Will the "Flip-Flop Chameleon" Spin Work?
New Labour believes that they have to define the opponent in the public mind and frame the terms of the debate to destroy him. Hague, IDS and Howard got the treatment. With Cameron they have hesitated, apparently at Blair's behest and to the dismay of Brown. Now we are led to believe they have agreed an attack and they intend to define Cameron as an unreliable policy chameleon - a flip-flopper. The on message, loyalist Labour whip, Tom Watson MP, blogs this spin (with a very colourful graphic). Whomever wrote Prescott's recent speech to the Labour Party Centenary Conference summarised the line neatly:
All Cameron has to do is say "yes, it's true, we have changed" and this line of attack is neutralised. That is after all what the voters wanted. Change. Calling Cameron a flip-flopper clearly highlights and confirms the change for him. Advertisers always like to keep the message simple - the New Tory message is "we have changed". The details are irrelevant to most voters. Daz does not advertise Persil's new formula, why is New Labour advertising New Tory policy changes?
The Kerry precedent is not directly comparable - Kerry flipped, flopped and flipped again and again. The man was a policy oscillator. If Cameron retreats on a future policy change Labour may have a valid charge. But he hasn't so far, and unless he does, this line of attack won't work.
He’s like a rainbow. The Yellow Cameron. The Red Cameron. The Green Cameron. The Blue Cameron. What we’ve got, is Cameron the Chameleon. He can change the colour of his skin at will but the political animal underneath is Conservative to the core.As much as Tom Watson and the activist core loves this line of attack, they should be self aware enough to know that Labour performed a total policy flip-flop from the pre-1996 policies advocated by Messrs Blair and Brown to reach their 2006 policies. They flipped and are still flopping.
All Cameron has to do is say "yes, it's true, we have changed" and this line of attack is neutralised. That is after all what the voters wanted. Change. Calling Cameron a flip-flopper clearly highlights and confirms the change for him. Advertisers always like to keep the message simple - the New Tory message is "we have changed". The details are irrelevant to most voters. Daz does not advertise Persil's new formula, why is New Labour advertising New Tory policy changes?
The Kerry precedent is not directly comparable - Kerry flipped, flopped and flipped again and again. The man was a policy oscillator. If Cameron retreats on a future policy change Labour may have a valid charge. But he hasn't so far, and unless he does, this line of attack won't work.
18 comments:
How are Labour supposed catch Cameron on a future policy change, when the man isn't willing to commit to any policies...?
All we have from Cameron at present is "everything New Labour do is wrong, except for school reforms which might be along the right lines, but we'll vote against them anyway at the end of the day"
Penny dropping Red?
Principles are being mapped out, new policy direction given and in a year or two the meat of the manifesto will be ready.
Meanwhile we'll attack Gordon day-in-day-out. When Gordon actually enters the kill-zone it'll be more fun.
When are you going to get rid of Blair?
I think you are right. In last year's election, the voters were clearly fed up with the Government but thought the Tories were the same old bastards they'd turfed out in 1997.
The flip-flop line shows that the Labour party are not sure how to attack the Tories. It worked in PMQs over the ill-advised by-election leaflets but if the Tories get a grip on policy and message delivery it is unlikely to have a long term resonance.
The problem with that line of attack is they have to prove somehow that he is still Conservative to the core. It's only on that basis that the flip-flop argument has any traction. I think one of the main selling points of Cameron to an average voter is that he has changed certain policies and the general outlook of the Conservative party. Thus flip-flopping would be seen as a good thing in certain quarters.
Until you mentioned Kerry, I was convinced that you'd misunderstood the line of attack, Guido.
Attacking someone for flip-flopping doesn't accidentally highlight a tumultuous break from the past. It highlights the fact that the Tories are trying to win power by telling whichever audience they're speaking to what they want to hear. In other words - the flip-flopping charge pins them down as not just the same old Tories underneath - but the same old Tories who'll tell you anything in order to get your vote.
When it comes to the election, the public will almost certainly choose continuity of economic success (i.e. Brown) rather than the formless promise of change (i.e. Dave).
It highlights the fact that the Tories are trying to win power by telling whichever audience they're speaking to what they want to hear.
