This post is yet another interruption to my attempt to work through the 9 questions I think politicians using social media should ask themselves.

But actually it’s a bit of a live footnote to the piece I wrote about Question 3, “Are you local?” last Thursday.

Dartford Labour Councillor Jonathon Hawkes tweeted yesterday that he had seen a leaflet, for a local council by-election in Stone, which said “Don’t vote politically on 27 March” and was signed by The Conservatives. I haven’t seen the leaflet. But nobody has disowned it, and a local Conservative councillor has entered into a debate via twitter about what it means. So I will work on the assumption that existence of the leaflet is uncontested fact.

Also came across V odd leaflet in Stone today “Don’t vote politically on 27 March” signed The Conservatives…. #fail #pulltheotherone

— Jonathon Hawkes (@CllrJonHawkes) March 23, 2014

So what does it mean?

On a simple level it is a contradiction in terms. Voting is a political act.

It may well mean, “Don’t just vote party-politically”. If so, I have two reactions. The first would be that it reinforces the idea that “Politics” is this game that parties play, and which we might lazily conform to when voting, or the idea that as a result local issues aren’t ‘politics’ as such. I’m not happy with that. I think that people should be encouraged to have a wider sense of what politics is – in particular that, on a local level, it is about anything which affects the local community and which needs to be decided via collective debate/opinion and by addressing any imbalances of power which prevent that.

So my second reaction is that if, by “Don’t just vote party-politically”, the publishers of the leaflet mean ‘look beneath the national, daily news, Cameron vs Miliband cartoon and look at the individual candidates’ then they might be advocating something similar to my views about representation in “Are you local?”

In particular that might make sense if the leaflet was issued by an individual candidate, who was taking a line on local representation similar to mine.

But if this leaflet was issued by “The Conservatives”, what are they saying? To bother publishing it at all means that they think ‘voting politically’ would reduce their count. So that means they acknowledge that on some level Conservative politics are less popular than they would like, that they can see why people who voted on party-politics would vote for them less, so they want people to look beyond that. There’s a case they could put, for not making local candidates suffer for something like “the mid-term unpopularity of the government in office, that all parties suffer”, though we are only a year from a general election. Without that gloss it looks a bit like they are saying, “OK – fair play, you don’t want to vote for The Conservatives but, on local grounds, vote for us… The Conservatives.”

If it’s a message from an individual candidate, who happens to be standing as a Conservative, then different considerations come into play. If you want to be considered on your own personal merits, record and specific local policies, but you accept voters’ reasons for not wanting to vote [‘politically’] for the Conservatives, why are you standing as a Conservative and not an independent? [I know, the common sense  answer is, “get real Nick, what chance would I have then?”]. If the candidate sympathises with such voters about some Conservative policies or performance that make them want to vote otherwise, what’s wrong with the candidate putting their hand up to that and saying “I’m not impressed with some of those either [e.g.  … and … ], but I’m more Conservative than anything else, so vote for my personal position and my broad party alignment? Would the local party tolerate that? If not – then we are back to a contradiction in the leaflet.

One final thought: Although I’m strongly in favour of people voting in local elections about local representatives and local issues, and I worry that local elections lose out to national party cartoon sound bite politics, I do recognise a connection. This is where national policies can be seen to have specific local consequences or implications. I would like to see more of those candidates who choose to stand on party lines taking responsibility for, and producing hard local evidence about, the overall impact of that party’s policies on this Place. Because that should amount to why they are standing locally for that party. Otherwise I encourage you, candidates currently of all parties, to stand on a personal manifesto for your Ward and for Dartford Borough.

A couple of thoughts and questions:

Does anyone have a copy of the leaflet that they could share? It would help to see the exact wording and layout.

Does anyone responsible for publishing it want to say, at greater length, what “Don’t vote politically on 27 March” was intended to mean?

If you are a voter in the Stone by-election, and persuaded to look deeper into each of the candidates’ positions, then have a look at the Q&A published via Dartford Matters. These read primarily as personal testimonies. I leave it to you to decide whether you can also hear a ‘party’ backing track playing underneath each, and whether this adds or detracts.

Engagement!

My second question in the list of nine was, “What is Engagement?” My own understanding of engagement rests on another question, which I have previously written about. In slightly old-fashioned language, “How do you treat people as ends in themselves?” In turn, you can understand this by considering the opposite – treating people as a means to an end.

