Andrew Mitchell falls victim to Alastair Campbell's "golden rule" about politicians and their chances of surviving a crisis
By J.C.
THE “golden rule” of a political crisis, attributed to Alastair Campbell, states that a politician is done for if the media frenzy in which he is entangled outlasts a certain time period. Commentators dispute the precise point-of-no-return: a week, nine days, twelve days and a fortnight are the most common theses.
Some attempted to apply the rule to Andrew Mitchell, until Friday the government’s chief whip. His resignation came precisely one month after he allegedly called police officers in Downing Street “fucking plebs”. Was this Mr Campbell’s fêted theory in evidence? Downing Street backed the chief whip and tried desperately to contain things. But press, police and opposition were having none of it: the story snowballed onwards. Privately, Conservatives pointed to the case of Jeremy Hunt, who earlier this year was embroiled in the News International scandal. Mr Hunt successfully sat out the ructions, defying the “golden rule”, they noted. Why couldn’t Mr Mitchell do the same?
The answer is perhaps situated in the term “pleb”. The word is rich with allusion: the Classical world, the British public-school system, the linguistic architecture of class difference. Ugly, monosyllabic and easily co-opted into puns, headlines and rhetorical asides, it was the fuel that kept the story running.
Advertising professionals, of course, spend a lot of time thinking about how to capture the public’s attention through such catchy words and phrases. Frank Goedertier, of the Kellogg School of Management, outlines the eight traits of a successful branding slogan. His “golden rule” may tell us more about “plebgate” than Mr Campbell’s:
1. Memorable: is it striking and thus easy to recall?
2. Meaningful: does it appear to convey a deeper truth about you?
3. Likeability: is it linguistically appealing?
4. Transferability: does it make sense in multiple contexts?
5. Protectability: is it distinct to you?
6. Authenticity: does it seem credible?
7. Simplicity: is it short and clear?
8. Adaptability: can it be used to talk about lots of different things?
Whether or not Mr Mitchell said “pleb”, the word conforms to all of these requirements. It is, in short, a great way of branding the government (albeit negatively), an observation that has not escaped the Labour Party. This is not the first time that a memorable term has caused such damage. In 1948 Aneurin Bevan called the Conservative Party “lower than vermin”, a comment that lost Labour thousands of moderate votes at the following election. The Tories embraced the phrase; some formed the Vermin Club in response (Margaret Thatcher was a member). Other examples include John Major’s reference to “bastards” in the cabinet, Stephen Byers’s self-description as a “cab for hire” and Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe in 2010.
Politicians, like advertisers, deal in clipped, punchy language. In each of these cases, the individual in question turned this ability on himself, making an ill-advised comment that broke out of the political bubble and into the consciousness of voters. One poll asked people if they thought Mr Mitchell had used the word “pleb”. 69% did, and only 23% replied "don’t know"—a low figure for such a question.
This is not to say that Mr Campbell’s “golden rule” is otiose. But it does pose questions of causality. Does a politician have to stand down because the frenzy around him has lasted so long? Or because, by implication, the action or comment that provoked it is so powerfully resonant that it marks him, and his party, indelibly? Mr Mitchell’s case suggests the latter.
