Media training and the leaders' debates - oh and food banks

Paxo's first question to call-me-Dave on Thursday night was about food banks. Along the lines of: 'Do you know how many food banks there now are in the UK compared to 2010 when you came into office?'

It was a great question and one could see in Dave's eyes, that he'd been wounded by the first thrust of what was going to be a long evening for him - and for Ed too of course. This is not an anti Dave blog, but an objective one, critical of him yes, but also of Ed and of the media training 'experts' who have no doubt made a lot of money out of this whole process from both sides.

The proliferation of food banks in the UK in recent years is not a 'good look' for the UK economy. A country as wealthy as ours where significant and increasing numbers of people are reduced to taking hand-outs of free food in order to 'feed their kids' is never going to play well for an incumbent government. It suggests failure quite starkly, irrespective of the positive achievements that it can claim. It should (indeed 'must') have been on the media trainer's list of 'what's the worst question that you can be asked?' Dave seemed un-prepared for it though.

Or at least, if it had been properly raised as a potential banana-skin during the preparation process, theses highly paid 'experts' (media trainers) had not properly 'bottomed out' the issue in order to turn the answer into a positive or at the very least 'neutral' response: 'You're going to take a kicking on this issue, the best we can hope for is that the questioning will move on, emphasise the positives on the economy and employment and you'll be OK'.

If I were paying these media training experts, that would not be good enough. Because (putting myself in Dave's position) I am working 24/7 to bring benefit to the country, to turn around a basket case economy, to bring hope and jobs and a future to real people. And yet you're telling me that I have to take a kicking on this issue?

The principle of media training - or at least the training that dictates one's response to difficult questions - is essentially (I'm using short-hand here using a rugby analogy which many of these people do) 'catch the ball (answer the question quickly) and then move it back in the right/positive direction by delivering positive messages as part of your answer.'

For example: 'Yes we cut off the wrong leg, but his other leg is getting better now - and the man in the next bed wants to buy his slippers'. I exaggerate but you get the picture?

My point here is that you cannot move the ball in the right direction if you cannot catch it properly and cleanly. And Dave didn't. He needed a credible - and positive - answer to the original question about food banks. And he didn't have one. And it set the tone and meant that he was always playing 'catch-up' rather than setting the agenda - difficult to do with Paxo at the best of times - but it was not a good start and it did undoubtedly wound Dave. And yes it was only a TV debate, probably dismissed by most people as kick-about telly, but it was widely watched. And seems to have had an impact in the polls if tomorrow's You Gov Sunday Times figures are anything to go by.

By contrast Ed, tackled on immigration and Labour's woefully inaccurate projections of numbers coming in to the UK from 2004 onwards, said 'We got it wrong'.

And thereby nullified Paxo's follow-up questions forcing him into moving on. 'We got it wrong, but we'll do 'this' next time...

So we essentially had Dave, who has grasped the problems, addressed the most difficult issues and, by the way, made a pretty good fist of turning the economy around from a lamentable starting point, on the defensive, and Ed, who was undoubtedly an integral part of creating the problems that are now starting to be solved, on the front foot.

The guy who created the mess is on a positive trajectory while the one who is sorting it out is seen as negative. Media trainers eh?

Ten grand a day?

Dave did admit to failing on immigration (he could hardly do otherwise) and came back quite well overall. And in my opinion Ed did pretty well too; and given that Ed is way behind the curve on popularity and being an asset to the party, whatever the polls said afterwards, I'd say that he benefited most from the event.

Without actually winning.

OK so let's cut to the chase - if you're still reading well done. What should Dave have done differently?

It's about the question of food banks really isn't it? Not the election, that would be far too small minded, but it's about his initial answer as far as this blog is concerned.

The question was (ish): 'Do you know how many food banks there now are in the UK compared to 2010 when you came into office?'

And the answer should have been:

'Yes I do Jeremy. It is a major concern for this government. In 2010 there were (made up figures it doesn't really matter for this illustration) ten and now there are a million. That suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of our people reliant on free food hand-outs - in our wealthy, first-world economy. I agree that it doesn't look good. I'd like to pay tribute to the many people who donate to food banks out of their generosity and care for other people. We have a welfare system in place that provides a safety net for people: that provides quite a generous level of welfare to ensure that people who are unemployed can live in decent housing and have their bills paid. And can feed themselves and their families. If some people - and it seems that there are significant numbers - cannot gain access to our generous welfare system we need to look at that carefully and in a way that solves the problem. And we will.'

And move on.

The underlying messages that he would not of course say are these:

If you're not in the system that generously provides for you, (and you're here legally), you should be and we'll help. If you are in the system and still reliant on food banks you're taking the piss. You're taking benefits and pissing them up the wall and then claiming free food on top of that. And if so we should not be helping you at all. Not a popular message, but I think it's probably true, even though Dave couldn't possibly say it.

Paxo may well have persisted with: 'But you've been in Government for five years and still the numbers are rising. Why haven't you addressed this before now?'

DC: 'Are you suggesting that we should close food banks Jeremy? On the basis that while it would cause more suffering it might stop us being criticised on the issue? We are not in the business of hiding problems for PR purposes - as has certainly been done in the past where serious issues at Mid-Staffs Hospital, for example, were hidden rather than sorted out. We will look at the food banks issue and find out why the numbers are increasing. There simply should not be this many people needing free food in order to 'get by' when welfare provision is relatively generous.

'It is perhaps an unpopular thing to say, but if one offers people who don't have much spare cash free food, they might avail themselves of it in order to be able to spend their money on other things. It may well be a symptom of a welfare system which, under Labour, actually encouraged people not to work as a perfectly comfortable lifestyle choice because work didn't pay them enough to justify the effort. We have made great strides in addressing this situation during this parliament and I think food banks may be another symptom of that failing system that Labour brought in.

'As I say we will look closely at this issue - we don't have people starving on the streets of Britain in 2015 - if anything we have a much bigger problem with obesity so something clearly doesn't stack up here. On the other hand we have created 1,000 jobs a day...blh blah'.

The point I'm making here is that you have to address the question being asked, properly and credibly, before you can move on to the positives and Dave didn't really do that effectively. Instead he tried to divert the subject which was never going to work.

The other big issue of the debates was immigration - which is undoubtedly having an impact on quality of life, wage levels, NHS performance, housing and education provision and probably food bank as well. Neither Dave nor Ed can actually exert any control over immigration while we remain in the EU, which makes it impossible for either of them to make any credible claim to be able to address the issue - because they both want us to stay 'in'.

Yes they both talk about 'a reformed  EU' but both know that there is no chance of securing any meaningful reforms - particularly on the free movement of people within Europe - unless we threaten credibly and seriously to leave, or actually do leave. Paxo should have pressed Dave further on this issue but it is clearly not one that the establishment or the MSM really wants to highlight, now or indeed ever. He didn't need to press Ed on the issue since he will effectively hand over the keys to Brussels given half a chance.

Final comment, I thought Paxo went too far pressing Ed on his personal stuff. One question would have been enough. He should, imo, have gone much further on Labour policies and, in particular how they will fund their plans - neither of which have any credibility at the moment. At one point Ed did say he'd make bigger savings than the Tories plan to do ('Bingo' I thought) but Paxo didn't follow up on this, sadly.

Anyway..

Thanks for reading