inspired in the US, the UK and beyond, is natural and right.  But not necessarily always constructive.  And the backlash provoked from white supremacists (how can that even be a thing in a civilised world?) has been truly scary.

The protests have evolved in a morally interesting direction.  Retrospectively.  At the heart of this is the way in which we deal with historical figures who engaged in activities, normal at the time, but now unacceptable.   Owning slaves is the most obvious, and this has been a focus.  Statues of a host of prominent figures from the past, who were slave owners, have been targeted.

It’s very tempting to judge people in previous eras by today’s standards, but I believe it’s wrong, even if we passionately disapprove of what they did.

Firstly this is because it quickly leads to a raft of ridiculous anomalies.

In Ben Elton’s novel ‘Identity Crisis’ one of the protagonists is seeking to retrospectively prosecute the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys, because, in his writing, he describes touching up a servant girl.  It’s just one of a swathe of posthumous legal actions against  public figures whose conduct wouldn’t meet today’s standards.

This kind of madness is good fodder for satire, but it’s not so different from tipping statues of slave-owning philanthropists and statesmen (Edward Colston, Cecil Rhodes etc.) into the sea.

This is one level absurdity.  In another, the musical ‘Hamilton’ (now sadly also a Disney movie) has been criticised because its characters include slave owners (including George Washington).  The hero, Hamilton, actively denounces slavery in the play, but, according to some commentators, he doesn’t go far enough.  On Twitter, commentators complain it is “a play about slave-holders that is not about slavery”.

What’s more, the play’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda (himself of Puerto Rican descent) seems to agree, when he says the criticisms are valid.

This is truly barking mad, since Hamilton was rightly hailed as a leap forward in inclusivity – it is the first big, successful, hip-hop musical – remarkable for giving every major role to a person of colour.  The good is suddenly now, inexplicably bad.

But this kind of nonsense is almost inevitable if we try to apply one era’s values to another.

For a start, where does it end?  You only have to go back a very short time to find examples of unacceptable practices embedded in culture.  Going back further, there is virtually nothing about feudal society or the behaviour of its major players that would escape our wrath.  The same is true for virtually every era that’s not our own.

For a start, the Founding Fathers of the United States and every British monarch you can think of would need to be disowned.

Aristotle said, moral norms vary across countries and they vary over time.  We’re rightly sniffy about slavery.  Though it is still alarmingly present in Britain today.  ‘We’ think it’s wrong to cut people’s hands off as punishment.  Others disagree.  We’ think it’s ok to hit children as punishment.  Some don’t.

Perhaps more importantly, just to flip the perspective onto the present day, how do we think future generations will judge us?  Morality is essentially tied to culture.  How might future generations feel about some of the things we see as normal?

Many everyday practices we see as ok are pretty morally questionable if you step outside our culture.  We may not see it because we’re part of that culture.  I’d point to church-sponsored child abuse, circumcision, killing animals for sport and some of the more barbaric practices in the food industry as examples.  Toleration of white supremacists, the maintenance of extreme privilege and inequality, payment for political influence – these all strike me as things which future generations will ridicule, but there are plenty more.

Moral relativism demands we recognise that our current moral norms are arbitrary, not objective.  But when we talk about morality, when we ascribe something as right or wrong, we don’t mean ‘right or wrong from my perspective, in today’s framework.  We mean it’s absolutely right or wrong.  Moral language is part of the problem.

If judgements only really make sense in the context of their culture, then going back and re-evaluating figures from the past will only tie us in knots.  Culture frames how we see and experience the world.

I cite Aristotle as the originator of this wisdom, which is ironic, because, in his Politics, he sees the existence of slavery as a perfectly natural thing, and expresses no disapproval at all.  Probably made perfect sense at the time.

 

 

Alert Alert !!!

My eyes are peeled. I’m scanning the horizon.  I check behind.  And to the sides.   Everyone I see will be scrutinised from head to foot, until I am satisfied they offer no threat.  Every vehicle will be checked.  Every house I pass will be noted and its details recoded.  Nothing goes unnoticed.  I am a coiled spring.

I am alert. So alert.  I am positively tingling with alertness.  Alert is my new middle name.  Beyond alert.  I’m more alert than Alert Ali McAlert, winner of last year’s ‘Mr. Alert’ competition.

I must be safe from the COVID-19 virus right?

If you didn’t know (because either you’ve been living in a cave, or somewhere outside Britain) this is the British Government’s campaign to keep the public safe from corona virus.

Stay Alert (what?) Control the Virus (er, how?) Save lives (but, who, where, how, che?)

My main question is this:  Is this the worst piece of public policy communication in history?

Seems like a no-brainer to me.  It’s the biggest stinker ever.

Why do I say that? (I don’t hear you ask)

Well for a start it makes no sense.  Staying alert will make no difference whatsoever to anything relating to the virus.  Or anything else, except I’ll be exhausted rather quickly.  Is alertness somehow relevant?  Am I at more at risk while sleeping than I am when fully ‘on my guard’?  I think not.

Controlling the virus is not something I know how to do, nor something it’s in my power to do so instructing me to do it leaves me floundering.

And saving lives, while undoubtedly a good thing, is not really in my remit – I don’t think I’m being asked to find someone in danger and rescue them, so what exactly is it I’m being urged to do?

Alice Bennett, a senior lecturer in contemporary literature, put it better than me, on Twitter:

“It’s a fantasy that we can ‘control the virus’, but we can’t actually control our attention either. ‘Stay Alert’ is the ‘Never Forget’ of public safety messaging: actionless, objectless, infinitely expansive”

Inevitably the authors of the campaign have felt compelled to defend it:

“The truth is that people really understand the message, people understand what ‘Stay Alert’ means,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program .

In fact, polling by YouGov, on the Monday following its launch, suggested only 30 percent of people knew what “Stay Alert” means — and even Tory MPs privately expressed dismay at the botched messaging before the key document was finally published at lunchtime on Monday.

Apparently, the original intention was that the five letters making up ALERT would form an acronym for five actions people could take to prevent the spread of the disease.  But according to Politico, the graphics for the new campaign were leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, the weekend before, leading to what is known in the trade as a ‘botched launch’.  And no acronym was forthcoming.

No wonder the campaign has been met with a mixture of derision and confusion.

I couldn’t help take a quick peek at what some experts in Government communications thought about it.  A couple of senior staffers at the Central Office of Information (The Government’s centre of excellence for public communications, until it was broken up a few years ago) summarised their thoughts as follows (no names, no pack-drill):

“I wonder what was the thought process that went into the new slogan: BE ALERT, CONTROL THE VIRUS, SAVE LIVES.  This slogan is meaningless and confusing.”

“It’s a box-ticking exercise that clearly doesn’t give a shit about whether it actually changes behaviour or helps people.”

So far so utterly damning.  But there’s another side to this.  Because, if there’s one area where the current British Government is generally sure-footed, it’s mass communications made simple.  The Brexit campaign was a triumph of persuasion, where the case to be made was logically er flimsy at best.  And the last general election saw the Conservative Party wipe the floor with their opponents, despite a fairly iffy record in government.  All of this was achieved with a single-minded approach to communications based on a religious adherence to polling and feedback from focus groups.  It has been a thoroughly professional job.  They gave every impression of knowing what they were doing.  Until now.

So what went wrong?

Stay alert for further bulletins…….