‘Are there gaps in our “pyramid of engagement”?’ ‘How do we “reuse the wheel”?’ ‘Can we be “digital by default”?’ These were the questions circulating somewhere in the ether above a crowded room of thinktankers gathered together on the initiative of Social Market Foundation at the Overseas Development Institute London headquarters in close partnership with IPPR as they sought to explore The Future of Thinktank Communications. Representatives of the ODI, IPPR and The Economist spoke about how they had adapted to the digital age – often gingerly at first, bolting digital activity on to the side of an organisation’s usual way of doing things. But there was felt to be a growing recognition that tanks’ internal processes have to change to be ‘digital by design’ with research and communications functions coming ever closer together. One speaker related the internal battles he had faced inside his organisation to bring such change about.
Thinktanks are in close competition for column inches and resources, but the event also highlighted the increased opportunity for cooperation between tanks, not least through the fast-moving medium of Twitter which can act as an echo chamber for one’s research like no other. And given the nature of the discussion, the chair of the event urged all attendees – not – to turn off their mobile phones, but instead to tweet and Facebook away. The appropriately chosen hashtag #wonkcomms was soon trending in the capital and then, later, also in the UK. For the digitally inclined, readers can find out more at wonkcomms.net and stay update by following @WonkComms on Twitter.
In other news, Compass caused a stir by asking ‘What if Labour wins?’ Its report, Future Shock: Governing as One Nation Labour, was bleak, if realistic, in its conclusion that ‘Labour in power could rapidly face a series of political battles that render it isolated and weakened. This would provoke internal disunity and reawaken old arguments about the party’s purpose and direction. Labour cannot overcome its opponents alone and needs to reach out to allies both within the UK and beyond.’ It is correct in its warning that Ed Miliband needs to secure a ‘clear electoral mandate’ in order to govern successfully, something which Progress’ own Campaign for a Labour Majority seeks to achieve. Compass remains, however, much more open to collaboration with the Liberal Democrats, unsurprising since its move in 2011 to allow Greens, Liberal Democrats and others to join it. Future Shock recommends that ‘the shadow cabinet should avoid opportunistic sniping at Liberal Democrats’ and that ‘Labour should be mindful of the fact that some Liberal Democrat MPs entered the coalition with the Tories because they felt the Labour party was not willing to work in partnership with them.’ Whether the fault lies at Labour’s door is debatable, but in anticipation of 2015 general election Compass wishes to see the party ‘emulate the pre-election contacts that took place prior to 1997 between Robin Cook and Robert Maclennan’ in preparation for an eventuality whereby the party does not gain a parliamentary majority.
Elsewhere, Compass and Progress jointly hosted an event with the Labour party policy review, New or Blue, Radical or Conservative? as part of an event series entitled One Nation Labour Modernisation. Times columnist and former chief speechwriter to Tony Blair, Philip Collins, and blue Labour guru, Maurice Glasman went head to head. Choice quotes from each include Collins opening by explaining how he is ‘always critical of people in leftwing seminars for their torrent of abstract nouns’, and his critique of the Labour’s chosen defining motif: ‘I like One Nation. I think it’s exactly the right number of nations’, he declared. Glasman defended blue Labour’s central conception of the ‘common good’ which Collins called into question, but prefaced the main thrust of his speech by lambasting the ‘bullying Brezhnevite tactics’ that he had witnessed of late being used to ‘silence Progress’ and expressed his ‘solidarity’. Visit compassonline.org.uk to listen to the debate in full and do not forget to sign up to the next event in the series on 14 May with Andrew Adonis, chair of Progress, and Hilary Wainwright, fellow of the Transnational Institute and founding editor of Red Pepper magazine.
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