I appeared on Times Radio today and was interviewed by Patrick Maguire. I’ve both listened to Times Radio and been a fan of Patrick’s for a long time, so it was an exciting opportunity.
In the interview I explained my view that too many candidates trying to become MPs list a stream of information about themselves in a way that is unstructured and forgettable: why they love the party, what their experiences are, what they want to do for the local area, why their opponents are evil etc…
I told him that in my time studying nomination races I’ve found that there are five stories that are particularly effective over and over again (and that they can work in any nomination race, in any country).
We ran out of time pretty quickly and so I couldn’t go to explain that the narratives recur because the contexts that elections take place within recur.
I talk briefly about The Protector and The Outsider; if there’s another opportunity I’ll make sure to give some air time to The Egalitarian, The Achiever and The Phoenix.
If you’re interested to know more, buy a copy of Primed – it’s exclusively available from Amazon.
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