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General Election Special: Carl Shoben on Communicating Purpose

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Carl Shoben, Director of Strategic Communications at Survation.

With one day to go before the 2024 General Election, it is my pleasure to share with you the latest episode of the Communicating Purpose podcast with Carl Shoben, former Director of Strategy at the Labour Party.

Carl was instrumental in Labour’s communications strategy during the landslide 1997 election victory that defeated the Tory government at the time.

Carl Shoben is a political strategy and communications specialist with 20 years of experience leading campaigns for the Labour Party, the NHS, and more recently for polling and research firm Survation. Shoben worked as a Special Adviser to Tony Blair, having been a media officer during Labour’s last administration in Downing Street before returning under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership in 2018 – and then overseeing the party’s polling operation in the 2019 election.

In this episode, we discussed:

– How Labour’s 1997-2010 tenure changed the communications methods used in British politics today

– The crucial factor that cost Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour the 2019 election

– The fascinating shifts in voting patterns and polling

– Carl’s rule for leveraging polling within communications

– How Carl took a gamble that restored public faith in an important southeast London institution

You can find the episode on SpotifyApple Podcasts, or Captivate FM.

John Higginson

Founder & CEO, Higginson Strategy

John Higginson is the co-founder of Higginson Strategy. He is a former national newspaper political editor. He is the host of the Communicating Purpose podcast and editor-in-chief of Comment Central.

Interested in being a guest on the Communicating Purpose podcast? Email [email protected]

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