A (VERY LONG) ESSAY ON

POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS,
FRENCH STYLE
The post has just arrived and in it a very nice surprise, the discovery that Jacques Seguela, one-time
adviser to President Mitterrand, now close confidant of President and Madame Sarkozy (indeed he
intoduced them), and something of a legend in French political communications, has dedicated his latest
book to little old moi.
With apologies for the missing accents here and in the French bits of the long posting which follows – the
dedication to ‘Le Pouvoir dans la Peau‘ (Power in the skin) reads ‘A Alastair Campbell, mon spin doctor
prefere’ (three missing accents in one word – mes excuses sinceres).
So what did I do for this honour, you are asking? Well, perhaps the fact that he asked me to read his book,
and write a ‘postface’ assessment both of his writing and of the issues he covers, and the fact that I said
yes, has something to do with it. He says some blushmakingly kind things in his ‘preface to the postface’,
which I will have to leave to French readers of the whole thing (published by Plon). But for the largely
Anglophone visitors of this blog, I thought some of you might like to read the said ‘postface’ in English
(apart from the bits where I quote direct from his book). I hope all those students who write asking for
help with dissertations will find something quotable in it.

Meanwhile I am off to Norway for a conference and a meeting with the Norwegian Labour Party. I’m
looking forward to being in the country with the highest ‘human development index’ in the world, and
which showed such a mature response to the recent massacre of Oslo and Utoya.

Here is the postface to Le Pouvoir dans la Peau

Jacques Seguela writes about political campaigns and communications not merely as an expert analyst,
but as an experienced practitioner. Hence his latest book contains both insights worth heeding, but also
enlivening tales of his own experience. He is observer and participant; outsider looking in, and insider
looking out. There is much to look at, not least in France with a Presidential election looming, and the
outcome far from easy to predict.

We live in a world defined by the pace of change, and whilst the velocity of that change has not always
impacted upon our political institutions, many of which would remain recognisable to figures of history, it
most certainly has impacted upon political communications. As Seguela writes: ‘En 5 ans le monde de la
communication a plus evolue que dans les cents dernieres annees. ‘ Google, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook
have quickly entered our language and changed the way we communicate, live our private lives, do
business, do politics. People do not believe politicians as much as they once did. Nor do they believe the
media. So who do we believe? We believe each other. The power and the political potential of social
networks flows from that reality. Though fiercely modern in their application, social networks in some
ways take us back to the politics of the village square. They are an electronic word of mouth on a
sometimes global scale. This has changed the way people interact with each other and with their
politicians.

My first campaign as spokesman and strategist for Tony Blair was in 1997, three years in the planning
after he had become leader of the Opposition Labour Party. Some of the principles of strategy we applied
back then would certainly apply to a modern day election. But their tactical execution almost certainly
would not. Politicians and their strategists have to adapt to change as well as lead it. Seguela gives some
interesting insights into those who have adapted well, and those who have done less well. He clearly
adores former President Lula of Brazil and you can feel his yearning for a French leader who can
somehow combine hard-headed strategy with human empathy in the same way as a man who left office
with satisfaction ratings of 87percent. Seguela probably remains best known in political circles for his
role advising Francois Mitterrand. Yet wheras I am ‘tribal Labour’, and could not imagine supporting a
Conservative Party candidate in the UK, Seguela came out as a major supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy. I
wonder if one of the reasons was not a frustration that large parts of the left in France remain eternally
suspicious of modern communications techniques and styles which, frankly, no modern leader in a
modern democracy can ignore. How he or she adapts to, or uses, them is up to them. But you cannot stand
aside and imagine the world has not changed.

If Lula is a star of this book, so too is Barack Obama. American elections are of enormous interest to all
political campaign junkies, a category in which both Seguela and I would almost certainly qualify. Much
is made of Obama’s use of the internet, a relatively new phenomenon in historical terms and one the
young Senator used brilliantly in his quest to become President. Yet though it was an accurate expression
of his modernity, underpinning its use were some very old-fashioned campaign principles. He used it to
turn supporters into activists who both gave funds and also took his campaign materials and ideas and ran
their own campaigns for him. Somehow he managed to make one of the most professional, most
disciplined and best funded campaigns in history look like an enormous act of democratic participation.

