Derek Draper - Assistant to Peter Mandelson 1992-1995 - The point about focus group politics is that there isn't one because people are contradictory and irrational and so you have a problem in terms of deciding what you are going to do if all you do is listen to a mass of individual opinions that are forever fluctuating and don't really have any coherence and crucially are not set in contact. So that's why people can say you know I want lower taxes and better public services. Well of course they do. You know you say do you want to pay more taxes to get better public services and people are less sure. They then don't believe that if they pay more taxes they will be spent on better public services. So you end up in this quagmire and the truth is the politicians have to say look this is what I believe, I believe you should pay slightly more taxes to make better public services and I pledge that I am competent enough to use that money wisely do you want now to vote for me yes or no. And that's what Blair has failed to do. Tony Blair turned around and tries to feed back to them what they already believe and give them what they believe is sort of an individual incoherent contradictory nonsense and that's all he has to offer. And then he wonders why people don't get him. It isn't that they don't get him it's that they're looking for someone to do something that they can't do themselves which is actually come up with a coherent political opinion that they might have faith in.