Cleggmania could change the world’s elections

It used to be the case that UK campaigns were thought to follow the US lead closely: Clinton’s War Room in 1992 became Blair’s Millbank in 1997; Bush’s Compassionate Conservatism in 2000 became Hague’s in 2001.

For the rise of Nick Clegg, however, there is no US antecedent. Whatever the hype surrounding Mr Clegg, he is no Obama — but nor is he a maverick like Ross Perot. The growth of a third choice in this election provides an interesting wake-up call for the two establishment parties in the UK, but it also offers a warning to the Democrats and Republicans of what they may face in the future.

On both sides of the Atlantic, in the world outside politics, consumers have become hugely more empowered over the past two decades through greater choice, information and control. Step into a Starbucks today and you can choose from 155 different types of coffee. TV programmes need not be watched when they are broadcast — instead they can be saved to Sky Plus or streamed from iPlayer to be watched when it suits you. Gone are the days when you relied on a salesman’s advice; today it is rare for anyone to buy anything without first reading multiple consumer reviews online and searching the net for the best deal.

Unsurprisingly, consumers who are used to a significant level of choice and control in their everyday lives are increasingly demanding the same in the political realm, where change has been at best ignored and at worst opposed. Gordon Brown’s unfortunate encounter with Gillian Duffy last week was interesting not just as a gaffe but as a symbol of the whole problem facing the political class. Voters want to see their politicians challenged and expect them to provide the answers, but fear that what they actually get are platitudes in public and abuse in private.

The introduction of US-style TV debates has helped to shake up the kaleidoscope by enabling ordinary voters to put their questions to the party leaders and watch how they respond on primetime television. This new world provides a big opportunity for anyone who can transcend old party boundaries and engage directly with the public’s concerns.

Mr Clegg’s performance was undoubtedly impressive in the first debate, but the surge of support he received afterwards was probably more a result of the electorate’s pent-up frustration at the lack of choice in the political system than any specific policies he outlined. If you can have 155 types of coffee, why would you be satisfied with just two political flavours?

Increasingly, voters’ attitudes on foreign policy, economic issues and social values no longer slot into neat bipolar packages. His vote may recede a bit in these closing days, but Mr Clegg is still likely to get much more than the 22 per cent the Lib Dems got last time. If that happens, this rise could well be a game-changer for the rest of the world in general and America in particular — if a third party can break through in tradition-bound Britain, it can surely happen anywhere.

The debates will also spark a change in the way we do politics that could have far-reaching implications. In the US, for instance, we are used to choosing candidates who could perform in the heat of the TV election campaign. In the UK, however, TV performance has never been the key criterion when candidates are chosen. It seems certain that parties will come to place a greater importance on this.

Campaigns will also change as a result. Public engagement in party campaigns is already low and falling. Party memberships are going down, small individual donations haven’t begun to replace multimillion-pound gifts, and most voters would run a mile rather than put a political poster in their window. But in the future the advantage will be won by candidates and parties that enable the public to be authors of the campaign, not just viewers. Just look at the huge number of spoof-poster creators this election has uncovered. Rather than simply being a mouthpiece for a party, the new political activists want to express their own views on the election — and they are often a lot funnier than anything the parties can come up with.

There are also some potential pitfalls to avoid in building this new politics. The British electoral system is a parliamentary, not a presidential system, which means centrally controlled messages can oversimplify the complex range of local issues that often determine the result in each constituency. In West London, for example, the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow is a big factor in determining how many people will vote, yet this issue has barely been discussed in the national campaign. The TV election campaign has also resulted in fewer local events and visits, with all the candidates tearing up their campaign grids to allow them more prep time, a move that might put more distance between voters and their leaders, not less.

The election campaign is nearly through and I doubt it will be remembered as a classic. Whatever the result, what will stick most in the mind are Cleggmania, Bigotgate and the likely end of the new Labour era. But beneath the surface, politics has changed significantly through this campaign. Microtrends that have revolutionised the way we live over the past two decades have now taken root in the political sphere, too. If this leads to a higher turnout and greater engagement in the short term, as it appears it might, then that’s a good thing for British democracy. But for a political system that has relied on a two-party contest and a becalmed public for half a century, the change may be only just beginning.

Mark Penn, an adviser to Tony Blair and both Bill and Hillary Clinton. He was strategic adviser to the US presidential debates in 1996 and is the author of Microtrends: the Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes.