Regarding data protection, it is presumably legal to hold data on people if those people (i.e. supporters) allow that data to be held, indeed input it themselves.

For data on contituencies and areas, obviously the results of previous elections are a good start. The information that upmystreet and acorn have may also be useful.

Hi Sunny,

Interesting stuff. As a general point, political parties work differently in the UK than in the US, which means that directly applying lessons from America doesn’t work (I know that you’re not suggesting this!)

On the specifics:

1. Fundraising, yes, definitely. Specifically, there are a large number of people on the centre-left who, depending on the specifics, would support the Labour, Lib Dem or Green candidate, and would (I think) be interested in finding out examples of good candidates. Fundraising by non-affiliated organisations like LC or some such for liberal left candidates complements nicely the activity by political parties.

2. E-mail list, yes definitely.

3. Polling – politicalbetting does the number crunching to a high standard. One role which isn’t being performed, though, is commissioning opinion polls (though this is pretty expensive).

4. Voter information – wouldn’t particularly bother with this. It is vastly expensive to get Mosaic data, the political parties all do this anyway (and are at least as sophisticated if not more so in their use of marketing data than the Americans), and I don’t really see where we could add value (except that we can use neighbourhood statistics etc to help inform campaigning work, I guess).

don – building our own voter information is key to this because otherwise we’re shooting in the dark. The parties no doubt have their own infrastructure but we will never be able to tap into that.

I don’t think they’re more sophisticated here given the level of micro-targeting and voter profiling that goes on there.

But there is no doubt in my mind, given the kind of work we need to do, that a level of information is needed and needs to be used to strategic effect. It can save a lot of resources and time.

I’m not convinced Mike S does that deep level of number crunching but we’ll see. That is a starting point anyway.

I don’t think we’re ‘shooting in the dark’ if we don’t spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on buying Mosaic data.

If we were starting a new political party or some such, it might be a different matter. But I understand what you were suggesting to be that we find progressive candidates (of whichever party) and work out how we can support them. So we don’t need to replicate the support which candidates will already have from parties – which includes this kind of microtargeting information.

What all candidates are always short of, which LC could help with, are activists, supporters, sometimes polling data and especially money.

For what it’s worth, there is another argument about the real value of microtargeting – it does obviously have its uses, but a lot of the articles about how good it is are written by people who are hyping it in order to get people to buy their products, and should be read as advertising, rather than informed comment.

‘the longer aim is to promote more progressive candidates within Parliament who chime with our agenda.’

Sunny, what is Liberal Conspiracy’s agenda? I’m not sure there is one. Granted, I’ve been out of the country for a while, and it’s been hard catching up, but I can’t see that there is any specific agreement between most of the regulars here on any specific policy beyond opposition to 42 days’ detention.

For criminalising prostitution or against? Haringey guilty of Baby P’s death or blameless? Send troops to the Congo, or don’t, or don’t send troops anywhere? Met Police right to raid Damian Green, or Green a martyr to free speech? Give every citizen a basic income, or don’t? Those are disagreements that people here have had in just the last few days here. Think of it: Unity and Lynne Featherstone agree on… what, exactly?

As a first step, I suggest you define some principles and see how many people here agree with them. And I’d define them as sharply as possible, and redefine them after the inevitable disagreements, because woolly statements in favour of a bit more equality and niceness in the world are as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Secondly, I would not decide which candidates to support in terms of which policies they commit themselves to supporting. Unless all the said policies are approved by the Labour (or Lib Dem) manifesto committees, no front-bencher or potential front-bencher will commit to supporting them, and you will be left supporting the honourable but largely ineffective types who are perpetual back-bench rebels.

Way too many repetitions of ‘support’ and ‘supporting’ there. But I think the point stands.

Also, one of my top tips for internet campaigning: if you want a response, put something up on your site on Monday morning, or as close to it as possible. The last time you should post an appeal for help- like the post above, say- is on a Friday evening.

Dan hardie asks some sensible questions…

Secondly, I would not decide which candidates to support in terms of which policies they commit themselves to supporting. Unless all the said policies are approved by the Labour (or Lib Dem) manifesto committees, no front-bencher or potential front-bencher will commit to supporting them, and you will be left supporting the honourable but largely ineffective types who are perpetual back-bench rebels.

The impression I get is that Sunny wants to create a center of influence/power separate from the Labour/LD/Green parties. (If not separate, then just join one of those parties).

If LD manages to make a difference, i.e. by getting candidates elected when they otherwise wouldn’t have, then the parties will start paying attention to what LD wants.

Sunny, what is Liberal Conspiracy’s agenda? I’m not sure there is one.

I’m not sure either, although having said that…

I can’t see that there is any specific agreement between most of the regulars here on any specific policy beyond opposition to 42 days’ detention.

