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BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007

Page 22

by ANTHONY SELDON (edt)


  government’s case with the news media led to many of them being weeded

  out and replaced in the early months of Blair’s first term. Third, and most

  controversially, the New Labour government significantly increased the

  number of politically appointed special advisers in government departments, several of whom fulfilled a proactive partisan media relations role

  which sometimes brought them into conflict with government information officers steeped in a civil service culture of political neutrality.13

  End of the long honeymoon

  The New Labour government enjoyed an extended honeymoon period

  with much of the news media, which extended well into Blair’s first term.

  As the novelty of a New Labour administration wore off, however, the

  government’s approach to news management ran up against a ‘media

  12 Colin Seymour-Ure, Prime Ministers and the Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), p. 170.

  13 Barnett and Gaber, Westminster Tales, pp. 116–24; Margaret Scammell, ‘The Media and

  Media Management’, in A. Seldon (ed.) The Blair Effect: The Blair Government 1997–2001

  (London: Little, Brown, 2001), pp. 520–6.

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  logic’ whereby in a highly competitive media system, driven by the relentless pursuit of audiences and advertisers, decision-making in newsrooms

  focuses attention on those stories which satisfy criteria of newsworthiness. News stories increasingly tended to emphasise conflict and disunity,

  negative events and Labour personalities in trouble. For instance, the

  persistent in-fighting at the heart of the executive between Blair and

  Brown and their respective supporters provided good copy for political

  journalists, several of whom were happy to side with either the Prime

  Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer in their newspaper columns.

  Some of the toughest news management tests for the New Labour government were in the area of scandal and impropriety, hardly surprising in

  the light of New Labour’s attacks on Conservative sleaze during the final

  years of the Major premiership. Sometimes the government’s exercise in

  damage limitation was successful. For instance, potentially explosive

  stories, such as Robin Cook’s affair with his secretary or the resignation of

  Ron Davies following his nocturnal wandering on Clapham Common,

  were skilfully dealt with by New Labour’s media handlers to minimise any

  adverse publicity for the government.14 Other stories proved more

  difficult to manage. The Ecclestone affair, which concerned large secret

  donations to the Labour Party,15 and allegations of abuse of position

  made against a succession of ministers, including Geoffrey Robinson,

  Peter Mandelson and Keith Vaz, revealed the capacity and willingness of

  the news media, particularly broadsheet newspaper journalists, to initiate

  and pursue stories highly critical of leading New Labour figures.

  Coverage of both Mandelson resignations from the cabinet had all the

  hallmarks of a media feeding frenzy.

  From around the beginning of 2000 New Labour’s capacity to shape

  the news agenda and influence the framing of coverage started to run into

  difficulties as a series of highly problematic issues come on to the political

  and policy agendas. The Millennium Dome fiasco, the successful campaign for the mayorship of London by the rebel Ken Livingstone standing

  as an Independent against the official Labour candidate, the protest

  against the rise in fuel taxation by lorry drivers and the foot-and-mouth

  crisis in the countryside were all issues which New Labour found difficult

  to manage in news terms in the run-up to the 2001 general election.

  In 2000 Campbell passed on the onerous responsibility of the twice

  daily lobby briefings to two career civil servants and assumed a more

  strategic role as Director of Communications and Strategy at No. 10. This

  14 Jones, Sultans of Spin, pp. 244–52.

  15 Rawnsley, Servants of the People, pp. 89–105.

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  move was designed to take Campbell away from routine front-line

  contact with journalists and to remove him from an environment where

  his increasing frustration with the coverage afforded New Labour frequently spilled out into abrasive comments to journalists. Campbell

  argued that the real spinners in the interrelationship between government and news media were the journalists and that as a result the government’s message was being distorted in various media outlets.

  Blair and newspaper partisanship

  A key objective of Blair as party leader and Prime Minister was to try to

  win over and then retain the support of as much of the national press as

  possible for New Labour. The size of this task should not be underestimated. At every post-war general election prior to the 1997 contest a

  higher percentage of national newspapers (as measured by circulation

  figures) than voters had supported the Conservative Party. Moreover, the

  intensity of anti-Labour sentiment, especially in the pro-Conservative

  ‘redtops’ (popular tabloids) and ‘blacktops’ (middle market papers), had

  been particularly noticeable during the Thatcher premiership, much to

  the discomfiture of the Labour leadership. In pursuing his objective, Blair

  benefited from the disintegration of the relationship between the Major

  government and much of the traditional Conservative press in the wake

  of the events of ‘Black Wednesday’ in 1992 when the pound had been

  forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by intense financial speculation. This disenchantment of many newspapers with the

  Conservatives opened up the possibility of a realignment of newspaper

  support in favour of the Labour Party. Neutralising traditional press

  opponents or, even better, bringing them round to supporting the New

  Labour project were more realistic options for Blair than hoping for the

  entry of new pro-Labour papers into the market.16

  In the run-up to the 1997 general election New Labour was extremely

  successful in disarming the guns of the Tory press and even winning some

  national newspapers over to its cause. In addition to disillusionment with

  the perceived failures of the Major premiership, four factors help to explain

  the apparently remarkable change in newspaper partisanship during

  Blair’s term as Leader of the Opposition.17 First, Labour’s ideological

  16 Sean Tunney, Labour and the Press: From New Left to New Labour (Brighton: Sussex

  Academic Press, 2007).

