It’s not really the done thing is it, saying “oh, politics should be about personalities”? Well – I’m certainly a fan of substance and policies in my politics (and that’s one reason why I’m not a fan of a certain Mr D Cameron!) but I think someone should speak up occasionally for the role of personality.
Whether it is Tony Benn’s oft-expressed lament that modern politics is too much about personalities, or the comments from some Liberal Democrat members that the current Liberal Democrat leadership contest should be more about policies and less about personalities, the general assumption is that policy discussion equals good, discussion of personalities equals bad.
But that’s an argument I don’t buy. The example of Bill Clinton, particularly is his early years as President when he (and Hilary) so stuffed up on health reform, is a shining warning against thinking that personality is enough to make a success of governing. Clinton was the pre-eminent campaigner and charmer of his political generation – but when it came to health reform, the policy substance was sorely flawed – and reform failed, with all the subsequent tragic costs to millions of Americans denied basic health coverage.
It is wrong though to leap from such examples to wanting to squeeze out personality completely. So much of governing (and, to a lesser extent, being in opposition) can be a success or failure depending on the personalities of the key people. Do they have the courage to stick with their beliefs in difficult times or do they waver at the first hint of a negative tabloid newspaper headline? Are they open-minded and willing to listen to others, or closed-minded and prefer to lock themselves away with a small clique? All this is about personality – and it all can and does make a substantive difference to how policies are formulated, selected and implemented.
I wouldn’t go quite as far as Zeev Mankowitz, who said, “people don’t believe in ideas, they believe in people who believe in ideas” but there is a partial truth in that – the personality of the messenger, their credibility, their ethics, their persuasiveness all help people choose between the different messages because it is not just enough to have beliefs – it is also about the ability to turn them into outcomes.
And so the importance of the ability to inspire, persuade, cajole – and given that even the most faceless, out-of-touch bureaucracy still has within in the beating hearts of real human beings – the ability is get the best from people, to raise their sights to doing their utmost, is one that we should also prize.
Moreover – and this was a point Charles Kennedy made particularly effectively about the 2001-5 Parliament- politics and life often throw up challenges that weren’t in people’s minds when policies were adopted or voters given a choice of manifestos to choose between. Many of the biggest political issues in that period – including top-up fees and the granddaddy of them all, Iraq – were completely or nearly-completely absent from the parties’ manifestoes in the 2001 election. So choices made between parties purely on the basis of their policies on offer in 2001 would not necessarily have given you the politicians you wanted for the challenges that did actually face people in the 2001-5 Parliament.
Judging Blair by his personality (including his willingness to go out on a limb for what he though was right, regardless of what others said) would have been a better way of getting a Prime Minister who would have acted the way you wanted over Iraq than judging Blair by a close reading of the 2001 Labour manifesto.
And to get down to brass tacks. When people go to the voting booths at the next general election in Hornsey & Wood Green, yes – I hope they will judge me and my party on issues of policy, such as our commitment to the environment – but also, I hope people will judge me on criteria such as, “does she have the persistence to nag away of behalf of constituents who have raised issues with her?”.
Personality and policies – we need them both as each helps get the best out of the other.
This article first appeared in Liberal Democrat News. For subscription details, click here.
(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007
Following on from the 
Lynne Featherstone 