Disruptive Proactivity

“Somewhere along the way, however, we seem to have forgotten that causing political change is about action” — Carne Ross in his LSE talk. He continues “we have slipped from a discourse, from a commitment, an understanding, that it is action that changes things, we’ve shifted from action to inaction, or to, put it bluntly inaction: campaigning”



I’ve previously looked in relative detail at what 38degrees were doing in September 2010, and a talk in April about the detail of playing with others — the video is instructive in the detail. Much of it, still applies, although, as the 38degrees campaigning style evolves, some of it no longer does.

This week, with another large campaign under their belt, I took another look.

This was an email petition: to turn the “NHS listening exercise” into a shouting match.

We looked in detail last time at 38degrees’ tool which to let you send some words to your MP. They’ve, fortunately, improved it so that it gets MPs names right in messages. But another change was seemingly made at the same time. It allows them to offer a number of different versions of text, which get offered to signers at random: don’t like the words? Hit reload and they change. Don’t read the words? It looks like you did.

When I suggested that 38degrees don’t send MPs identical text, this change is not, quite, what I meant. But commendation to 38degrees on their attempt to look at the precise wording of the statement, and ignore the spirit (assuming I had anything to do with it at all; I probably didn’t).

However, given that the email petition they last ran only had 4 different sets of text, it is relatively clear that at best, they were only expecting a few letters to each MP. Simple maths suggests that, if an MP’s office received 6 letters via 38degrees a day, then some of those will be duplicates text, and it’s likely one MP’s staff would begin to notice. So it’s only the signers who are potentially misled, rather than the people being lobbied. That could be considered as even worse state of affairs than before.

It’s still a boiler plate text written by a lobby organisation, rather than real concerns of an individual acting on their own concerns.

The more recent “NHS Emergency petition”, asked signatories to tick a box to sign the petition and to confirm their address – to “take action”.

That isn’t action. That is campaigning; and arguably, not very good campaigning.

If I can write a very small perl script to do it, it is not a human act. While 38degrees calls on people to act, and sends emails from action@38degrees.org.uk, it is not action they offer.

NHS changes are possibly the most far-reaching and divisive decisions of this Government (at least so far); everyone uses the NHS in ways few other services match.

There’s a great deal of potential for engagement here. So what did 38degrees decide to do?



Step two on the path to “action”, 38degrees asked for money.

Not an act, not a protest, “Can you chip in?”, with no clear summary of what that money would go to in the context of that campaign.

As others have commented, that’s not enough. And, given the severity of the campaign as stated in their mailouts, questions their priorities.

If taking a 38degrees “action” is more than increasing a number on a press release, they should fundamentally address this as a matter of urgency. If UKuncut can do better, 38Degrees certainly should.

But, in the spirit the emergence of UKuncut, it may be worth asking a more fundamental question, whether the 38degrees setup and style still works in this country.

While the contempt of Andrew Lansley may be considered by some to be a badge of honour, it doesn’t entirely make for a ideal campaign organisation wishing to make the claims that 38degrees make for themselves.

With the advent of a radically different style of Government to the one which it was created to lobby, maybe it doesn’t work any longer.

What would a moveOn.org style organisation, started today, look like? I suspect it’d be very different.