See Ming he is Liberal afterall...
No, it's just that Labour won't be allowed to get away with all it's usual cheap shots concerning nastiness, xenophobia, mysogyny ect ect.
There's no difference between image and substance, after all, Labour look wildly authoritarian, centre right, internally divided and clapped out. Conservatives look...new.
It is better to have flipped and flopped, than to have never shaken your tac tics
.
It's now a cliche to quote Keynes on this but there we are: "When I think I'm wrong I change my mind. What do you do?"
'When it comes to the election, the public will almost certainly choose continuity of economic success (i.e. Brown) rather than the formless promise of change (i.e. Dave).'
does that mean Browns fucked if we have the mother of all recessions?
I wonder if you will still be talking about Imprudence Brown's success when it comes to pension drawing time?
Blair and the project kept saying, of course, that they were not abandoning their values, but finding modern ways of applying the same values. They kept saying it until people started believing them.
Cameron doesn't seemed to have grasped this nettle. He hasn't come out with much in the way of policy, just spin to test the water. I guess Labour got fed up of waiting for him to do anything substantial, and started attacking what there was.
There is on very big difference, Guido.
Blair dropped Clause IV within his first 3 months as Labour leader, which made credible his argument that he and New Labour would be different.
Where's Cameron's Clause IV moment that can prove to the public he and the Tories really have changed?
Of course the problem with Guido's argument is that his suggested response requires that cameron say what the Tories have changed _to_.
Cameron doesn't have a coherent anwer to that, it's just whatever you want to hear (I'm conservative to the core, a liberal conservative, the heir to blair, I'm pro parental leave but I was against it before I was for it. Look, i wear trainers!
Like or dislike it, New Labour involved real policy choices on tax, on union laws, on spending, on foriegn policy, on defence.
Can we name a single actual policy choice Cameron has made? The only one i can think of is that he now opposes selection in admissions- or does he? It's hard to tell. After all, he wants schools to be free.
What other policy choices will cameron make? You tell me- anti Nuclear power? match Labour's spending plans? Increased green taxes.
or will they sell ending inheritence tax and "flatter" tax to us as "fair tax".
my moneys on the latter- straight out of the GW Bush playbook. and just as economically stupid.
by the way- Wasn't Hague's attack on Brown yesterday hilarious?
If i were Brown i'd be thinking. eight years of managing the economy and that's the best you've got -gibes about fashion sense from William Hague?
If Labour want to see a Conservative manifesto, would it be possible to see theirs too? After all, Labour have worked out the ideal answer to the flip flopping question; only the future is certain, the past keeps changing.
The flip-flop charge is merely the means to achieving Labour's desired attack. Cameron can only quell the flip-flop jibe by committing to something.
If this is "liberal" he risks not taking the Conservative base with him, and so leaving himself open to charges that the Tories are split (effective against Major/Hague). If it's "conservative" Blair/Brown can attack the Tories as not changing at all (Hague/Howard).
It's worth noting that more of the English electorate voted Tory than voted Labour at the last GE, by over 100,000 - England, though not the UK, is controlled by a minority government that likes to pretend it is democratically representative.
The Tories don't need to do anything to win England at the next election - the constituency boundary redraw will fix that. It's the rest of the kingdom where they need to direct their efforts if they want to get back into government, by increasing their apparent social conscience while not moving on their primary areas of appeal to the core Tory voters.
It seems Cameron is making positive strides in that arena by shifting the party stance on certain things. But though he's flipped while party leader, he has yet to flop - the party stance has changed; until it changes back, Labour's chameleon comparison is at best nonsensical and at worst a shot in their own foot. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair became Tony; David Cameron has become Dave; and both, as leader of the opposition, found it their task to reinvent their parties.
The best move David Cameron could make now is to embrace the Chameleon: make it the unofficial Tory symbol; churn out thousands of "Dave the Chameleon" plush toys, balloons and t-shirts; drive the message home that the Tories have adapted to the requirements of their surroundings. Maybe even a chameleon tie at PM's question time. Take Labour's negative campaigning, which (as a Geordie) really turns me off voting for them, and demonstrate that turnabout is undoubtedly fair play.
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