Culture Wars
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The third aspect of the Mail’s ‘othering’ of Miliband was to portray him as representing a ‘rejection’ of traditional family values (something the Daily Mail sees itself as championing). This can be found in two separate, but linked, narratives. First, in Ed Miliband’s decision to challenge his older brother, David, for the leadership of the Labour Party, despite the fact that, in terms of political prominence, Ed was clearly the junior partner. The Mail emphasised Ed Miliband’s supposed fraternal ‘betrayal’ with headlines such as: ‘Wife Who Still Can’t Forgive Brother-In-Law Ed’s Betrayal’. 22 From the other side of the fraternal trenches was a piece headlined: ‘Treachery And A Very Bitter Wife’ recounted a ‘dirty tricks campaigns of smears and name-calling both brothers fought against each other’. 23
The other way in which Miliband supposedly represented a rejection of the Mail’s notion of traditional family life was in his apparent reluctance to marry the mother of his children, encapsulated in an article headlined: ‘So Will He Now Marry The Mother Of His Son?’ and ‘Why Isn’t He On The Birth Certificate’ which carried the stark statement that ‘Ed Miliband is the first major political leader in British history not to be married to the mother of his children’. 24
An additional aspect of the Labour leader’s ‘othering’ was his supposed ‘oddness’ – indeed, this was a theme that had greater resonance for voters than did Miliband’s characterisation as being a left-winger. This was alluded to, not so much in headlines, but in asides and pictures. Andrew Pierce, one of the most constant ‘Red Ed’ chirrupers, notes that Miliband ‘could solve the Rubik’s Cube in one minute 20 seconds, one-handed, as a young boy.’ Or that while the mildly less geeky David was playing football with friends, ‘Ed honed his social skills alone in his room, mastering computer games’. 25 In an article headlined ‘The Week That Proved Red Ed Is Totally Out Of Touch With The British People’, Miliband was castigated for reportedly ordering a ‘Britvic orange’ when drinking in Strangers’ Bar with his fellow Labour MPs which, according to the paper, ‘elicited groans all round’ 26 ; or in a diary item that noted how Miliband ‘has an increasing habit of wagging his (remarkably long) forefingers at the Government benches. He could almost conduct an orchestra with those digits’. 27
So how successful was this ‘othering’ campaign? On the attempt to ‘other’ Miliband for his left-wing politics there is some evidence that this failed to catch hold with the British public. When, in September 2013, the pollsters YouGov put a number of statements to voters about how they saw Ed Miliband, the one that secured the lowest level of agreement – just 26% – was ‘He is too left wing’ (Figure 11.1).
FIGURE 11.1 Statements about Ed Miliband. ‘Agree’ is shaded light grey and ‘Disagree’ is shaded dark grey.
Source: YouGov/September 2013. YouGov/Sunday Times Survey Results 26th–27th September 2013, http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zxldrzv2x9/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-270913.pdf. Accessed 8 August 2017.
And when, a month later, voters were asked by pollsters Ipsos Mori, to place Miliband and Cameron on a left/right scale it was clear that, if anything, Cameron was seen to be further to the right than Miliband was to the left. Cameron was placed as ‘right of centre’ or ‘right wing’ by 57% of those questioned by Ipsos Mori, whilst Miliband was categorised as ‘left of centre’ or ‘left wing’ by 54% of respondents (Figure 11.2).
FIGURE 11.2 Political views of party leaders.
Source: Ipsos Mori/October 2013. Ipsos Mori Survey October 2013. www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3282/Public-sees-both-Miliband-and-Cameron-drifting-further-to-theleft-and-right.aspx. Accessed 21 January 2014.
So why did the ‘Red Ed’ campaign apparently fail to capture the public’s imagination?
First, because we are now almost thirty years on from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ‘red scare’ clearly does not have the potency it once possessed. This is not just because the ‘communist menace’ is no longer a realistic threat, but also because many of today’s voters were not politically conscious during the period of the Cold War – communism is something they may have read about in their history books, not something they fear as a realistic and ongoing threat to Britain. In the same vein, the picture of the seventies that the Mail, and other newspapers, have sought to reprise – the three-day week, the winter of discontent and so forth – is equally distant to anyone under the age of fifty. And the fear of ‘trade union barons’, very much part of this 1970s image, is equally distant for many of today’s voters.
