The not-so-hidden persuaders

Aged under 30 with a first-time mortgage and living in a smaller home on a new private housing development or on a modern former council estate? Then be prepared to be wooed remorselessly by Tony Blair. Labour, in an attempt to win a historic second successive full term on June 7, is to target aspirational working class voters rather than the poorest families living in rented accommodation or on sink estates.

Both groups are less likely to turn up at a polling booth than the electorate at large, but Mr Blair believes he is more likely to secure the backing of the likes of Coronation Street hairdresser Maxine Peacock than a rougher character such as Les Battersby.

During the next three weeks the real world of the general election and Labour's Operation Turnout will see the party's targets enduring an onslaught of "blitzing" door-to-door canvassing, direct mail, telephone calls and daily emails in an attempt to ensure that Mr Blair's affection is not unrequited.

Labour will play every trick in the 21st century book of political marketing to persuade them it is worth bothering making it to the polling stations, and everything the party's activists do will have been branded in some way by Millbank.

If the party's Operation Victory campaign in 1997 was all about targeting 90 key "battleground" seats to be seized from the Tories, then the strategy this time is essentially a defensive one based on targeting key voters. Millbank claims there are no key seats in 2001 because the declared aim is to hold every single seat.

The talk instead is of key voters, whose apathy it is said could easily deprive Labour of up to 60 seats, and the bulk of the campaign funds and the high-profile visits will be dedicated to this fundamental task.

As the party's internal documents make clear, Millbank has for the past year been urging every constituency Labour party to identify local Labour supporters who may fail to vote in the election. It has been a four-phase operation. The first two phases were about contacting 50% of the electorate and identifying all first-time voters and Labour voters who had not voted since the last general election.

Prize offers


About half of constituency Labour parties have installed "Labour.people" to dial up members' records, and to ring or write in an effort to get the voters out.

The kind of voters Labour is looking for are "switchers" and "squeezers", in the language of the doorstep brigade. "Switchers" are people who voted Labour for the first time in 1997 and "squeezers" are Liberals and nationalists who have Labour as their second preference but have yet to take the plunge.

Local parties have used the marked copies of the electoral registers which were used to check the names of voters at polling stations in May 1997 to identify supporters who have stayed in their armchairs since May 3 1997 instead of turning out in council and European contests.

Millbank has been offering prizes to the constituencies which build up the best voter ID records, although the incentive of £100 worth of campaign materials might not prove too alluring to some.

Under phase three, each local party was supposed to "build relationships" through personal contact, particularly with the candidate or MP, on the phone, doorstep, or on the street - but, as the strategy documents recommend, for no more than 30 seconds at a time. After all, they want them to get out and vote, not hear their views.

In the final phase, triggered by Mr Blair's trip last week to the palace to seek the Queen's approval for an election, local parties were supposed to hit the ground running in the first 48 hours. "Imagine you are an ordinary voter, travelling home from work one evening. Before catching your train, you buy the evening paper," says a Millbank guide for party activists.

"When you settle in your seat to read it, you see the headlines 'Blair goes to the palace'. When you arrive at your station, you find a Labour party street stall. You are given a 'Vote Labour' poster and leaflet. You walk home, remarking to yourself that they were quick off the mark and obviously keen."

The onslaught has only just started: "You arrive at your own front door and find a letter from the local Labour candidate waiting for you. You open it and as you start reading it the telephone rings: 'Hello, this is Janine from the Labour party.' "

Although some particularly well-organised constituencies probably managed this kind of effort last week, there is no doubt that for most the exercise took place only on paper. Now all parties are supposed to be "keeping the momentum going", the Millbank instructions make clear, with a unit in the party HQ chasing up key figures to ensure that the war plan is being followed.

Local telephone banks are supposed to have been set up, supporting a national complex based in north-east England, to bombard target voters in an attempt to get them to put a cross next to a Labour name.

The party's attention to detail means that even the words volunteers should use during the call have been carefully scripted by head office, emphasising choices such as "stability and prosperity versus boom and bust" and a dividing line between Labour investment in public services and Tory cuts put at £16bn.

This is to be followed up by "blitzing", during which the candidate and a team of volunteers hit a low turnout area to meet as many potential Labour voters as possible. Candidates are supposed to "blitz" at least once a day.

No escape


Nor is there any escape by pretending to be out or actually at work. Your address will be recorded and a volunteer dispatched to knock on your door later. "Follow up every contact made with a letter from the MP or parliamentary spokesperson saying 'It was nice to meet you the other day,'" says an internal newsletter. "Use the notes taken on the doorstep to really personalise the letters - eg, if a voter voices concern about rubbish collection, use a simple handwritten 'PS' that reflects this."

At the same time all printed materials issued by the party throughout the country are supposed to conform to the Millbank standard template. Hundreds of thousands of supposedly personalised but identical "dear switcher" letters are now being sent out under the signature of Labour candidates.

They were mostly written according to the Millbank guide. The Labour brand, or its "visual identity" in the party's advertising speak, is now so centralised and professional that even the typefaces and tones of the party's logos were laid down by Millbank months ago.

Nor is the team appointed to produce leaflets afraid to change the views of candidates so as to ensure that they reflect the official line.

A Buckinghamshire candidate who sent in a leaflet to be printed calling for Railtrack to be nationalised saw that off-message proposal dropped in favour of a picture of a smiling Tony Blair.

As if all this were not enough for the local parties to be getting on with, they are warned to be prepared for a telephone call from regional office telling them that "John Prescott is coming this afternoon, where are you going to take him?"

Local parties are supposed to have already built up "a bank of potential visits - say five in each policy area" with photo opportunities and anti-heckling plans all in place.

Woe betide any party member not ready for John Prescott to drop in.

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