Great article on political communication

Did anyone else read this Johann Hari column 'The plan to save Ed Miliband' last week? Don't be put off by the politics, because I think the article has some really interesting insight into the ways that political communication (and I think we can include much of our campaigning in that) often fail to get through.

Here are a few highlights;

On the amount of time the average person gives to thinking about politics every day - The best research indicates the average person in Britain spends two minutes a day talking or thinking about politics. It's not because they are "thick" or "apathetic", as some people haughtily assume. They have stretched lives. They have a lot to do. When they catch snatches of politics, it has to be clear and plainly expressed. They aren't going to go away and google the terms.

Understanding your audience - The key to all successful communication is to imagine yourself inside the head of the person you're talking to. Look at the world from your listener's point of view. What does what I'm saying mean to them?

Using the wrong words - So he needs to speak in much simpler and plainer language, and assume much less pre-existing political knowledge on the part of his audience.

Understanding the political brain - When Miliband talks about politics, he instinctively turns to rational persuasion first. He uses numbers and statistics and urges people to calculate what's best. But there's a problem: this isn't how our political brains work. When a human being watches a politician speak, the parts of the brain that light up on brain scans are not the parts that control rational thought – the parts we use when, say, we're adding numbers. They are the parts that relate to emotion.

Hari then goes on to talk about the work of Drew Western, author of 'The Political Brain' and make some suggestions about how Miliband might change his approach, and adopt some of these rules into the way he communicated. I'd encourage others to read it as Hari provides a good case study of how we can all improve our political communications.

You might read the above and think it's obvious, but I know as I read the article I reflected on a number of mistakes I know I'm guilty of making in the campaign communications I'm involved in. What do others think? Have others read 'The Political Brain', can we learn from it?