In early September, Gordon Brown made a speech to the NCVO. Rejecting the "old tired sloganising politics of the past," he announced the need for a "new type of politics … a politics that is built on consensus and not division, a politics that is built on engaging with people and not excluding them." He then announced the appointment of two Tory MPs, John Bercow and Patrick Mercer, as government advisers. A week later, he invited Margaret Thatcher around for tea.
This is not just evidence of the ongoing battle for the political centre ground. In the last few months, Gordon Brown has been showing signs of embracing a new, fashionable political style: the politics of nicey-nicey. It typically begins with a grand announcement about a "new style of politics" and is followed up by a calm, polite tone and gestures (like taking tea with icons of the opposition) that indicate a lofty, gentlemanly approach. But examining how this strategy has served its poster boys on either side of the Atlantic, David Cameron and Barack Obama, suggests that niceness might not be a recipe for success after all.
Cameron and Obama came to prominence in a similar way. Youthful and passionate, they offered an antidote to cynicism. "I'm fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster," Cameron said. "When the government does the right thing, we will work with them." Obama has based his presidential campaign on a similar largeness of spirit: "We've got to get beyond the small politics… the slash and burn politics that have become the custom." Instead, he said he wants Americans to embrace the "politics of hope."
But both Cameron and Obama have found that the niceness that made them media favourites has tied their hand politically. After dreamy statements of intent, momentary drops in civility can be seized on as evidence of hypocrisy. Obama recently lost his cool and described fellow candidate Hillary Clinton as "Bush-Cheney Lite" (the worst of insults in Dem circles), and the Clinton campaign had a field day. "What has happened to the politics of hope?" Hillary asked reporters.
When criticism is required, the nice politician's favoured option is to stick the knife in gently and politely—but killing with kindness can seem passive-aggressive and even unattractive. Commentators used to refereeing old-fashioned political brawls eventually find it off-putting. After the love-in that was David Cameron's first prime minister's question time with Tony Blair, the BBC's Nick Assinder concluded, "Cameron cannot come to PMQs every week and agree with the prime minister. At first it will look fresh, modern…[but] it might quickly start to look tired and just a bit creepy."
In terms of getting your message across, the "sloganising politics of the past" still has the edge. People expect politics to be competitive, and if you are not prepared to shout, you must be prepared not to be heard. As Obama has discovered in televised debates, in the context of a 60-second window to articulate your position, nice can seem more waffly than wise. As Chesterton put it, "Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."
Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has embraced the opposite style and is pulling ahead of Obama in the polls for the Democratic nomination. Learning from the 2004 lesson of John Kerry, whose patrician gentility left him wide open to the Swift Boat attacks of the Republicans, she is deliberately casting herself as a bit of a bruiser who is up for a fight. "For 15 years I have stood up against the right-wing machine," she says, "so if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."
Gordon Brown's fight for the centre ground of British politics may be a sound strategy in policy terms, but in terms of style he should learn from the difficulties of others and realise that the politics of nicey-nicey works better in theory than in practice. His best bet is to dispatch the gentle leader of the opposition with a clunking, impolite slug of his fist.
