Put a note against Thursday 17th February in your diary, as it marks an important moment for campaigning in the UK. The coming of age of 38 degrees.
Today, the online campaigning movement celebrated as it notched up its most high-profile victory yet, the government make a U-turn and abandons its plan to sell of the forests (watch the announcement to Parliament here).
Lots has already been written about the campaign, and I don’t think I can add much at present, here is a reader of some of the top articles which explore how the campaign unfolded and the impact it’s had.
1. The Guardian explores the important role that social media played in the campaign in Forest sell-off: Social media celebrates victory
2. Johnny Chatterton, from 38 degrees writes for Left Foot Forward about the size of the campaign, with his boss, David Babbs, Executive Director saying ‘Forest sell-off U-turn is a victory for people power‘
3. Chris Rose wrote last week about how ‘Clicktivism By-passes Inside Track To Harry Potter Forest‘ and also the roots that this campaign had in previous battles for forests around the country.
4. Jonathan Porritt criticised the larger environmental NGOs by not supporting the campaign of ‘collective betrayal‘ on his blog, while this blog argued that the campaign had highlighted some of the challenges large NGOs faced in responding to an issue with the agility an organisation like 38 degrees can.
5. The Sunday Telegraph ran many articles, demonstrating the broad support the campaign had ‘Save our forests, say celebrities and leading figure’ something that was clearly important in the victory.
6. But not everyone has been so kind, with Anthony Barnett at Open Democracy, suggesting that 38 degrees shouldn’t take all the credit for the campaign victory, following up on an earlier post challenging them not to compete but campaign with others.
7. But the last word picture should go to cartoonist Steve Bell in today’s Guardian.
What other articles have you read that help to explain the story behind the campaign? Why did this campaign work when so many others haven’t?
Category: tactics
Is celebrity activism always bad?
I’ve just put up a new post over at Political Dynamite asking if celebrity activism is always bad. Do have a read and share your thoughts.
A Cautionary Tale: Lessons from UK poverty campaigners
I’ve got a new post up on Political Dynamite, asking if international development campaigners need to learn lessons from UK poverty campaigners.
Do pop by and have a read.
Protecting the right to campaign
Whatever campaigning tactics you or your organisation use, we should be grateful we live in a country where free speech is protected and the right to campaign upheld.
That’s why campaigners of all styles and viewpoints should be concerned about the erosion of campaigning space, much of which happened under the last government.
This film made by campaigners from People and Planet shows what happens when they recently tried to collect petitions in a busy Birmingham shopping centre, while the accompany post details a number of recent examples where activists have been asked to ‘move on’ for campaigning in public spaces owned by private companies (often shopping centres or other similar spaces in towns and cities).
The government has plans to introduce a Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill into parliament in the coming months and I’ve argued before that this bill should remove some of the worst bits of legislation the reduce campaigning space in London and around the UK, but we need to do more.
I’d strongly encourage you to add your name to the petition that 38degrees are running which wants to “Reclaim the right to campaign” and asks you to “support the right to protest in areas which are freely open to the public but which are privately owned, such as the walkways of shopping centres.”
You and your organisation may never plan to make use of the opportunity, but we should stand alongside other campaigning organisations who do to ensure that we keep the maximum possible opportunities to exercise the opportunity to campaign in the UK.
Getting action on climate change
Jonathan Powell’s in his excellent book, The New Machiavelli, shares a great example of how a tactic worked to get action on climate change from the UK goverment.
In June 2006, Gordon organised a session with Al Gore and a screening of his climate change film in Number 11 and was terribly upset when no minister would come because it clashed with a meeting of the Cabinet environment committee.
We changed the time of the meeting, and the ministers all came to the screening and then went straight on to their postponed meeting. In a fit of post-film euphoria, they agreed to raise the target for the cut in carbon emissions from the 4 million tons we had been contemplating to 10.5 million tons.
Are top ministers avoiding meetings with NGOs?
Tom Watson has shared a treasure trove of information about who’s getting meetings with the new government on his blog.
Publishing documents previously available only to those with access to the House of Commons library. It shows who advice is being sought and who’s being locked out.
The first few months of a governments matter, because they set the tone, it’s a time when departments are being bombarded with requests for meetings, so only those whose views are really wanted are invited in.