It was less command and control – the model we certainly adopted in 1997 and 2001, Labour’s two
landslide victories, easing off a little for our third win in 2005 – than ‘inspire and empower.’ ‘Yes wecan’
not ‘yes I can’. His supporters were more than supporters. They were an active part of the campaign, and
of the message. The key to this was something that had nothing to do with politicians and everything to
do with science, technology and the internet. Ask me who has had the most influence on campaigns in
recent times and I might be tempted to reply Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with gifting the web to
the world. Its implications have been far reaching in virtually all aspects of our lives, politics and political
campaigns foremost. The new household brand names of the cyber era have not replaced good policy
work, messaging and organisation. But they have become essential components of the execution of them
in the campaign. Mainstream conventional media remains important and influential, not least because,
bizarrely, in most democracies the broadcasters continue to let the press set their agenda for them. But a
candidate who tries to stand against the tide of new media will be making a big mistake, and missing big
opportunities. If it has changed so much in the last five years, how much more will it change in the next
five years?
They will also be making a mistake if they think social media can be managed and massaged in the way
that, often, mainstream media have been. The key – on this I agree totally with Seguela – is authenticity.
And that should be good news for authentic political leaders and an authenticity hungry public alike.

The public tend to get to the point of an election. Seguela has an interesting account of the last UK
election and in particular the first ever televised Leaders’ Debates. Though I had worked on three
campaigns for Tony Blair, I am sufficiently tribally Labour to have answered a call from his successor,
Gordon Brown, to go back to help him for his first election campaign as leader in 2011. One of the roles I
ended up playing was that of David Cameron in Brown’s preparatory sessions for the TV debates. These
debates mattered, that much was sure. Election planning for Blair, I had always been doubtful about the
benefit of such debates in a Parliamentary democracy where our leaders meet each other week in week
out in the crucible of the House of Commons. I was worried the media would make them all about
themselves, and that the policy issues would be drowned out. So it proved. Yet in a way the public did get
to the point they wanted to. They did not particularly want Labour back after 13 years in power. They did
not particularly yearn for David Cameron and a Conservative Party unsure about its direction. So the third
party leader emerged through the middle. Nick Clegg was judged the clear winner by the instant reactions
of public and media alike. For a few days he seemed impregnable. Yet come the vote, he did not make a
huge breakthrough. It was only because neither Labour nor the Tories could get over the line that Clegg
ended up as deputy Prime Minister in a coalition government. The country had not been able to make its
mind up, delivered a muddled result and asked the leaders to sort it out. The leader who came first and the
leader who came third did a deal to do so.

I think Seguela is too kind to Cameron. Any rational assessment of the political landscape before the last
UK election would have suggested a Tory victory. Labour in power a long time; the economic crash; a
Parliament dominated by a scandal involving MPs’ expenses; Iraq back in the news because of the official
Inquiry; Afghanistan not going well; the press even more strongly in favour of a Tory win than they had
been for a Labour win in 1997, and vicious about Brown. Also the Tories had big money to spend on the
campaign and Labour did not. Yet Cameron could not secure a majority. Why not? There is no simple
answer. The wonder of democracy lies in millions of people having their own experiences, impressions
and judgements before deciding how to cast their vote. But the strategist in me says the simple answer is
that Cameron lacked real strategic clarity. I think Sequela would agree that for all the changes that
technological and mediatic change has forced upon political campaigns, strategy remains the key. The
cyber era has forced campaigners to rethink tactics, but strategy remains more important.

He and I are clearly in agreement that John McCain’s appointment of Sarah Palin as running mate, for
example, was a tactical masterstroke, but a strategic catastrophe. Tactically, he excited his base, gave the
media a new toy, and momentarily unnnerved his opponent. Strategically he blew a hole through the two
central planks of his campaign – experience, and being different from George Bush. In putting tactics
before strategy, he broke one of the golden rules of campaigning.

