IT comes back, in the end, to a problem of under-definition. Some political strategists promote the benefits of creative ambiguity. Avoid defining yourself in the public mind, and you won’t box yourself in once you achieve power.
Your opponents might accuse you of being an empty cypher without a political core, prepared to say anything to anyone for a vote – but if you embody these ambiguities cutely enough, you may find different audiences will project their hopes and aspirations onto you. And if you’re lucky, they won’t notice all the contradictions, at least for a while.
In devising policy, the important thing is to communicate winning vibes rather than potentially angular policy pledges you can be held to account for.
If in doubt, just keep saying “change” and trust that the impatience of the electorate, the alienating qualities of your opponents, and the boredom of the press will be sufficient to evict them from power. Once you’ve got your paws on government, that’s your moment to begin defining yourself.
Having pledged nothing, nobody can credibly accuse you of betraying them. If you need to retreat from a position a section of your supporters convinced themselves you actually held, blame unforeseen circumstances, fortune, the Russians, the Bank of England, or the Tories and chalk it all up as a regrettable necessity.
Betraying your base is evidence that you have your eye fixed on higher things. Betrayal is necessary. Betrayal is the nobler thing to do. It is at this stage in the peroration, you should begin to hear stirring strains of Land Of Hope And Glory, if the performance is going well. If not, audience heckling and disgust may ensue.
The current Labour Government is a curious mix of this philosophy – combined with compulsive pledge-breaking.
Presumably to keep their spirits up during the General Election, a remarkable number of people persuaded themselves that the........