It's a week and a half since the referendum vote was lost. In the end it was a landslide for the NO campaign. This didn't surprise me in the slightest as I knew the campaign run by the YES campaign was frankly a shambles.
I have spoken to a number of YES campaign insiders as well as many throughout the Lib Dems. Almost all believe that strategic decisions were botched and the campaign was disorganised, ineffective and run by people who simply didn't know what they were doing. They had no idea how to run a campaign or how to influence voters.
I think it's important to ask why YES became a big NO so that if we ever need to win a vote on reform (Lords perhaps?) we don't make the same mistake again.
The first two big mistakes were taken in early September. These were with recruitment and campaign strategy. I know of one very senior figure at the campaign, who had to go to the Oldham East by-election as they had never attended a count before. Clearly they recruited “policy wonks” rather than campaigners, this is a bad mistake because policy wonks are good at the detail that the public doesn't care about. Campaigners, through experience and instinct know what are the key points and how to present them to the general public. One of the key problems was that the NO campaigns messages resonated but the YES campaign's didn't. Outside head office they recruited PPC's and Councillors - again a bad mistake, mainly because they don't have the time to kill themselves for the campaign.
Strategically at this point they also made a key mistake, they decided to spend their money and activists time on (drum roll please).... phone banking! My first response was eh? then comical laughter. I actually thought they were joking. In a campaign where people didn’t know what AV was they expected people to ring up and ask whether voters planned to support something they didn't have clue about! On a campaign note, phone canvassing is only a small part of any campaign as it can a reach a small fraction of the population. With most people undecided at the start of the election, it was clear to me that persuading people to vote YES was more important than getting people out on the day (which is what phone canvassing really does.) They should have gone for leafleting and advertising. They already have networks across the country that can deliver leaflets (Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP, some Labour) they could have influenced huge swathes but they didn't try. I was one being begged by Lib Dem activists in September for something to deliver with their latest FOCUS leaflet, nothing turned up until mid February. Crucial months were lost that could have been used to persuade people of the merits of AV.
The phone banking information that they got was never properly used because the database (the much vaunted Obama database) failed. While this is the fault of the American company hired, the ERS should never have got into this situation. They should have got this nailed before the General Election last year. Surely it's their job to be prepared for referendums, but tragically they didn't seem to be. This helps to explains the next big mistake of the YES campaign - fundraising.
It is my understanding that the YES campaign didn't have a professional fundraiser for months and months. As a Lib Dem I was amazed that I never received a begging letter. I could have understood this if they were doing big fundraisers, but to my knowledge, they weren't. What happened was that the NO campaign were able to massively outspend the YES campaign on billboards and advertising.
They could have got away with these blunders if they had got the messaging right. Unfortunately they didn't have a clue. They failed really to make any attempt to explain the system or why it was a positive move. I never heard the argument that “it gives the voters more choice” (I would have used phrases like elections shouldn't be about the MPs but about voters). It took until the final week with the Dan Snow broadcast to actually start making this point.
The constant refrain of "make MPs work harder" missed the point as well. Most people actually have a positive impression of their own MP, if you ask people what they like about their MP "hard working" will come somewhere near the top of the list. You only need to look at the incumbency boost many MPs get when they are re-elected to realise the truth in this. The negative point they should have been making was "Stop MPs fiddling their expenses" "Stop the Corruption" “they're taking your money because they know they can get away with it!” with big pictures of Bill Cash, Hazel Blears etc. The leaflets they did produce looked like something from the 1950's; wordy, boring and failed to explain the concept in a simple way. A further criticism I would make of all material they sent through was that it seemed to be aimed at two groups - students and left wing intellectuals.
They also failed to counter the simple and effective arguments for the NO campaign - It's expensive, it's unfair, it's complicated and you can give Nick Clegg a kicking. Apparently they didn't want to be knocked off their message! the trouble was that they already had been. What they should have done was to work out the real cost and spread it over four years and divide it by the entire population of the UK. AV won't cost you 250 million but only 1p would have been a good message - again not used.
My final gripe with the AV campaign was with the election broadcasts. The first NO campaign video was slick, and clever. They explained their key arguments with good visual images, used a celebrity to rip apart AV and used analogies that people would understand - classrooms, horse racing etc. It may have been complete hogwash, but it was effective hogwash. The first YES video was pathetic. The Christian Party Election Broadcasts are known for been comically bad and the production values of BNP are notoriously atrocious but the YES campaign's video beat both these parties with the worst political broadcast I have ever seen. It was truly terrible. Whoever was involved in this should be lined up and shot. First of all it's production values were shocking - literally secondary school rather than professional. Secondly the acting was rubbish. But my main gripe was with the entire concept. A load of (not particularly) normal people shouting at their MP (who didn't look like an MP) about god knows what. The final insult was a lady (who may or may not have been suffering from mental illness) shouting "porn" randomly. What they should have done is started with a collage of newspaper clippings and broadcasts about the expenses crisis, followed by an explanation about AV and how it would stop corruption. They should have used a celebrity. I think this broadcast was a vital moment when the country decided that AV was not for them.
The second broadcast with Dan Snow was much better, my only gripe was that he used young people. It should have been a family with grown up children, going out for a curry, Italian or Pub lunch. But at least it explained AV in a simple way that pointed out its benefits. Unfortunately by then it was too late.
I know Nick Clegg was an issue and that people wanted to give him a kicking and that the referendum was a convenient way, but we could have used Ed Milliband (and for that matter Caroline Lucas and Nigel Farage) much better. It would have been harder to have given all of them a kicking) In the North, Leaflets to labour area's should have been sent out with Labour Leader Ed Miliband says "YES" but they never managed to get this message across.
The ERS needs to learn lessons. There will now not be another referendum for at least ten years. Hopefully next time it will be on PR. But they still need to work out how to run electoral campaigns rather than political campaigns. They also now need to diversify and be the champion of people who cannot vote at all (the mentally ill, prisoners etc).
