News yesterday that the Tories are targeting online ads on Match.com by income band so people negatively affected by Labour's national insurance plans see an ad telling them what a disaster the policy will be for them.
Once the implications of the campaign are properly understood in Whitehall and Downing Street the impact of this advertising strategy on government policy-making is likely to be disastrous.
Any government policy creates winners and losers. Necessarilly, a tax policy that is redistributive takes money from some voters and gives it to some others. A planning policy that plays up to one bunch of vocal NIMBYs will disadvantage their slightly less vocal neighbours. A spending policy that cuts back services in lean years will leave some voters with fewer services. So it goes, so it must go - policy is made (democracy optimists might claim) by balacing the greater good with the minority loss, or (democracy cynics would say) by balancing votes gained against votes lost.
But as soon as parties start targeting just those who lose out...well, no policy will be allowed to have any losers at all. Or even any perceived losers, potential losers or possible losers. Every policy will have to be good for everyone, or good for everyone that ad targeting is sophisticated enough to isolate. Need to make a decision that hammers just one town? Your opponents can target ads by potcode. Need to make a decision that will be good for everyone except men under 34 on exactly £57k a year? If there's a thousand of them online and the Opposition are paying attention, that's a thousand votes lost. Welcome to a new period of even blander policy-making from the next government, at a time when unpopular decisions are vitally necessary.
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