Strategists like rules. We like points of principle to act as anchors. I like the rules in Seguela’s Chapter 5.

On vote pour une idee. Pas pour une ideologie.

On vote pour soi. Pas pour son candidat.

On vote pour un homme. Pas pour un parti.

On vote pour le professionalisme. Pas pour l’amateurisme.

On vote pour un projet pas pour le rejet.

On vote pour le coeur. Pas pour le rancoeur.

On vote pour le futur. Pas pour le passe.

On vote pour le bcbg. Pas pour le bling bling.

It is charmingly French that he illuminates the rule about voting for le couer pas pour le rancour to a tale
of love and sex. ‘Si votre femme vous trompe, ce n’est pas en couvrant d’insulte son amant que vous le
reconquerez. Mais en lui redonnant envie de vous. La mecanique electorale est le meme, se faire elire
c’est se faire preferer.’ That may seem glib. But politics is a human business. It is about feelings as well
as policies, emotion as well as reason. People often talk about their political leaders as though in a
relationship with them. ‘He’s not listening … Why on earth did he do that? … I’ve gone off him … Oh, I
still like him deep down.’ Political leaders sometimes talk of the people in the same way. How many
times did I sit in the back of a car with Tony Blair, or fly over Britain in a ‘plane and he would look down
and say ‘God, I wish I knew what they were thinking … Do they still like us?’ Back at the time of our
first landslide, talk of the country ‘falling in love’ with Blair was widespread. Today, the biggest
accusations of betrayal against Blair will often come from those who ‘fell in love’ most deeply at the
outset of his leadership. Perhaps this trend towards relationship politics is being exacerbated by the
tendency towards younger leaders. Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, Merkel – these are people who came to
power much younger than their counterparts down the centuries.
Seguela, a man of a certain age, remains fascinated by youth and its impact. The brand manager in him
can barely disguise his glee that Coca Cola, the drink of the young trendy, is 130 years old. You can sense
the excitement he felt on meeting the young Americans – not born when Seguela was advising Mitterrand
– who had developed Obama’s digital strategy and so helped deliver a mailing list of 13m people. The
focus on youth also dominates his analysis of the political consequences of the economic crash whose
impact runs through these pages, and offers some fascinating factoids – half of all Europeans are over 50,
whilst three quarters of Algerians are under 25. There are as many people under 30 in China as in Russia,
the US and Australia combined, and in India twice as many as in China. That too is a powerful force of
global change, and will have its impact on Western politics of the future.

As to what it all means for the next French elections, I don’t know. But this book provides part of the
backdrop, economic and political. It should make interesting reading for anyone involved in that
campaign. Whilst clearly still of the view Sarkozy was and is the right choice for France, (though the
polls at the time of writing indicate he is in a minority) he throws out ideas and challenges for right and
left alike. As traditional lines are drawn, careful reading might provoke candidates and parties to see that
they should always be looking to the next new ideas, not merely repackaging the last new, let alone the
old.

I was in Paris recently as a guest of the left think tank, Terra Nova, and met politicians, advisors,
militants, experts, journalists and bloggers. I came away with some strong impressions. Firstly, virtually
everyone told me that President Sarkozy was hugely unpopular, and his ratings as low as it was possible
to go. Yet many of the same people told me he could still win. They know he relishes a campaign. They
suspect he may have learned from some mistakes. Incumbency is a powerful weapon. A comeback is a
powerful narrative. And they worried that with the President so unpopular, the economy sluggish, social
issues raw, and the left in power in many parts of France, the PS should have been doing far better in the
polls (to which, incidentally, French politicians and media pay far too much attention.)

