The Campaign Company specialises in social research and behaviour change. This is your guide to what we’ve been reading. Here’s what’s coming up this week:
Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their Roland Rat from their Roland the Farter.
With the bank holidays there was no Weekly last week, hence today’s bumper edition. The Values Lab explores two intertwined topics that have dominated the past seven days: patriotism (thanks to the Jubilee) and propriety (thanks to debates about Johnson doing the decent thing). How are these things related, and what do they tell us about the PM’s future.
And of course, there’s the festival of frivolity and decorum that is Charlie’s Attic. This week features some fantastic links, including the Midsomer Murders automatic plot generator.
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.
Pomp, patriotism and propriety
The past week has been a case of the good, the bad and the barmy for the British people. We saw an exuberant and eccentric weekend of Jubilee celebrations. But this gave way to a rainy Monday evening dominated by the dismal aftermath of Partygate – in the form of a narrow vote of confidence in the Prime Minister by Tory MPs. Depending on which aspect you were looking at, you may love your country right now or feel deeply worried for it.
We thought we’d put two related topics through the Values Modes wringer this week: patriotism and propriety. Patriotism has been in question thanks to the Jubilee, with some sections of society much more excited by the celebrations than others. Parts of the online left even drew comparisons between Jubilee flag-waving and 1940s fascism.
In response to this, a blog in favour of national pride by Ian Leslie is well worth a read. And, if you don’t have time for that, then we defy even the most diehard republican to not glean some pleasure from this video of a man flying a set of homemade Red Arrows (see image above).
At any rate, which values groups are likely to be most supportive of upholding British traditions like the Jubilee. The Values Modes heat map below gives us a clear idea, suggesting that Settlers and socially conservative Prospectors are much more likely to have had their bunting out. Perhaps The most striking thing is the rapidity of the change, once you move south on the heat map, with support for British pride tailing off steeply once you get into Pioneer and socially liberal Prospector territory.
This brings us onto Partygate and the Tories vote of no confidence, which Johnson won narrowly on Monday evening. It has prompted many to point out that Johnson is not someone who can be relied upon to ‘do the decent thing’.
As moderate Tory commentator Daniel Finkelstein put it in the Times, “I think the chances of [Johnson] deciding that, to be a good chap, he really ought to go are minimal, don’t you? That’s not who he is, or how he thinks, or what he has built his political success upon. If he was that sort of person, Monday’s vote wouldn’t have been necessary since he would already have resigned.” Unlike other previous Tory PMs, Johnson does not defer to an unspoken ‘code of honour’, Finkelstein points out.
We have examined this, once again, through the Values Modes lens, by looking at the attribute ‘propriety’. This relates to an adherence to ‘proper behaviour’ and honourable conduct. The map shows that Settlers are the group which is by far the most concerned about this, with socially conservative Prospectors far less bothered.
This represents a crucial schism. Settlers and socially conservative Prospectors may share a great deal – their patriotism, for example, as shown above. But when it comes to following the rules and conforming to social standards, they see things differently. Prospectors want the barriers to success removed, and some may still regard Johnson as a loveable cad for breaking the law. Settlers will see adherence to the rules as non-negotiable.
This makes it hard to see a route back for Johnson, in terms of his polling numbers. Settlers form the basis both for the Tory Party and for the Leave vote. They are his electoral core. Unlike Prospectors, they are a fairly loyal voter group, but once they turn they turn. If Johnson has offended them with his improprieties, in the way that our values maps suggest, then we suspect that no amount of patriotism is likely to win them back.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, the soggy bunting at the end of this bank holiday bash:
