I am sure you are as bored with me blogging about politics as occasionally I am. Actually I hope I write about the lessons of political communications. I do believe that – with the current debate in PR about consumer engagement, integrated campaigns and corporate brands – politics and political parties often demonstrate both best practice and worst practice that we can learn from in our work as communicators.

(I also believe that political communications, as seen in the communications strategies of the Thatcher/Bell/Saatchi era and now Cameron/Hilton, Blair/Mandelson and New Labour, and the Clinton and now Obama election campaigns , and agencies like Sawyer Miller (now part of WS) in the States – as detailed in James Harding’s book “Alpha Dogs” – have been the biggest influence on modern public relations.)

I blogged earlier this week in praise of David Cameron’s consumer engagement campaign with the Totness primary. I pointed out that no less a Labour moderniser than David Milliband was also in favour of them.

I just listened to a discussion on Radio 4 which underlined for me why politics is going the way of the CD and the dodo.

Two Labour pundits railed against Milliband’s support for primaries. Tribune editor and long time political hack Chris McGlochlin (who once threw a drink at me in The Red Lion because I outwitted him on an embargo) and Neal Lawson (see previous post on this once good thinker’s latest Mao-ist rants) complained that letting ordinary people – the “consumers” of politics and government policies – have a say in selecting candidates to be their MP was reducing the importance of being a party member.
It’s the equivalent of when you are in the supermarket and the nice woman on the till asks you if you have a loyalty card, and if you say no she tells you to p*** off and swipes your groceries back.

Not a long term strategy for success and growing market share.