The information from the three of the ministries of state (No 10, Foreign Office and Home Office) makes for unhappy reading for civil society groups, despite the focus on the ‘Big Society’ their hasn’t been a lot of space created for meetings with representatives from CSOs.
The PM has held just one meeting with civil society, a roundtable with 16 organisations to discuss the ‘Big Society’. The only other non-business or media interest was a meeting with the TUC in July and Bob Geldof to discuss ‘development issues’ in June (presumably ahead of the G8) although many NGOs will remember with horror the way the Geldof threw away the script and fell out with many involved in the Make Poverty History after the G8 summit in 2005.
Compare that to meetings with Rupert Murdoch, Phizer, Facebook and Wikimedia, amongst others that the PM has had and it shows more of an enthusiasm to meet with foreign companies and representatives of News International.
Deputy PM, Nick Clegg, seems to have done a little better, attending the same meeting with Cameron to discuss ‘The Big Society’, and also receiving petitions from ‘Take Back Parliament’ and the Maternal Mortality Campaign, along with holding meeting with The Elders, Gates Foundation and the British Overseas Aid Group (a group of the biggest 5 development NGOs).
The same patterns seems to be repeating itself across at the FCO, William Hague hasn’t found time to meet with any campaigning organisations, although he made space for BAE Systems, delegating to junior minister meetings on a whole range of issues including elections in Burma, human rights and Zimbabwe.
The Home Office appear to have done better, with Home Secretary Thresea May holding ‘Introductions’ with Stonewall, Hillsborough Family Support Group, Migration Watch UK and a large group of equalities organisations. Other minister in the department also appear to have been busy meeting with a whole range of campaigning groups, like Refugee Watch, NSPCC and Women’s Aid.
As an aside my favourite entry from the Home Office is a meeting in July that Human Rights Watch held with Baroness Neville-Jones, the purpose of the meeting ‘Discuss report no questions asked’. It raises interesting questions about how the meeting was conducted, and if a cup of coffee was offered to those attending!
Meetings held by other departments are, as yet unavailable, although Tom Watson has promised to publish them if they are. It’ll be interesting to see if the pattern of senior ministers not meeting with CSOs has been happening at other departments, and if this trend continues in the coming months.
NCVO consultation on Freedom of Information
I’ve been meaning to blog for some time about the usefulness of Freedom of Information as a campaign tool. Having used it to some limited extent I can see the value of it. NCVO are running a consultation on how it’s been used by campaigning organisations at the moment. They hope the results will lead to a guide on using it effectively as a campaign tool.
I’d encourage you to get involved and share your experiences – http://forumforchange.org.uk/forum/topics/ncvo-freedom-of-information
Progress reports – letting campaigners know how it's going!
I’ve just (belatedly) come across Oxfam’s excellent ‘Climate Change Campaign Progress Report’ it’s a simple idea, but I think that this the first time I’ve seen it used by a big campaigning organisation.
For much of the last year, Oxfam have been writing a monthly progress report on their climate change campaigning, giving themselves a score out of 5 for how they’ve been doing against their change objectives. Their isn’t much about the criteria they use for reaching the score on the site (if anyone from Oxfam is reading this I’d be great if you could share it), but its an excellent way of giving a snapshot of campaign progress.
Campaigning can be a mysterious process, with decisions made by the ‘professionals’ and requests made of supporters to take action, so I really like the way that they’ve unpacked this in such a user-friendly way. Each month Oxfam takes the time to explains to their supporters about what’s happened, what’s worked and what hasn’t worked, as well as providing more about the context about the direction they see the campaign going in.
Doing this isn’t without its risks. You’ve got to be prepared to publicly admit when you get things wrong (and explain why), you run the risk of going for months getting the same score for impact through no fault of your own (the campaign has scored above a 3 since November 200) and your targets can identify the approach you plan to take but despite that it’s a neat innovation.
Some might argue that it’s a bit too simplistic, that it’s not possible to rank the impact of
campaigning simply out of 5, but in an era where transparency and accountability are rightly becoming important things to be considered I think that view is short-sighted and Oxfam should be applauded for trying to let their campaigners know how it’s going. I hope others will follow, I know I’ll be encouraging the campaigns I’m a part of to do so.
