It seems I'm not the only one who thinks those "real life" stories of hardship don't work.
Julian Glover in the Guardian says : "This sort of thing is tiresome and a bit fake".
Unfortunately, having watched out new party conference broadcast, this is exactly what we are doing more of. Except this time, each person had to be shown with "Actor" emblazoned across the screen, just so everyone knows that we're just another all style and no substance party!
I really had to force myself to listen to what they were then (hamilly) saying.
Again, with the awful music. Surely our USP is that we are different to other parties and actually have useful policies or any at all. How is a music-laden PPB with actors going to help with this?
IMHO, our best PPB was a post-budget one with Vince calmly, and at length, explaining how Chancellor Gordon Brown had massively expanded the taxcode. I found it really engaging.
Why not just have Nick talking to camera?
We are supposed to be different. Why do we insist on doing these throwaway PPBs?
Of course, maybe the party had done extensive research and this is exactly what people respond to and I'm completely wrong but I doubt it.
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I have to say I like PPBs that aren't just someone talking to camera. I think just having Nick talking to camera would be a bit dull.
And on the subject of the real life stories. They really are real life as I was with Nick when he met one of them, and everything he says about these people is true. I happen to think that showing how what we stand for relates to real people is a benefit.
I'm not saying the stories were fake but that it appears fake and stage-managed (in the speech and especially with the "Actor"s in the PPB).
As I said I thought the story about the disabled kid (int the speech) worked because it was actually demonstrating some positive action (by a LD council yeah!) but using "real people" stories to just demonstrate how people are suffering I don't think works well as people who are suffering think "yes, I know! I'm sick of politicans telling me how I'm suffering". Yes I know we then go onto say what we'd do but I think it's too late by then as this has been set in their minds.
Ditto for going on about "listening" governments. Boring, heard it all before (it's all Gordon Brown says!). Switch off.
Thanks to Gordon, saying we should listen is akin to saying we have no ideas regardless of what you say next.
Anyway isn't our point that we're the only ones with a plan, saying first and foremost that we need to listen is like saying we're like the other weaselly no-plan politicians. Surely people would like us not to "listen" but to "do".
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