Dear Editor,
It is difficult at a distance to properly analyse reasons for the defeat of the Ramotar administration, but let me try to draw some parallels for the PPP to the British Labour Party, which too came to the end of a road at an early May General Election. Ten lessons from Labour:
- Do not believe your own hype. Publicly or privately. Miliband thought he was winning until the TV exit poll on the night of the election. He came down to earth with a severe bump.
- Live outside your political bubble. False hopes come from those around you building them up in Westminster or Robb Street. Go and meet real people, listen to them. Poll them.
- ‘Seal the deal’ with the electorate. Both leaders seem to me to have failed to have done that. The best examples being Miliband and his ‘Edstone’ and Ramator with ‘Bherigate.’ You only need to look silly once and it sticks.
- Don’t depend on the core vote voting. They mainly will turn out but they can easily be swayed by others’ offers − Farage or Nagamootoo. Winning is about core vote plus. British elections are always won from the centre ground. Guyana too?
- Sell the team. Even in a presidential system people want to know that there is more than one man/woman they are voting for. Miliband plus who? Donald plus who? Granger plus Nagamootoo.
- Beware of political ghosts coming to haunt you. Miliband had Tony Blair delivering ‘support’, Ramator had Jagdeo. Both are Marmite Men.
- Use a strategic Rottweiler to think for you. David Cameron had Lynton Crosby. Miliband a part-time US strategist. Crosby’s greatest invention? The ‘dead cat on the table’ – when an issue is proving embarrassing to your side throw a dead cat onto the public table to distract and move the debate away.
- Mastering the media is all important. Cameron is a PR man to his fingertips. Every appearance is a ‘photo op’ in and out of Number Ten Downing Street. Miliband was by law allowed airtime and built his image from a very low point to something half decent.
Never be afraid of public TV debates. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, achieved a landslide in Scotland through her TV appearances and running a real campaign meeting real people in real streets. The others ran phoenix/zombie campaigns.
- Make sure you have something to sell the electorate. Call it a manifesto. Cameron offered bribes − new spending − day after day after day in his campaign. Miliband’s Edstone showed that the Labour offering was thin. What was the PPP offering except more of the same? Where was the vision in both cases?
- Defeat is a beginning not an end. Time to recoup, build from the grass roots and change. Look at Tony Blair who rebuilt Labour from 18 years in the wilderness to a 1997 election landslide. Clever thinking and cleverer marketing.
Granger and Nagamootoo won for a variety of good and positive reasons. Ramator lost for too many negative ones. Time to go back to school and to basics. For Labour and for the PPP
Yours faithfully,
John Mair
England