However, that did not stop the Conservative party and its supporters in the press seeking to paint Miliband’s successor, Jeremy Corbyn, in the same light from the time he took over leadership of the Labour Party through to the 2017 election. Still, just as with Miliband, the left-wing bogeyman threat no longer seemed as potent. But there are other explanations why the Red Ed campaign, and the subsequent campaigns against Corbyn, did not appear to capture the popular imagination to the extent to which similar campaigns appeared to do so in the 1980s and 1990s.
First, because television news has far larger audiences and greater credibility than the Daily Mail, indeed than of the entire press; broadcasters have, by and large, signally failed to respond to the ‘Red Ed’ or the Corbyn 2017 campaigns, or the other aspects of the ‘othering’ framing of Miliband. But the rise of social media has also been another important countervailing force. Social media – Twitter and Facebook in particular – are now able to offer both alternative views and, at times, robust challenges to the political narrative of the mainstream media. Indeed, one of the major drivers of social media conversations is what the mainstream media is reporting, and whether or not it should be trusted. Former BBC Political Correspondent Nick Jones recently wrote:
While the Daily Mail’s editor Paul Dacre continues to lick his wounds after a mauling at the hands of what he derides as the ‘Twitter mob’, his headline writers have had no alternative but to accept the power of social media. Britain’s national newspapers are finding that the tone and direction of their news content is being influenced increasingly by online insurgencies which instantly reveal a level of public reaction which cannot be ignored’. 28
But perhaps the most important reason why the ‘Red Ed’ tag failed to resonate is that it did not contain the essential ingredient that a nickname requires for it to have any sort of political potency, which is that it must contain an element of truth – an observation that reflects wider public perceptions or anxieties. The tag ‘loony left’ worked, and became part of the national conversation, because for some, it did reflect what they perceived (or believed) to be a reality and possibly a threat. Ever since Stanley Cohen revealed in his ground-breaking study how the popular media thrived on the fear engendered by narratives of outside forces threatening society – whether it be Mods and Rockers, extreme weather conditions, the latest infectious disease or anxieties about a supposed ‘invasion’ of foreign immigrants – fear is a prime media motivator. 29 Ed Miliband no doubt provoked many reactions among British voters, but fear was probably not one of them. Though fear of Miliband forming a coalition government with the Scottish Nationalist Party after the 2015 election did appear to worry some, no doubt fuelled by the extensive coverage this issue received in the media – according to the media content analysis by Loughborough University, it was the second most covered campaign issue. 30
The abuse against Ed Miliband heightened during the 2015 election. A photograph of Miliband struggling to eat a bacon sandwich, with Scottish Nationalist leader, Nicola Sturgeon, peering over his shoulder, featured prominently during the campaign and formed the Sun’s front page two days before the election with the headline ‘Save Our Bacon’ and a sub-head that read ‘This is the Pig’s ear Ed made of a helpless sarnie. In 48 hours he could be doing the same to Britain. Don’t swallow his porkies and keep him out’. 31 There is no evidence that this was a deliberate attempt to replay the anti-Semitic
theme reminiscent of the earlier Daily Mail campaign, but inevitably some made that connection, especially as the same picture had first been used in the Sun a year before (Figure 11.3). Keith Kahn Harris writing in the Guardian observed:
FIGURE 11.3 The Sun front page, Wednesday 5 May 2016. Courtesy of the Sun/News Licensing.
