Negative campaigning.

TB has pondered whether to even bring attention to this story, but after some reflection it seems worthwhile to note that negative campaigning in a student election seemingly doesn't work. There has been widespread condemnation of a vicious anti-Labour

attack website

and video campaign that has emerged in the final throws of the Edinburgh University student elections. Now student politics is always blighted with posters etc being torn down and destroyed plus the normal backstabbing, but this is particularly harsh. While there are those out there who have suggested, to his face, and behind his back, that TB was the dark master of this negative banter, if that were true it would be a damn sight more effective and a damn sight funnier. TB also learnt his lesson last year, negative campaigning really doesn't work in student politics and here is yet further proof.

So Thomas Graham is a member of

Labour Students

, and on their national committee. He is also a big player on the students association scene and went into this campaign as the favourite. He hasn't exactly bigged up his party affiliation or membership of Unite for obvious reasons, but he could hardly deny it either. Then these videos started appearing:

(Can't work out how to embed them from where they are hosted so click the image to see each one.)

There is a problem with this amateur stuff though, for negative campaigning to work its got to be short, sharp and most importantly believable. The videos are too long and there is no real substance to them, other than Thomas being a member of the Labour Party and the Labour Party being evil. (Why would they think that!? - Ed) The other thing to consider is who really cares? In a student election, a candidate would be lucky to get a thousand odd views by the end of a few weeks of campaigning on their own official videos. Most of those would have been their friends, flatmates, family etc and hacks. The people that actually decide these elections will rarely bother even going on candidates website and base their vote on who they have actually met, who has the best posters, who is the prettiest or equally trivial points. Even the student press have considered this stuff beneath them and TB doubts that site would have had more than a couple of hundred hits, probably mainly from the Labour camp keeping an eye on things.

Other candidates in the election have been quick to condemn the campaign yet they will all know that doorstop negative campaigning is a far more powerful and effective way to get through to your electorate, rather than a video that very few will watch. Liz Rawling's the hard left's candidate said "I don't agree with the Tom Gormless blog and video. It is clearly a biased individual who doesn't even have the guts to put his/her name to the project. Yes, I want to win this election but I don't think EUSA elections should be tarred with negative campaigning of this sort." TB's man Oliver Mundell said "Negative campaigning doesn't work and destroys the integrity of the whole election and I just hope people aren't put off and vote for the positives all the candidates are offering." The other two were unavailable for comment.

TB got in touch with Thomas last night and he was quick to dismiss the videos and claimed he hadn't seen them. "I'm not going to engage in slagging off my opponents- I simply plan to keep going with the positive campaign I'm running, putting forward my ideas for improving things for students at this university." What a difference a year makes too, to think just 12 months ago TB would admit that he agreed with anything that his former opponent President Adam Ramsay said. He was however spot on in this case: "I think students are clever enough to tell the difference between fair political criticism and personal attacks. To complain that I am a member of the Green Party, and that means I'm a terrible lefty, is fair comment. I am both of those things. More personal attacks, or school ground slagging off doesn't add anything to the democratic process, and I don't think students pay attention to them."

In this case TB thinks Adam has hit the nail on the head. Negative campaigning might work for Bush and Obama, but in this country it seems to fall flat at all levels. Think about some of the elements of the 2005 campaign against Blair, the Labour campaign in Crewe and Nantwich, and right down through internal party youth elections, and across the country in the student world. It seems to crash and burn unless done very very well.

Whatever the result in Edinburgh on Thursday, TB doubts this will have made the blindest bit of difference.