Imagine a technique that can heal Britain of division and keep out the hard right. I call it ‘radical listening’

‘There’s a solid rule in life: if you don’t listen to other people, they won’t listen to you.’ Photograph: Dumitru Ochievschi/Alamy Stock Vector

Most people have made up their minds, and nothing you can say will change them: that’s the credo of parties such as Labour and the Democrats. Don’t challenge voters on the doorstep. Use focus groups to find out what they want, and give it to them. Follow, don’t lead. But all that’s on them, not us.

It’s true that conventional attempts at persuasion fail. A meta-analysis and original experiments by the political scientists Joshua Kalla and David Broockman found that “the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising” in US general elections “is zero”. But this says nothing about voters and everything about the useless approach of the parties trying to reach them.