It’s fair game to use an unflattering picture of Miliband – and the picture certainly is unflattering – but why this one? And why use it again, a year after its first use? After all, Miliband’s geekiness provides an embarrassment of riches to those seeking his ridicule. And why point out that this is a bacon sandwich? And then emphasise it with jibes about ‘pig’s ears’, ‘porkies’ and ‘saving our bacon’? It’s hard to avoid sensing a whiff of antisemitism here. Miliband, after all, could be the first Jewish-born prime minister since Disraeli. 32
The Daily Mail and the other newspapers involved in this campaign of denigration, could point to one other ‘success’ – that was, as ongoing polling figures demonstrated, in terms of leadership characteristics, the ‘othering’ of Ed Miliband reflected, or even heightened, widespread public doubts Miliband’s ‘prime ministerial’ qualities. Since being elected to the Labour leadership in 2010, Miliband consistently trailed Prime Minister David Cameron on the crucial personal trait measures – ‘He is a natural leader’ and ‘He is charismatic’. Miliband remained doggedly in single figures on these characteristics throughout his time as Labour leader, whilst David Cameron, and even Nick Clegg, then leader of the Liberal Democrats, were comfortably ahead of Miliband. The ‘othering’ of Miliband was a clear attempt to keep these negative perceptions in the public eye. Given that post-election polling by the British Election Study appeared to show that Miliband’s personal ratings had been a drag on Labour’s electoral performance, it is possible to suggest that the Daily Mail-led campaign of personal denigration of the Labour leader, could claim to have been successful. 33
So overall what, if anything, was the significance of the ‘Red Ed’ phenomenon? First, that even before the rise of Jeremy Corbyn the power of the ‘red scare’ appeared to be if not over, then significantly diminished in the public mind – even if some sections of the media still see it as a potentially useful weapon to deploy against the Labour Party. This conclusion is reinforced by the failure of similar tactics to dent Jeremy Corbyn’s personal popularity during the 2017 election campaign. Indeed, they could well have been decidedly counter-productive.
Second, that the proclivity among some sections of the British press, to seek to undermine Labour support by personal attacks on its leadership is alive and well. One thinks of the personal opprobrium poured on the heads of Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot – that appeared to have vanished under Tony Blair’s leadership – re-emerged during the premiership of Gordon Brown, continued under the leadership of Ed Miliband and greatly intensified when Jeremy Corbyn took over.
Having said that and, despite the continuing perception that the right-wing press – particular the Daily Mail and the Sun – are all-powerful in terms of their influence on the politicians, that power does appear to be diminishing. It is diminishing because there is some evidence, albeit anecdotal that the broadcasters, whose reach and levels of trust among the public far outstrip that of the press, are now aware about, and seek to avoid, being seen as slavishly following the agendas of the Mail and the Sun. 34 But also, because the political blogs and the social media now see it almost as a badge of honour, to trumpet attempts by the press to abuse their position as the ‘fourth estate’.
Following defeat in the 2015 election, Ed Miliband stood down and what followed was a campaign for the Labour leadership unlike any seen before. With four candidates in the mix it attracted a great deal of national media interest, most of which appeared to be focused on either ridiculing the left’s candidate, Jeremy Corbyn or trying to ensure that he was not elected. When Corbyn first scraped enough nominations to stand (helped by political opponents who nominated him, secure in the knowledge that he could not win) the media, like most of his parliamentary colleagues, gave him little real chance of success and the initial coverage of his campaign ranged from a complete lack of interest to mockery. Corbyn was described as ‘scruffy’ and mocked for his apparent Lotharian background – three wives plus a well-documented affair with fellow left-winger Dianne Abbott – which led to him being dubbed by the Mail the ‘sexpot Trot’; not a moniker that was picked up by any other publication. He was also taken to task for his vegetarianism, his devotion of cycling, his allotment and his fascination with studying manhole covers (not dissimilar to Ken Livingstone’s devotion to newts). This mockery soon morphed into a reminder of his ‘loony left’ associations, current and past. As in previous incarnations of the ‘loony left’ phenomenon, journalists ascribed to left-wing politicians words associated with lunacy or madness, indicative of the journalists’ inability to either understand the rationale behind their politics or their appeal to the public.
