Pointless Campaigns

The grief-led policy business is bad for our politics

A couple of days ago, The Times featured an interview with Southport attack survivor Leanne Lucas. At the centre of it was the new campaign she is fronting – Let’s Be Blunt. This calls on individuals, companies, and the government to move away from pointed knives to those with rounded and blunt ends. Its aims are a little vague, seemingly not yet pushing for legislative change, but it overlaps with other campaigns that have called for them to be banned.

Now, nothing herein is said with any malice towards Ms Lucas. She has experienced an unspeakably terrible event. She demonstrated exemplary bravery in the face of a barbaric attack and suffered significant mental and physical harm. She deserves our utmost sympathy. I can completely understand the lingering effects of the attack and her desire to do something to prevent it from happening again. Her campaign is, however, misguided. It is also an example of how others in public affairs are exploiting vulnerable victims for their own ends rather than cynically sweeping them up in political campaigns.

The campaign forms part of an increasing trend of victim-led campaigns. These leverage sympathetic cases, especially those in the national spotlight, to push for poorly thought-out reactions. They are used to drive campaigns that would not get a hearing on their own merits. These campaigns often pursue bad or muddled policy objectives. Beyond that, they can unfairly co-opt people thrust into the limelight by their own trauma and keep them there, advancing a cause that they don’t necessarily understand. The result is rarely good for governance and probably not great for those who get pulled into it.