It’s not like 2010. Social media were to have been critical in the last general election. Old-fashioned email may be more influential in this one. Email has assumed a new role exploiting the electoral process for narrow commercial advantage. The chief exploiters are not large corporations, but less likely suspects – charities.
Pledges inflation
I am a Green Party parliamentary candidate. With weeks still to go before polling day, I have already received well over 4,000 emails from charities demanding that I pledge my support for their cause. A tick box response will just not do; pledging means writing a short essay, perhaps answering a questionnaire. I have pledged my support for old people, woods, incontinence, walking, swimming, tax dodging (no, I must have been against that), a veritable dictionary of diseases (against them too, but for research), animals of all sorts (usually furry) and some fish, Israel, children, mental health and on, and on. My opinions, which used to be quite strong, have blurred into a single supportive approach to anything.
The system works like this. A charity buys the contact details of parliamentary candidates in all constituencies. It then asks its supporters to email the candidates in their own constituency, asking their opinion on some aspect of the charity’s work. This requires no great effort from supporters; the charity supplies a template email and sends it.
To sign or not to sign…
Before I became wise to the system, I actually tried contacting the charities – I blush to think of my innocence – asking them a question or two to help form my opinion. Nary a one responded. So, I asked the charity’s supporters if they might jog their charity into action. A few reported back that they had tried, but to no avail. Hardly surprising; the Lobbying Act discourages direct political involvement by charities. It does not proscribe a charity demanding an opinion with menaces. These are encapsulated nicely by one charity whose aims are quite impenetrable: “so that our supporters know who to vote for on 7th May, we’ll be publishing those candidates who have signed the Pledge.”
I began to suspect my careful, considered opinions were going unread when I noted some familiar names among the emails. Members of my own local Green Party were demanding my opinions, as if they did not know them already. They explained: when the charity required no more than the click of a mouse from its supporters, it was hard to ignore the request. And it’s true; as a supporter of charities myself, I have stupidly clicked and sent myself an email demanding I send myself my opinion.
…or just spam mail?
Where does all this get us? Large political parties have teams of workers solemnly sending stock opinions on behalf of their candidates. Small political parties lack the resources and worry that inadequate response may be taken for lack of interest. Here in Witney, the Labour Party has complained in the local press that I have been slow to pledge my support of rambling. A Green should support healthy exercise in the great outdoors. This Green would love to leave the computer for a spot of fresh air. This Green is so battered by pledges that he would support anything.
These email storms are not intended to elicit the opinions of candidates. They are corporate marketing, selling the charity. They are public relations. They boost performance measures and management bonuses. Charities are big business these days, not as big as the banks of course, but often run on similar lines.
Which brings us to the main casualty of this fatuous exercise. Voters are already disillusioned with the political process and reluctant to play their part in it. Their new role in eliciting mindless opinion from parliamentary candidates is hardly likely to convince them of the value of the political process. Democracy is the main casualty.
Stuart Macdonald
Green party parliamentary candidate for the Witney constituency
Stuartmacdonald 