The Campaign Company Blog

The "Velvet" Banking Policy Change

The queues were very orderly, indeed many were very elderly. They did not trust what those in authority were telling them.

They were here to ensure what they had worked hard for was protected.

By their actions they were seeking change. And through their unplanned co-operation they achieved it!

Berlin or Prague in 1989? Moscow in 1991? Kiev in 2004?

No, Croydon in 2007.....and many other places across the UK.

Northern Rock customers made a judgment call that they wanted security for their money. Current guarantees up to the first £30,000 were not enough for them.

Over then last few days we have seen mass participation in changing a government policy. 1,000's of people were brought together by their individual circumstances.

What are the lessons of the last few days?

For the government, any similar financial crisis nowadays is likely to feature images of elderly people. Many young people either won't have the savings and are more likely to deal with their finances online or by phone. Gone is the era when governments of whatever hue needed to be seen to be tough taking on interest groups. Now it is more likely that it will be facing the general public self-organising. Speed and flexibility in responding will be crucial. The much smaller queues today, demonstrate the announcements yesterday had an effect.

For companies and public bodies, if you get into this situation, you should be making some contingency plans as part of your risk management to engage with your customers in any long queues. Making them feel their concerns are being listened to would be a great start in responding to such events in future.

This is unlikely to be the only time something like this happens. We live in a much more complex world of “just in time” and higher financial commitments, so a crisis in a financial sector in another country (ie sub-prime mortgages in the U.S) can easily have a knock on effect on a building society 3,000 miles away!

Engagement with the public is even more vital in uncertain situations like this!

The future was Orange - Snap elections called in the Ukraine

On 30 September 2007, Ukrainian voters will again go to the polls (the third time in as many years) in a pre-term parliamentary election to elect 450 members of the Parliament (Verkhovna Rada).

The elections follow a prolonged political crisis that has roiled Ukraine ever since the ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004. The next parliamentary elections were not scheduled until 2011, but in spring 2007, President Victor Yushenko dismissed the parliament and called for new elections in response to a perceived attempt by Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych to convince MPs to cross the floor to his coalition bloc. It was considered that Yanukovych was aiming to form a majority of 300 members; a critical figure, as this is the number of votes needed to initiate constitutional amendments and impeach the President.

The confrontation between Yushenko and Yanukovych dates to at least 2004 when they faced each other in a presidential election. Yanukovych was initially declared the winner, however, after reports of significant fraud by domestic and international observers the election was invalidated and the subsequent re-run was won by Yushenko.

The international media may have been quick to proclaim an Orange Revolution but Yushenko was never able to hold together the parties that supported him and the country became increasingly polarised. In particular, the regional divide between the ‘orange’ pro-Yushenko, pro-Europe forces in the West of the country and the ‘blue’ pro-Yanukovych, pro-Russia forces in the East and South remains pronounced.

TCC Project Officer – Richard Lappin – has been deployed to Ukraine as an OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Long Term Observer. OSCE observers are tasked to monitor the preparations for Election Day, the campaigning of political parties, media coverage, the pre-election administrative procedures, and the voting, counting and tabulation of the results themselves.

Richard is based in the region of Sumy, located in the north of the country (approx. 350km from Kiev) on the border with Russia. The region has an area of 23,800 square metres (3.9% of Ukraine), a strong agricultural sector and is the birthplace of President Yushenko. Administrative preparations for the elections are now underway in Sumy, with campaigning also visible in the major cities. At present, campaigning can be largely described as positive, focusing on social issues rather than the foreign policy objectives that have so-often polarised the country in the past.

Richard will remain in Ukraine until after the elections and will continue to post updates as the campaign develops and the future political direction of Ukraine becomes clearer.

Richard Lappin, Sumy - Ukraine, 9^th September 2007

The end of "Business as Usual"?

Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian comments on Gordon Browns speech to the National Council of Voluntary Organisations in London on Monday where he said politics could not be "business as usual".

The Prime Minister's Speech was made at the same time as the announcement of plans to  to set up independent citizens juries to help the Government formulate key policies - the first jury will meet later this week on the subject of children with a second on Crime and Communities - and a citizens summit to help formulate a "British statement of values".

He also announced a cross-party Speaker's Conference to help tackle the issue of low voter turn-out. Mr Brown said that this rarely-used device would "address the problems of the political system itself" to tackle the problem where "once 84% of people voted, and that was 17 out of every 20, in the last election it was less than 62% - 12 in every 20. In the 1950s 1 in 11 people joined a political party, today it is 1 in 88. Once political parties aggregated views from millions of people, now they need to broaden their appeal to articulate the views of more than the few. In 1987 nearly half the electorate identified fairly, or strongly, or very strongly with a political party, now only 1 in 3 do so. 20 years ago 4 in 10 people trusted the government to put the needs of the nation above those of political parties, more recently it has been only 1 in 5."

The speech itself again reiterated the commitment to greater local involvement where people will influence their beat policing, their local NHS, the help carers get and what schools offer.

Polly Toynbee commented today that, "Brown is right to point to vibrant expressions of civic life in parallel but apart from the political process. Millions of people do good things that never intersect with the waning life of local political parties, joined by only one in 88 voters".

She cautions that, "These promises are tricky. Will each participant protest when not all their views are acted on?"

However she also criticises those who, "dismiss this ambition to reach outwards, the obvious riposte should be: "What would you do?" Now that only 62% bother to vote and millions say Westminster is out of touch, doing nothing is not an option. Let the sceptics offer their own solutions."

Whilst her comments cover the overall proposals, something that she did not refer to was the Prime Minister's answer to questions after the speech where he was challenged to commit to provide more training and support to enable the less articulate to engage. His response was to say, "The Commission on Volunteering in England is proposing, as I think people here know, that we do far more to help train people. I want us to provide some more finance to enable that to happen. It is clearly a challenge for the future that more training funds are available for this and I think we should see it as a central part of what we can actually do to back up the great work that different voluntary organisations are doing and we will try to do that."

If this commitment is significant, then maybe we can say it is the end of "business as usual"?