When will London’s personality politics end?

As we approach the London Assembly elections in May Londoners will naturally become more interested in what the different parties have to say to them about their vision for London. However, they’re far more likely to find out what the parties think the flaws of their opponents are than any positive vision for the capital city.

Leaflets from Labour, Conservatives and Greens

As they said on Snipe yesterday “This campaign will end up as clean and positive as a Haye/Chisora boxing brawl. Both major candidates are going negative with some of their material, because it works and they want to win.”

Both Labor and Tory teams have their own arm length negative campaigning outfits in Not Ken Again and Sack Boris which seek to firm up the anti-vote but will do little to persuade those with more open minds towards any candidate.

Both of these campaigns rely on the voter already disliking Livingstone or Johnson and having less negative feelings towards their main opponent. Largely these messages are based on style with only loose affiliation with any actual politics.

These campaigns certainly have little to say to those who actually quite like the men themselves, even if they dislike their policies.

There are plenty of people who have no affinity with Conservative politics who like the idea of a floppy hair eccentric running London – the anti-Boris campaign actually reinforces those images *attracting* people to Johnson rather than repelling them.

Only those who already dislike Johnson find his cartoonish portrayal cutting, and they weren’t going to vote for him anyway. The strategy is to ensure they vote for Livingstone rather than any of the other alternatives and as such are much more about Lib Dem and Green voters than they are about those who may vote Johnson. This despite the fact that we know he draws support from a much wider political base than his party does.

It’s all very negative

It’s disconcerting enough to find yourself unwillingly on first name terms with famous politicians let alone being encouraged to hate them on a personal level. The political class who put together these leaflets may well experience their opponents in this way, because they work with them face to face, but for most of us it’s the effect of public policy that impacts on our lives. That’s what’s important at election times.

It is tempting to blame the Mayoral system that effectively obscures the fact that there are three ballot papers in May. Two of them don’t feature Ken, Boris, Siobhan or anyone else you may have heard of. Certainly that system concentrates power into one person’s hands and so we have to be more concerned about their individual qualities. However, it’s not that simple – when Livingstone was head of the GLC he was subjected to exactly the same kind of baiting and he is a man who has lived most of his life being subject to these kinds of attacks.

To some extent negative attacks on the candidates themselves can work, at least for the ‘big two’. Every article or poster that takes Livingstone down a peg is effectively an encouragement to vote for Johnson, and every attack on Johnson helps creates a logic in favour of a vote for Labour, which quite possibly flows into the Assembly Member votes.

However it makes no sense at all for supporters of the other parties to amplify the noise around the Ken and Boris show. They need to undermine it by talking about the policy making that takes place outside of the Mayor’s hands. The Liberal Democrats are doing this to a certain extent, but as we’ve mentioned before their campaign is doomed no matter how good it is.

As Bob from Brockley says “The transferable vote system means that it is possible to put a first preference for a less undesirable candidate… without feeling your vote is thereby completely wasted, but in the end it is likely to come down to Ken versus Boris.” Added to which all the parties need to ensure they get London Assembly Members elected, but only Labour and Conservative teams can do this by emphasising the negatives of their rival Mayoral candidate.

I can see why people are drawn to this sort of ya-boo behaviour but politics is meant to be slightly more important than “look at the silly man yawning” and anyone who makes their vote based on those kinds of decisions should perhaps consider leaving the franchise to those who have thought a little bit about the issues.