Of course this was pre selection of a PS candidate. Many of the Socialists agreed with my analysis that
once they had chosen the candidate, they needed to unite behind that candidate, resist their historic
predilection for factionalism, run a campaign that was fresh, energetic and based upon a programme
totally focused on the future and one which addressed people’s concerns. They agreed too that the PS
could no longer look down its nose at communication, but had to see it not just as an essential element of
campaigning, but a democratic duty at a time when people have so many pressures on their lives and
living standards, and concerns about the world around them. But though they agreed with the analysis,
some worried about the Party’s capacity to deliver upon it. The fear of another defeat ought to be enough,
surely, to deliver on the first and essential part: unity. As someone on the progressive side of the political
divide, I continue to think the French left’s over intellectualisation of politics, its focus on never-ending
debate instead of agreement around big points and unity behind one accepted leader remains a problem.

I added that I felt the way was wide open for someone to come along and set out, with total honesty and
clarity, the challenges ahead, the limitations of what one leader or one country can do, but explain the
world and begin to shape direction. In other words, what I sensed behind the seeming confusion and
rather disgruntled nature of French opinion was a real desire for leadership of a strategic rather than a
tactical nature. There too, there were concerns, not least because of memories of the negative impact on
Lionel Jospin’s campaign when he stated – truthfully – that the State could not do everything.

I heard a lot about Marine Le Pen and certainly the polls tell a good story for the leader of the Front
National. She has certainly shown she can mount a campaign and get the media to accept a sense of
change. When even her enemies refer to as Marine, rather than the more toxic Le Pen, that is something
of a success. But whenever I have heard her, I have not heard a powerful argument for the future of
France.

So France enters a fascinating period, where not one single person I met predicted the outcome of either
first or second round without at least some doubt in their eyes. When things are so tight, communications
can make the difference. It is not a dirty word.

I don’t agree with all of Seguela’s analysis. I don’t accept that only four US presidents radically changed
the country. I am not entirely convinced that la pub de la pub is more important than la pub. I am not sure
that David Cameron’s loss of a child had the political impact Seguela thinks it did. I think Brits will be
also be surprised at the dominant role he gives in the Tory campaign to his colleague David Jones. I think
he overstates how Sarkozy is seen in the world. I agree with him that we need to be cautious about the
potential abuse of the internet which has no global governance or regulation to match, but I’m not sure I
agree this risks being ‘en bras arme de l’anarchie’. But it is a book full of understanding of some of the
big themes and the small details required for a successful campaigning mindset.

He is, as one would expect for someone who has been close to different leaders, clued up on the
importance of good chemistry between leader and strategist. He understands the importance of body
language as well as language. He knows the importance of emotion as well as reason. He understands
how the web is changing politics. One of my favourite phrases is that ‘life is on the record’. He has a
different way of putting it. ‘Le “off” n’existe plus desormais. Tout ce que vous direz pourra se retourner
contre vous.’ It is why the whole ‘droit d’etre oublie’ is emerging as a debate. How many of the young
men and women today filling the web with pictures and confessions from their private lives may end up
running for office one day, and regretting their openness? On verra.

Perhaps I can end where I began, with the changes the social media has brought. At the last election
Labour did not do poster campaigns. This was a shame. In previous campaigns we had had some brilliant
posters. But under Gordon Brown, we had very little money for the campaign. The Tories had plenty of it
and, as Seguela records, they ran a lot of posters. One of their most expensive billboard campaigns was of
a giant photo of Cameron with an anti-Labour slogan ‘we can’t go on like this.’ Someone noticed that the
Tory leader’s face had been airbrushed. This fact became the source of thousands of tweets. Then
someone set up a website mydavidcameron.com where people could send their own, largely anti-Tory,
versions of this poster. These were sent in in their thousands, and many were much better, wittier and
more politically devastating than the original. I’ll tell you when I knew they had wasted their money –
when the newspapers carried photos of one giant poster site which had been defaced … Cameron’s hair
had been replaced with a painted version of Elvis Presley’s hair, and to the slogan ‘we can’t go on like
this’ had been added the words of one of Elvis’ most famous songs … ‘with suspicious minds’. The
combination of the internet and wit had reduced the political impact of a hugely expensive campaign to
zero. That is my final thought as you begin to read Jacques Seguela’s account. It is a quote from a former
colleague, Labour MP Hazel Blears … ‘Campaigning is like sex. If you’re not enjoying it, you’re not
doing it properly.’