It’s a challenge I first put to Marketing. How do you Market, even ‘’nice cuddly Marketing”, without treating people as a means to an end? That is, without seeing them solely as a mass of people who will buy [as much of] your stuff [as possible, at the highest possible price] and deliver your turnover or profits? Most marketers probably see that as the only sane focused description of their job. That includes those who have started to talk more about ‘Engagement’ since the advent of social media. These accept there’s now a return channel in response to the messages they used to just broadcast. But for most this is still bound up with the ultimate goal of causing ‘consumers’ to act in a certain way, or at best it is about getting back ‘thumbs up’ signals to say you have hit your target, or it’s about people allowing themselves to be the means by which your promotional messages are passed on to others.

So how would Marketing treat people as “ends in themselves”? It would involve them as equals, give them full information, and the means to discover and understand their own real needs. It would help you to improve your products in response [on those terms], set an affordable price [not the same as a maximum achievable price] and make you part of a bigger sustainable eco-system. This is ‘Engagement’. The strongest argument against it, probably generalised as “realism”, is that unless every other vendor in the world does the same thing you are putting yourself at a relative, and perhaps fatal, disadvantage. The argument in favour of this kind of Engagement is that it is morally right and creates a better society… including for the owners, shareholders, managers and workers in the vendor organisation.

What’s this got to do with politics?

Firstly, if politics is about Party and your party is effectively a brand, then politicians face exactly the same dilemma as Marketers. People are there as a means to an end – to buy your political product by giving you their vote. Or they are there as an end in themselves – to work with you to make their own lives, community and thus the lives of others… better. They are voters or citizens.

Actually, though, are the two mutually exclusive? Politicians will argue that you have to get people’s votes in order to protect them from that worst of all worlds – one governed by ‘the other lot’… those purely power hungry, citizen disregarding, villains in the other party. That’s still maybe OK, if it’s an honestly held belief, until you reach the point where this end is to be achieved “at all costs”.

This year we are starting to commemorate World War 1. One way of looking at that conflict is that it was overseen by people who said, “We will save our people from being ruled over by the other lot, at all costs, even if it kills them.” And it did – by the million.

That may seem a long way from a bit of local politics on social media. It is. But I hope it shows the ultimate conclusion of treating people as a means to an end.

So I think that, like the Marketer, the politician has two choices in their use of social media.

ENGAGEMENT: Using these channels to involve people in understanding and articulating their needs. Using these channels to involve them in defining and [crucially] committing to work towards as well as fund, changes which better meet those needs. This involves a lot of listening, reflecting and dispassionate information sharing. It demands self-restraint about defending or condemning the status quo for the sake of it. Engagement uses transmit and receive.

CAMPAIGNING: Using these channels to push messages, often selectively, with a view to influencing how people vote. This includes focusing excessively on ‘the other side’ and their conduct or personality [or ‘integrity’], rather than on what people need to know, or need to be given the means to consider. Campaigning narrows the agenda to a set of familiar well-rehearsed arguments and rituals. It treats ‘voters’ as a means to an end. Campaigning uses the receive button only to spot when things are said which can be affirmed or contradicted by the politician … not learned from.

So I would urge politicians using social media to ask themselves whether they are Engaging or Campaigning, and which is appropriate. I think there’s obviously a case to make for Campaigning during an election period, particularly if you spent all your other time Engaging and have now set out your [complex, messy and sometimes at risk of being dull?] policies. But the rest of the time I think Campaigning gets in the way of Engagement and will clog the channel, or deter people who might otherwise have been drawn into Engagement online. Those might be the very people who would never have become involved via traditional channels in the past.

Even if I’m broadly right – is this just a counsel [pun intended] of perfection? Am I asking too much, or too much too soon? Probably. But it’s good to have something on the horizon for people to work towards and sign up to.

Also, I’d be a terrible hypocrite if I wasn’t engaging and listening. So what do you think? If you are a Councillor or MP, do you accept my split between Campaigning and Engagement? Do you think you are currently striking the right balance? Do you have the tools, resources and knowledge to Engage more online, if you thought this was a good thing?

If you are a member of the-rest-of-the-public, do you want to be Engaged with? Are you put off ‘community’ social media by partisan campaigning amongst online politicians or not? Do you feel politicians regard you as ‘a vote to be won’ or as an equal to be drawn into running your community? Do you think these two actually go together, or agree they are at odds with each other?

How can I improve my argument? What might persuade you to try to create more Engagement? What might it do for us?

Should we ask our online politicians to sign up to a ‘Pledge to Engage’ kitemark?