For much of the last year, Oxfam have been writing a monthly progress report on their climate change campaigning, giving themselves a score out of 5 for how they’ve been doing against their change objectives. Their isn’t much about the criteria they use for reaching the score on the site (if anyone from Oxfam is reading this I’d be great if you could share it), but its an excellent way of giving a snapshot of campaign progress.
Campaigning can be a mysterious process, with decisions made by the ‘professionals’ and requests made of supporters to take action, so I really like the way that they’ve unpacked this in such a user-friendly way. Each month Oxfam takes the time to explains to their supporters about what’s happened, what’s worked and what hasn’t worked, as well as providing more about the context about the direction they see the campaign going in.
Doing this isn’t without its risks. You’ve got to be prepared to publicly admit when you get things wrong (and explain why), you run the risk of going for months getting the same score for impact through no fault of your own (the campaign has scored above a 3 since November 200) and your targets can identify the approach you plan to take but despite that it’s a neat innovation.
Some might argue that it’s a bit too simplistic, that it’s not possible to rank the impact of
campaigning simply out of 5, but in an era where transparency and accountability are rightly becoming important things to be considered I think that view is short-sighted and Oxfam should be applauded for trying to let their campaigners know how it’s going. I hope others will follow, I know I’ll be encouraging the campaigns I’m a part of to do so.
How are new MPs adjusting to campaign tactics?
Parliament rose for the summer recess this week, and it’s been interesting to see how the new (and some returning MPs) have responded to all the campaigning actions that they’ve been on the receiving end of.
Exhibit A is an Early Day Motion (EDM) from the new Conservative MP for Weaver Vale, Graham Evans, who ironically used an EDM to criticise the effectiveness of them. Evan’s argues that;
this House regrets the continuing decline in importance of Early Day Motions which have become a campaign tool for external organisations; notes the role of public affairs professionals in drafting Early Day Motions and encouraging members of the organisations they represent to send pro forma emails and postcards to hon. Members; further notes the huge volume of correspondence that this generates and the consequent office and postage costs incurred; believes that the organisations involved derive little benefit from Early Day Motions, which very rarely have any influence on policy;
Only 22 MPs signed onto it although many of them are from the new intake of Conservative MPs, which might signal a disinterest in using them as a tool to register their support for an issue in the future.
Many campaigners have long discussed the effectiveness of EDMs, described by some MPs, who refuse to sign onto them viewing them as a form of ‘parliamentary graffiti’, but others see them as a useful way of demonstrating support for an issue, and a way of giving MPs a specific action to take to demonstrate support for an issue. ConservativeHome has more on the EDM and a counter one from another Conservative MP, plus an interesting case study of how an EDM started a campaign to keep the General Election Night Special, although this came as a result of a campaign that was initiated and of particular interest to MPs.
Exhbit B is this recent report in Third Sector magazine from a Media Trust event at which Charles Walker MP, a backbench Conservative MP commented that ‘Charities often write to MPs asking us to write to ministers to express their disquiet. They assume their concerns must be our concerns. That’s almost bullying, to be honest. Lots of the lobbying MPs are subjected to is blunt and cackhanded’
Going on to say that some charities, such as Macmillan Cancer Support and a local hospice charity in his constituency, were very good at communicating with him. Inviting him to events they are holding locally and saying “It’s almost impossible for an MP to turn down an invitation from a charity that is doing good work in his or her constituency.”
It’s too early to tell if the new batch of MPs are going to be more or less receptive to popular campaigning, but these two examples should perhaps challenge campaigning organisatons to think afresh about the tactics and approaches that are going to use to influence the new (and old) intake.
Top 50 Political Influencers
I’m a big fan of Total Politics magazine. Every month its full of articles that are invaluable to campaigners. This month it profiles the ‘Top 50 Political Influencers’, those key influencers who don’t hold a political office but have an important role in shaping government decisions.
I don’t necessarily agree with the whole list, I think it’s a bit light on influential business leaders, and a bit too full of directors of think tanks, but it’s a useful reminder of the importance of considering the role of those who aren’t elected when looking at ‘routes to influence’.
Spending some time considering ‘routes to influence’ is a key activity in planning a campaign. If you’re stuck for ideas, you could do a lot worse than having a look at some of the lists that Total Politics have produced.