‘There are truths that technology does not alter. The opinion polls throughout Ed’s leadership consistently showed that a majority of voters did not see him as a potential Prime Minister . . . You can have a targeted online and ground campaign, you can have 5 million conversations, but if people don’t believe or relate to the messenger or the message they are not going to be persuaded.’
So sayeth former Blair/Brown era cabinet minister Douglas Alexander (quoted in Ctrl Alt Delete, by Tom Baldwin, Hurst, London 2018 p.170). I couldn’t agree more, albeit with a caveat. Whilst technology may not make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, I believe it does have a certain capacity to facilitate persuasion, and artificial intelligence will assist develop this capacity—by targeting a relatively small group of people who are persuadable, particularly in key swing seats. (I have written on this subject a bit more in Lobster Lobster Issue 86 (2023) - Lobster (lobster-magazine.co.uk)) But having somebody as leader who doesn’t look the part makes the whole job harder. Alexander was talking about Ed Miliband, but could just as easily have been talking of Jeremy Corbyn (peace be upon him). And today, why would the qualities of dullness, deviousness and divisiveness attract voters? We had a debate in our local Labour party last night about the place of negative campaigning in politics—arising from the ugly role social media played in a local by-election—and one view was quite persuasive that it influenced many voters. So, perhaps technology may not convince people about your positives, but it may serve well the demolition of your opponents. I seem to recall BT many years ago publishing research that showed bad news attracted much larger audiences than good news. Maybe this explains why our dull, devious and divisive leader has sought to personally attack Rishi Sunak. ‘His failings are bigger than mine!’ he seems to be saying.
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