contribution by Emily Davis

The right-wing agenda gets across to people a lot of the time because it is framed in morally emotional terms e.g. ‘broken britain’. Their anger (properly controlled – not aggression!), against perceived moral injustice and passionate conviction catch the viewers’ and readers’ interest.

It is exciting! There is a plot, and these are the characters! Too often, for some reason, the left seems concerned with playing down passions and appearing almost overly rational – like a kind of robot that only acknowledges intellectual points in an argument, rather than understands and empathises with the voter’s hopes and fears.

Think about the televised argument between Adam Boulton and Alastair Campbell during the election. Adam is too aggressive obviously, but the least politically educated person watching can tell that he is passionate about his point of view, and that may count for a lot.

While I’m not holding Alastair up as a good example of left politics, he does display the attitude that a lot of left-liberal political spokespeople have taken in seeming almost too cool about the discussion, perhaps in an effort to diffuse the situation, and embarrass their opponent.

But it only half-works, and preaches to the converted. Alastair looks like he isn’t defending his point of view particularly well – he also comes off slightly cowardly, I think.

Another more recent example, although a US one, characterises this even better. Christine O’Donnell loses the intellectual argument badly in this interview, but she’s the one whose body language and rhetoric seems like she cares the most about it.

Again, I think this still counts for a lot with some voters, especially those who might not yet fully understand the political repercussions of her intellectual argument. She ended up getting 35% of the vote – she should have got closer to 0%!

We can’t just use the word passionate, we have to actually sound passionate, and word our arguments in compassionately passionate terms! We have to come out off of the page and thereby force our opponents to live in the real world as well, where conservative answers to moral problems simply don’t (ahem) cut it.

Ed Miliband is a vast improvement on what his brother would have been in this respect, but he needs to be coming out even stronger. The CSR is a massively important moment for him personally to lead the charge from the left – not just in Prime Minister Questions, but, again, from all angles and as passionately as possible.

He should be making it clear that what the conservatives seem to suffer from is a ‘poverty of the heart’.

Overall, he needs to take up the most morally controversial areas of the cuts and really hammer the conservatives over them in the media, and keep on going (Ed Balls style): but please, literally for goodness sake, use the most moral and compassionate rhetoric, otherwise your arguments will be lost on so many.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

2. Lauren G

   #draftKOforBritain RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

3. mark wright

   RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

4. Broken OfBritain

   RT @markwrightuk88: RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

5. Pucci Dellanno

   RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

6. Wendy Maddox

   Sad but true, we need more stirring stuff: RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

7. Alexis Brett-Bacon

   RT @markwrightuk88: RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

8. Jill Goble

   RT @markwrightuk88: RT @libcon: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics http://bit.ly/bVoglY

9. Flat 29

   The wonderful @emilymarydavis has a blog posted at @libcon "The left needs to find the language of passion in politics" http://t.co/NDeTSbe

10. Ms Emily Wemily

    Hey guys! Check out my post on @libcon blog: 'The left needs to find the language of passion in politics' http://bit.ly/d5p3NM

11. Get Political Fund » Blog Archive » The left needs to find the language of passion in politics …

    [...] Here is the original post: The left needs to find the language of passion in politics … [...]

12. Spinning Mule

    Time to hear @Ed_Miliband roar. Or any airtime would be nice RT @libcon The left needs to find the language of passion http://bit.ly/bVoglY