Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their Rhubarb Triangle from their Bletchley Circle.
This is a Values Lab week, and with conference season now at an end we’ve gone heatmap crazy, just to squeeze that last bit of warmth out of the summer. We’ve values mapped the fluffed lines and the punchlines from Birmingham, Liverpool, and even Brighton. Which values tribes will have been nodding along? And which will have been switching off.
Also, for those not yet signed up, please do come along to our LGA-hosted event on the 19th. It's free for councils, and you can register by clicking here.
David Evans
Director
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The Values Lab is based on the Values Modes segmentation tool – created by Cultural Dynamics and used by TCC– which divides the population into ethics-driven Pioneers, aspirational Prospectors, and threat-wary Settlers. Take the test here to see which you are.
First up is Labour’s latest advert, released as their conference closed, which focused explicitly on economic decline and Britain’s towns. We were struck by the nostalgic, non-metropolitan message underpinning it – an effort, perhaps, to re-connect with the groups Labour is felt to have lost in recent years.
This is really a London versus the rest question, so we‘ve put the values of Londoners, below, into the lab.
The findings show that London over-indexes in Pioneers and socially liberal Prospectors, and visibly under-indexes for Settlers. As our research after the election last year showed, Settlers are a group Labour has lost traction with, too. The advert is thus very much on point in who it’s trying to connect with, and how – focusing on non-London Settlers.
Tory Conference, meanwhile, won headlines thanks to Theresa May’s decision to dance onstage to begin her speech. May’s dancing has won her a little respite and sympathy as leader (not to mention countless memes), and she was obviously keen to play it up. But what will the likely response be?
Below is the heatmap for the sentiment ‘Music makes me feel strong emotions’. The breakdown of agreement with this suggests it’s the more pronounced Transcender Pioneers – along with the more extreme among the socially liberal Prospectors, who have the most instinctive connection to music. The question is whether these groups (who are the least likely to support the Tories) will find a connection with May’s ‘spontaneous’ dancing, or see it as a calculated PR ploy…
In short, both Labour’s small towns message and May’s jiving irreverence are aimed at the groups the respective parties need to reach out to. But in the cases of both, you suspect, doing so will be an uphill struggle.
Elsewhere at conference, Tory MP Geoffrey Cox delivered a booming, Brian Blessed style piece of oratory to warm up for May. His hand on the Union Jack, the previously little-known parliamentarian was every inch as Churchillian as Boris Johnson wishes he was.
We thought we’d look at the values of those who say they like to ‘stand out by how they look and talk’.
Those in agreement are an overwhelmingly Prospector bunch. Much of what was impressive about the rhetoric and delivery was its ability to deliver traditionally pretty fusty ideas, around queen, country and duty, in ways likely to resonate with optimistic and outgoing Prospectors.
Lastly, let’s not forget those in the yellow corner. The Lib Dems’ annual meeting was most memorable for Vince Cable’s inability to say ‘erotic spasm’. The heat map below shows those who are advocates of ‘sexual awareness’ – that is, according to Cultural Dynamics, those who put an emphasis on sex, and advocate experimentation.
