The sink hole where policy goes to die

In today’s attention economy, the government needs to build a ‘story factory’ if it is to get cut-through.

Policy wonks and spin doctors are two different tribes. They think differently, they act differently. They have different vibes, different attention spans, different ways of looking at the world.

The spin doctor spends his or her waking hours on the phone to journalists, jousting with columnists, trailing speeches, pre-empting bad news. His foe is the political lobby, hostile papers, 24-hour media, viral clips. Spin doctors thrive on pace, intrigue, unpredictability; the wink, the nudge. Information is power. The exclusive ‘treat’ for an obedient journalist or an eager influencer.

For the policy adviser, a good spreadsheet is the equivalent to a splash in the Times. A juicy factual morsel in an Institute of Fiscal Studies report sets the heart racing. A seminar filled with professorial to and fro about social mobility, public-spending pie charts, or patterns of migration, make life worth living. Symbolic policies, while often looked down upon as ‘populist’ or ‘pandering’, are nonetheless seen by the policy guru as their moment of glory: ‘That was my hypothecated tax in the manifesto.’ ‘I was the first to use the term Sure Start in 1994.’ ‘Congestion charging came out of my visit to Sweden.”

Policy advisers see nuance as clever, necessary, essential to a good policy. Comms advisers see it as unsellable, impossible to capture in a headline, a recipe for confusion, wilful misinterpretation, or even, political meltdown.

In 10 Downing Street the communications department is on the ground floor, policy in the attic. Make of that what you will. (Perhaps policy people are better with stairs.)

Spare a thought for the policy process. Work takes months, sometimes years. Experts gathered. Roundtables conducted. Submissions analysed. Evidence Marshalled. Numbers crunched. Charts created. Policy generated. Departmental sign-off. Stakeholder approval. Document written: Consultation document. Green paper. White paper. Pamphlet. Discussion paper. Note for the Minister. Briefing note.

But now what? What happens next?

Down the corridor the policy goes, down those flights of stairs, around the corner to the comms team.

The policy adviser arrives with an aim. To make people truly understand the time it took, the thoroughness, the thinking, the elegance of a problem solved. He or she wants to make people appreciate the layers, what was left out as well as what was put in. He wants the celebratory email from the stakeholder, the pat on the back from the frontline worker, the nod of approval from the Substack of a respected economist.

There sits the comms official. Busy. Answering an enquiry from an influencer about whether Larry the Cat has choked on his own vomit. From an investigative journalist sniffing around the Prime Minister’s decisions as a lawyer thirty years ago. From a podcaster about what Keir Starmer knew and when did he know it. The comms advisers are checking up on departments, making sure they don’t subvert the ‘grid’, controlling what is spewed out by more than 20 government departments. They are compiling briefings for Ministers doing the morning rounds of interviews. At the same time, despite being schooled in mainstream or legacy media, they are trying to come to terms with the speed, pace and anarchy of social media. So, the time to digest vast policy documents is ever shrinking.

Yet, that spin doctor is now meant to read 180 pages of dense prose about leasehold reform, sovereign wealth funds, or floating off-shore wind. The policy adviser is convinced the policy is so well polished that it is the story. And occasionally they’re right. 2p off income tax. Independence for the Bank of England. The introduction of the first Minimum Wage. All need little razzamataz. But most policy - not so much.

So how to launch it? This buffet of initiatives.

The comms adviser asks himself….

What’s the topline?

Will it fly?

Will it create controversy?

Will it ‘go viral?’ The modern day equivalent of ‘will it be above the fold?’ the aim of being in the top of half of a broadsheet newspaper.

This mismatch between policy and comms is structural.

It is the reason good policy goes nowhere, announcements get no coverage, the government appears to be adrift.

It is the sink hole where policy goes to die.

So, what can be done?

The story factory

There is a solution. But it’s not easy.

I call it the story factory. Because humans connect to stories. and good stories stir the emotions and get us to think differently.