As Corbyn’s campaign gathered momentum (when spelt with a capital M, this was the clever name that his support group adopted) the Sun, almost admiringly, described him as ‘A true torch-bearer of what was called the “loony left”’. 35 But in a less charitable mood Sunday Telegraph columnist Janet Daley furiously denounced Corbyn and all his works in a piece headlined: ‘I’ve lived under Jeremy Corbyn’s rule – it was what turned me into a Tory; the views of this ‘loony left’-winger resulted in class hatred and Soviet-style stagnation in the Seventies.’ 36 Accusations of lunacy extended to those beyond Corbyn, his number two John McDonnell was described by Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph as a ‘nutjob’ 37 – a jibe for which Warner subsequently apologised. Two days later Matthew Lynn also in the Telegraph tastelessly wrote: ‘to describe “Corbyn-omics” – to coin a phrase that we may unfortunately have to get used to – as “loony left” would be unfair to the mentally unstable’. 38 Nervousness about what was perceived as ‘loony’ soon led to fear and anger. Tom Utley, in the Daily Mail wrote a gloves-off attack of the Labour leadership candidate headlined: ‘What’s Labour Come to When the Scumbag Who Applauded My Friend’s Ira Murderers Is Shadow Chancellor’. 39 But in a familiar trope, it didn’t take the press long to decide that there must be a conspiracy afoot. The Sunday Times claimed: ‘The Communist party of Great Britain has called on supporters to join and back Corbyn as part of its revolutionary ‘strategy’ 40 (one is tempted to suggest that ‘called on both its supporters’ might have given a more accurate picture of the size and relevance of the organisation).
But the Sunday Times also carried some of the more intelligent reporting of the Corbyn phenomenon. On the same day that they were discovering ‘reds under the bed’, there were excellent analysis articles by Sky’s Political Editor Adam Boulton, who described Corbyn as ‘charming and articulate’ 41 and Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor, Damian McBride, talked of Corbyn as someone ‘with great authenticity, intelligence and principle, and with solid and interesting policies to back it up’. 42 As Corbyn’s chances of winning the party leadership began to look more and more like a racing certainty the right-wing press’s coverage became ever-more oppositional. Corbyn was portrayed as an angry representative of the hard left with sinister men in the shadows behind him and readers were frequently reminded of Corbyn’s previous apparent support for the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah.
It is hardly surprising that the right-wing media’s coverage of Corbyn, the most left-wing leader Labour has had in the post-war period, would be hostile; but what was significant about Corbyn’s first leadership campaign was that this hostility was also perceived by many to be found in the BBC’s coverage as well. It is frequently claimed that the broadcasters all too often follow the news agenda set by the national newspapers, with their decidedly right-wing take on the news. Indeed, the BBC’s former Economics Editor Robert Peston has said the broadcaster had grown ‘completely obsessed’ with following the news agenda set by coverage of the right-wing papers such as the Daily Tele
graph and Daily Mail. ‘There’s a slightly “safety first” thing at the BBC – that if we think the Mail or the Telegraph is gonna lead with it, then we should lead with it,’ he said. ‘I happen to think that’s mad,’ he added. 43
During the discussions about the coverage of Corbyn, Paul Myerscough in the London Review of Books observed that the media play a large role in deciding what criteria should be used for judging a political leader’s ‘electability’. He wrote: ‘The hegemon in this respect … is not the Guardian, or even the Daily Mail, but the BBC’. 44 But it is not the case that the BBC is simply biased to the right (or to the left for that matter) but that they in fact have a bias towards the status quo, as represented by what they perceive to be a consensual centre, though it’s a ‘centre’ as seen by elite opinion rather than the public at large. 45 In other words, broadcast journalists in general, and particularly those based at Parliament, have been so suffused with a culture of a politics that is orientated around some mythical centre-ground that they are unable to treat fairly politicians (and parties) that are seen to lie outside this consensus.
The BBC’s coverage of the first Corbyn leadership campaign in 2015 (he faced a second a year later) was criticised by both those in and outside the Corporation. The former BBC Political Editor, and now presenter of BBC radio’s influential ‘Today’ programme, Nick Robinson, was moved to say publicly how unimpressed he had been with the Corporation’s reporting of Corbyn’s leadership bid. 46 He was not alone. Sir Michael Lyons, a former Chair of the BBC Trust, claimed that there had been ‘some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour party. I can understand why people are worried about whether some of the most senior editorial voices in the BBC have lost their impartiality on this’ 47 and similar concern was expressed by the BBC’s former Editorial Director, Roger Mosey who commented: