In search of a world view

Although as the designated member of the Downing Street inner circle I once held what was arguably the most senior political strategy position in the UK - I suspect I'm not actually very good at it. On the one hand, I tend to be too rational, focussed on the head and not enough on the emotions. On the other, I am too idealistic, tending to confuse what I wish would engage the public with what actually does.

A couple of weekends ago, for example, a worried advisor to the Better Together campaign team asked me (in a personal capacity, of course) what I would do in their shoes. My advice was to abandon loud aggressive campaigning entirely and go unplugged: Stop making threats and holding rallies and instead get everyone to start having conversations with ordinary people. Let voters see Alistair Darling or David Cameron having an hour long conversation with a group of Glaswegian mothers in a cafe. This will make your campaign more human and humble but also imply your confidence that if only people would really talk through the issues they would share your conclusions. As we know, the 'no' campaign did precisely the opposite - cranking up the promises, the threats and the volume - and won a surprisingly resounding victory.

So in describing the kind of speeches I would like to hear over the next three weeks from the Party leaders I recognise that what I want is probably not how they should maximise their impact. What I want is a world view.

In a few days I am speaking to the Board of a charity. Reading their documentation they have a vision, they have a list of values and they have an approach. This is what we expect to hear from the leaders' speeches; some kind of rhetorical vision of a resurgent Britain of happy successful people, a statement of their and their party's political values (although these will almost certainly be hard to distinguish from one leader to another) and then a list of policies which are supposed both to symbolise those values and win votes.

The difference between this and a world view is subtle but important. A world view might start with a values statement - the ideal which inspires us - but at its core is an analysis of the future: given long term trends in society what possibilities could exist in terms of the attainment of our ideals? The world view thus connects emotion and intellect by connecting timeless values to the concrete possibilities of the future.

But the future will not simply happen, it will have to be created. The next stage of the world view is to explore the barriers to the inspiring possibilities just described. Having held out a tantalising account of possibility the audience is warned that this future could be denied. This then leads to the final element of world view - the promise and the call to action; what is it we must do to remove these barriers and seize the opportunities the future could hold?

Thus the world view conforms to the classic three part narrative structure that we watch over and again in TV drama and films - the set up (our values and the future context), the crisis (the barriers that stand in the way) and the resolution (our plan).

This is the structure for the RSA's set of ideas: 'The Power to Create' which I outlined in my annual lecture and which will be available in a highly condensed, animated form tomorrow. The speech was twenty five minutes long but it turns out that less than four minutes is perfectly adequate to get across the core narrative. And this may be the reason why we won't hear world views from conference platforms.

The narrative structure of the world view means that it is relatively easy to scale but quite hard to dismantle. But the primary purpose of a conference speech is to be the source for extracts for the mass media (the speeches are judged more than anything else on what is repeated on the evening's news bulletins). A world view is like a story or a play - it is held together (or not) by its essential structure whatever its length. A conference speech is more like the performance of a football team - we will judge it by its highlights (and low points) even though - as anyone who has seen a match they have attended on Match of the Day can attest - these extracts may not actually reflect the whole performance.

Strong narrative structures are more meaningful, memorable and inspiring than slogans, assertions and detached pieces of rhetoric. If our leaders offered us such a narrative we would have something to engage with and something to argue about. Sadly, the combination of our unwillingness to invest the time in listening, the media's unwillingness to engage us in depth and the politicians' unwillingness to take risks means we will over the next three weeks hear some jokes, some attacks, and lots and lots of promises but probably nothing that amounts to a world view.

(Postscript after Ed Miliband's speech: I didn't watch, but the transcript reads more like a pop medly than a unified narrative. It has tonally distinct sections cut across with overlapping themes (life is tough, the Coaliton is to blame, togetherness is the answer and Labour has a plan). Some of the policy areas are welcome to RSA ears - on the self employed, devolving power and vocational education for example and, from everything I hear, the other Parties will have little choice but to follow Labour in promising more for the NHS. Having said which, however well intentioned, some of the pledges smacked of the top down over engineering that is so often counter productive in policy making.

There was one paragraph that set my pulse racing. Here it is:

'the ethic of the 20th century was hierarchy, order, planning and control, rewarding the talents of just a few, then the ethic of the 21st century is co-operation, everybody playing their part, sharing the rewards and using the talents of all. Together. It’s time we ran the country like we know it can be run'

Sadly, this big idea wasn't developed leaving the togetherness theme to feel merely rhetorical, albeit clearly heartfelt.