Bubbling Under

How to dog-whistle up an election victory?

It's often said that politicians inhabit a dog-eat-dog world, pursuing any tactic to remain overdogs in their sphere, but the newest canine buzzword in Britain is dog-whistle politics. A general election is nigh, and the Conservative Party have employed Lynton Crosby, an Australian political strategist who helped the Aussie Liberal PM John Howard to four consecutive election victories, to shape their campaign.

Although the term may have originated in the US in the late 1990s, it achieved a high profile in Australia in 2001, when the Australian Liberal Party campaigned on so-called dog-whistle issues.

Just as a high-pitched dog-whistle can only be heard by certain dogs, so the way in which these populist issues are treated is intended to rouse a positive response in specific groups of voters. Dog-whistling is intended to be subtle: dog-whistlers who use it try to couch their message on a controversial topic such as immigration or asylum in reasonable terms so that they cannot be accused of racism or bigotry by those who disagree with their views.

It's also often a case of what's unsaid as much as what is said, as the following quote from the Australian Democrats, referring to John Howard's unwillingness to condemn statements about Muslim women's clothing by the NSW MP Fred Nile in 2002, reveals:

"This is a classic case of 'dog-whistle' politics. By refusing to condemn these statements, Mr Howard is sending signals that he is prepared to tolerate racial stereotyping and prejudice without specifically saying so."

As for Labour, some commentators have identified the so-called schoolgate issues (those concerning childcare, education, etc.) as those which 'really ought to dog whistle Labour's core vote'. Whether either party's use of such tactics is merely whistling in the wind will be determined one way or another after May's election.

worm poll

While we're used to Gallup, ICM, exit polls, and all the rest, worm polls are a relatively new phenomenon to the British electorate. These, too, appear to have their origins in the US, and have been recently used in Australia and New Zealand before worming their way into our political arena.

It's a highly visible way of instantly taking the pulse of public opinion: using electronic handsets, the studio audience or viewers of a televised political debate or speech show their positive or negative reactions to the speaker(s) as the debate progresses. These reactions are displayed as a continuous rising and falling line at the foot of the TV screen - the 'worm'.

So the line might rise if the audience react positively when a politician mentions controls on immigration or more police on the streets, or it might fall in response to a mention of a rise in taxes. Of course, such polls only reflect a small and rather unscientific sample of voters' opinion, but politicians who see the worm turning dramatically against them might begin to wish they had more wiggle room.

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