Ian H
Legendary Member
"...one of Downing Street's newer recruits [is] David Canzini, a former colleague of Lynton Crosby. Canzini's instructions to his cohorts have a daunting clarity: 'Find the wedge issues in your department and hammer them.' The concept of the 'wedge issue' has been familiar in Australia and the US for twenty years or so, but is rather new in the UK. The trick is to find a policy which repels the minority who were never going to vote for you but which will harden and broaden your support with the majority, who are no longer the silent majority because you are speaking up for them. This is the technique practised by populists everywhere - Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán. Whether the proposed policy actually works is beside the point; the question is whether it drives the wedge into the right place. Lord Sidmouth would have understood perfectly. He only lacked the name for it."