To the US Democrats’ dismay Donald Trump didn’t just ‘squeak it’ to get his second inauguration as President today.
He won a clear victory, amongst sections of the population that the Democrats had too long considered ‘theirs’. Donald Trump was political Heineken, reaching parts other politicians could not reach.
The inauguration will be its own news and this article is not actually about Donald Trump, or America but the Conservative Party here in the UK and my old employers the BBC.
However, before I leave the US Presidential arena, it is worth my reminding you how BBC Newsnight teed up its report on Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.
It was a crafted counterpoint-edit of clips of the great and good sneeringly suggesting, in the years before, that the very idea of a President Trump was a joke – cut together with how he became President.
It was a bucket of ice-cold water down the backs of those that think they know best. Those that assume politics runs on very strict traditions and rules and that voters behave in fixed ways. It was brilliant – the only dishonesty was that many in the BBC at the time were just those people with just those assumptions.
President Trump v2.0 was frankly far easier to see coming, but you’ll find countless examples, not just at the BBC, where commentators and reporters felt it would be remiss of them not to show how they personally felt about the prospect.
In the 21 years I worked at the BBC I always felt the duty to be impartial was more important than my politics. Contrary to popular belief, I think I was one among many who felt the same. However I despaired at how a handful did not, and worse, were repeatedly allowed to get away with it.
Many of them have left now, to carry on doing exactly the same as they did at the BBC, it’s just they don’t even have to pretend anymore. Asked to go on one such post-BBC podcasts, when I worked for him, James Cleverly told the presenter, he didn’t think it worth it because they were so biased. The Presenter was shocked and performatively a bit hurt:
“Now James, that’s not true. We are fair to both sides.”
James smiled and as he walked off replying “Yes, you’re fair to both sides – of the Labour party.” It’s not overweening loyalty to say he was right.
However, and I never thought I’d write these words, the BBC and the Conservative Party have something in common. It’s not a great thing for either of them, but it is a big thing and it is rightly bothering both:
The younger generation don’t like them, aren’t very interested in them, and don’t think it matters much that they aren’t.
The BBC’s problem is a generation that grew up with smart phones and tablets and has not chosen to access entertainment or news via the old heritage broadcast channels. Social media is their newsroom, YouTube their content hub, TikTok the headlines. My own children range from 20 to 5 and none of them watch or use BBC services unless it’s a specific series, usually promoted on social media.
It’s the 20-year-old the BBC is most immediately worried about. Because the laziest most un-strategic BBC response would be “as they get older, they’ll come to us, for the arts, news and Radio 4”. They won’t, and their younger siblings and generations won’t either.
Much as I loved working at the BBC its fate is in its own hands.
On the other hand the Conservative Party has the same problem and it goes to the heart of whether they can really get back on their feet and into electoral contention.
Kemi Badenoch has referred to this problem and her determination to solve it for some time. I applaud the ambition; but she must make it happen, and it has to be done in a way that works.
The warning is most of the BBC’s attempts to get ‘down with the kids’ have had mixed impact. You have to get it right: Authenticity over bad imitation. Don’t try to talk like them, just talk to them. And then really listen to what they have to say.
Without a new generation who believe the Tories have something to offer them, the party will watch its core supporters die off, and see no new blood flowing in. That, I would suggest is the real existential threat facing the Tories despite the column inches devoted to Nigel. He doesn’t do that well with younger voters either, despite Zia’s peacocking tweets, but he wants them just the same as we do. Labour’s grip on the young is not as firm as it once was. Corbyn saw to that.
One of the most revealing experiments I used to run as a BBC reporter was asking voters about values, positions, ideas but without a party logo attached. Having read through a series of statements, but with no idea which party they came from, many found themselves much more wedded to Conservative values and positions than they had expected. Values is the pathway.
The interim Chairman Richard Fuller told ConservativeHome in his 2024 pre-conference interview about a session he’d run about aspiration and entrepreneurial skills for under 30s. Frankly, he was not expecting a huge turnout but come the day the event was rammed. He came away, rightly in my view, with the idea that if you connect with their values, hopes and aspirations, you can get a foot hold among the young that can be turned into votes. Young people have some inherent conservative values we’ve too often ignored.
The Tories have to get to a position where they stand for something that the younger generation want, and the younger generation don’t always want some of what the Tories have traditionally offered. Kemi Badenoch has said she wants to rediscover when belonging to a party was ‘fun’. To some that’s trivial, but in reality, that’s the glue that binds activists and a party together.
Winning the youth vote is not a problem to fix, it’s the problem to fix. Tinkering to tickle the average aged Tory voter now, will be a long-drawn-out political suicide.
As we watch Donald Trump enter the White House a second time, the big lesson is how he connected with groups that traditionally had no time for either him or Republican politics in the past, but this time saw him as the solution not the problem. Let people sneer about a bold idea like the Tories successfully creating an offer for the younger generation.
They’re the same people who couldn’t imagine Trump winning the first time – let alone a second.