The story factory is a place where stories are created, honed, and amplified. It is where a policy document is turned into a heat-seeking communications missile.

The story factory should sit metaphorically half-way along the corridor between policy and comms.

It halts policy on its journey down the corridor, and does its magic, before letting it proceed on its way to comms.

So, what is that magic? What must happen in that liminal space between policy and comms?

Who works in the story factory?

Sitting in the story factory are a group of special people: creative, lateral, maverick.

It is a craft to develop stories, angles, ways of making policy ignite. It is not last minute, it is not about putting ‘lipstick on a pig’, dreaming up a headline on a press release, or reading a Ministerial speech a few hours before it’s delivered and trying to extract some news. It is not to be done in a bit of spare time from the day job, a nice to have. It is essential, the core business of effective, modern communications.

In a nutshell, it is about generating that most elusive of things - cut-through.

The attention economy is relentless, restless, unforgiving. It has upended business as usual comms. But we should be clear, it still ultimately follows the first rule of journalism, or at least the one I was taught at journalism school many years ago. ‘Dog bites man’ is not a story. ‘Man bites dog’ is a story. In other words, news has to be new. It needs to be surprising. At it best it compels you to share it with your friends and family.

These people understand the blurring of politics and entertainment, that humour is a secret weapon, that controversy gets attention.

These are the kinds of people needed in the story factory.

1. A journalist – who knows what news is

2. A digital expert– who knows how to grab attention

3. A writer/copywriter – who makes the language pop

4. A marketing expert – who understands a call to action

5. A campaigner – who knows what emotional power looks like

6. A strategist – who knows how it all fits the big picture

7. A story-teller – who takes people on a journey

And yes, there are some comms people with policy specialisms and some policy people who get comms. They too should be added to the mix.

The factory needs to be properly staffed, properly resourced and given real status. If not set up right, it will be squeezed, ignored, or resented by both comms and policy. The talent won’t always be in-house. And might need to be brought in for these sessions.

And it will require a different kind of meeting - a brainstorm, a workshop. A long way from the familiar half-arsed meeting that goes a bit like this: 30 minutes allocated. People dribbling in past the start time. Too late to hear the purpose of the meeting. Everyone multi-tasking. Half listening, half looking at their laptops or mobile phones, thinking about their next meeting as much as this one. Three types of attendee, some in person (IRL), some on-line (WFH), and some on the move (OTM), creating confusion. The meeting is formulaic. No one is at their best. Most resent being there. Action points are neither summed up nor chased.

This is no way to be creative, or generate powerful arresting content.

Story development requires an extended period of uninterrupted time. Ninety minutes minimum. Pre-reading of key documents a requirement. A space away from the hurly burly. Devices switched off. Post-it notes and whiteboards the tools of choice. Skilful energetic facilitation providing prompts and probing.

Creating stories

The aim is a series of compelling outputs from a menu that might look like this.

1. The benefits of the policy - the winners.

2. The people who will stand against it - the enemies.

3. The problem it is trying to solve - why this is urgent.

4. The emotional resonance - why we should care.

5. The cause we are fighting for - how it exemplifies our values.

6. The creative ways of dramatising why it matters - how do we turn it into a campaign?

7. The political dividing lines with the other parties.

8. The powerful language that will make it memorable.

9. The big argument we are trying to win.

10. The most controversial aspect of the policy - the talking point for a radio phone-in and the hook for a short video.

This last one is perhaps the simplest way of crystallising the aim: have you announced something that compels someone to dial into a phone in and debate it?

But there is something else going on here. Mainstream parties have become too risk averse. Too much is bland and safe. In contrast, the story factory is a place of innovation, of pushing the boundaries, of daring to make waves. It is a place where the creative process is given a chance to flourish. And the result? Good policy does not get sucked into the sink hole.

This is one way of meeting the fresh demands of the attention economy. Creating the stories, the momentum, the dynamism that means government (indeed all organisations) can keep hold of the mic and start to grip the agenda.