… we all seem to be against the war on civil liberties and the sleepwalk to authoritarianism, so that’s one thing we can agree on. (I would argue that this is the biggest issue facing the UK right now).

A key point in all this, Sunny, which I’m very glad you mention, but (in my opinion) ought to be more prominent is that this be NON party tribal. The deadening grips of the established parties’ machinery are non-democratic, invidious, inimical to free speech/thought and culminates in endless drones, lobby fodder to be herded in the ‘approve’, on-message direction. Let’s face it, the notion of party whips to ‘enforce’ the party line on all issues is bullying and gangsterism.
The existing parties’ stranglehold ossifies politics in the UK: were they looser alliances rather than rigid, careerist hierarchies (obey/toe the line and rise through the ranks) then the detrimental and often absurdly confrontational (let’s try and knock spots of each other while the nation rots in the meantime) type of politics we currently ‘enjoy’ wouldn’t be so lamentable.
By, as you say, supporting suitable figures from “across different parties”, I’d hope we could weaken the deadening discipline of the moribund, unengaging and blinkered big parties.
I don’t necessarily mean start a new party or any else so pie-in-the-sky, simply encourage innovatory and free-thinking among the politicos out there, and hopefully remind them that party loyalty should come a very distant second to being principled and accountable to constituents.

[2] Sunny said

I’m not convinced Mike S does that deep level of number crunching but we’ll see. That is a starting point anyway.

538.com was able to get the results it did because there were people in each State willing to pay for regular opinion polls. Despite the fact that we have a multi-party system rather than a two-party one, and therefore a greater need for polls at regional level, there don’t seem to be any clients willing to pay for regional polls. Using the subsamples of national polls is methodologically wacko, and aggregating polls even worse.

The only thing Smithson has produced (and I don’t knock it) is the intuitive heuristic he calls “Smithson’s Law”: the poll that is most favourable to the Tories is the most accurate. Pollsters’ staff do visit his blog and (although I certainly don’t have the energy to read all the threads, which are 90% Tory trolling) I haven’t seen them discountenance it.

In terms of identifying candidates, I think we might usefully take Con 40 Lab 30 Lib 20 Others 10 as being as likely a result next time as anything else and on that basis seek to identify “progressive” candidates at risk, whether sitting MPs or not. They could then be invited to post a piece here saying why they deserve our support and the comments thread would show whether or not they deserved it. (Or possibly a sister site could be created for the specific purpose.)

One thing that does concern me is that we seem to be very London-oriented. Leaving the Greens aside (are they seriously in contention anywhere or is it all puff?), Scotland and Wales have three parties which will field at least some progressive candidates, but I have the sense that we actually know b*gger-all about who’s progressive in Plaid and the SNP and who ain’t. At the very least we need to link to progressive bloggers in those countries.

It might also be useful to try to analyse, through Conference resolutions among other things, which constituency Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are “progressive” – perhaps we could devise a questionnaire to their Chairpeople and see what sort of response we get.

I think drawing up a criteria that LC can unite behind is an absolute must if this to get out of the talking about it phase. What policies does LC stand for, what’s the criteria is going to be applied in choosing which candidates to back (I don’t think we should stick to those people already a MP). It has to be detailed too…

I’m coming back to this discussion a bit late – apologies for that. But as I expect I’ll keep referring people back to this page, I may as well answer some of the questions.

but I can’t see that there is any specific agreement between most of the regulars here on any specific policy beyond opposition to 42 days’ detention.

I’m not demanding ideological consistency on all issues nor that everyone supports the same candidates. Certain people are more likely to support certain candidates, others will support their party on particular issues. Though I think there will be common ground we can debate and agree on…

As a first step, I suggest you define some principles and see how many people here agree with them.

I want to avoid doing this because I don’t want to dictate who signs up to ‘my plans’ and who doesn’t. I want to put together a strategy so people can pick and choose whatever candidates they want. I don’t want to define specific policies – that just translates into ideological sectarianism.

Secondly, I would not decide which candidates to support in terms of which policies they commit themselves to supporting. Unless all the said policies are approved by the Labour (or Lib Dem) manifesto committees, no front-bencher or potential front-bencher will commit to supporting them, and you will be left supporting the honourable but largely ineffective types who are perpetual back-bench rebels.

Well, this is also my point. I don’t want to have tight ideological boundaries because politics never works like that. Which is why there’s no point defining tight boundaries to specifically excluded people because then it may exclude some pretty important allies.

Good points Mike…

All this would be a lot more clearer if I could fully explain my ideas and plans… but in an open internet forum I can’t… so I will develop them further a bit and then have a strategy session where we can openly discuss and brainstorm, hopefully.