  17 Brian McNair, Journalism and Democracy (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 146–55.

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  repositioning to appeal to the electoral centre ground made it a more

  acceptable alternative party of government for some newspaper proprietors and editors. As a result, little remained of the ‘loony left’ type of story

  which had been such a feature of tabloid coverage in the 1980s.18 Moreover,

  Blair personally was regarded as a strong and effective leader who was

  playing a key part in strengthening the party’s appeal to the electorate of

  ‘Middle England’. This combination of forceful leadership in the service of

  ideological moderation was a winning combination in the eyes of many

 
newspaper proprietors and editors.

  Second, under Blair’s leadership New Labour in opposition actively set

  out to curry favour with sections of the national press, especially the

  Murdoch papers.19 This was in marked contrast to the late 1980s when

  Labour had boycotted News International titles following the company’s

  prolonged dispute with its workforce over the introduction of new technology. As part of the charm offensive, Blair flew halfway around the

  world to give a speech to News International executives. In addition, New

  Labour seemed prepared not to attack the commercial power of leading

  media companies. For instance, speculation was rife that in return for

  support from Murdoch’s newspapers, an incoming Labour government

  would not introduce tough cross-media ownership legislation. While

  there may not have been an explicit deal between Murdoch and Blair that

  The Sun would support Labour ‘in return for promises that a Labour government would leave Rupert’s British media empire alone’,20 at the very

  least a tacit understanding emerged between Blair and Murdoch on this

  issue.

  Third, a more sophisticated approach to news management ensured

  that New Labour’s attacks on Conservative government policy were skilfully prepared for journalists across a whole range of issues. These

  included the running of the National Health Service, rail privatisation,

  the huge salary increases and perks of the heads of private utilities, and

  the Conservative government’s record on tax and sleaze.

  Finally, as New Labour’s electoral fortunes improved and opinion polls

  showed them pulling well ahead of the Conservatives, newspapers had

  good commercial reasons for modifying their attitudes towards the party

  so as to stay in tune with the views of their readers. In a competitive

  market, refusing to support a popular party in newspaper columns would

  18 James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley, Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

  (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005).

  19 Andrew Neil, Full Disclosure (London: Pan, 1997); Joy Johnson, ‘Rupert’s Grip?’, British

  Journalism Review, 9(1),1998: 13–19.

  20 Neil, Full Disclosure, p. xxv.

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  have done little to boost circulation figures among voters, many of whom

  were eager for a change of government.

  The 1997 election campaign witnessed an apparent sea-change in the

  partisan allegiances of several leading newspapers.21 Overall six out of ten

  national dailies supported Labour in 1997, compared with only three out

  of eleven in 1992. So too did five of the nine national Sunday titles, as

  against a mere three five years earlier. Indeed, ‘the support in 1997 placed

  Labour for the first time in a position of disproportionately high circulation compared to its share of the vote: 62% of circulation and 44% of the

  vote, compared with the Conservatives’ 33% of circulation and 31% of

  the vote’.22 The single most important contributory factor to this change

  was the decision by The Sun to overturn more than twenty years of proConservative sympathies and move straight across into the pro-Labour

  camp. Because of its huge circulation and its unbridled hostility to

  Labour since the mid-1970s, the support for New Labour expressed by

  The Sun in 1997 had immense symbolic significance, even if its impact on

  voting behaviour is open to question. Yet the qualitative nature of the

  shift in newspaper partisanship in the 1997 campaign should not be overstated. The Sun was the only national daily which moved straight across

  from openly supporting the Conservatives in 1992 to calling for a Labour

  victory five years later.

  In the 2001 campaign even more national titles supported Labour than

  in 1997, giving the impression that press support leant heavily towards

  Labour to the detriment of the Conservatives.23 However, despite the

  massive quantitative advantage Labour enjoyed in terms of both number

  of titles and circulation figures, in qualitative terms newspaper support

  for Labour during the 2001 campaign ‘was generally subdued, often qualified and sometimes critical’.24 By the time of the 2005 general election,

  Labour’s support in the press had declined, with the two Express titles and

  the Sunday Times returning to back the Conservatives. The complexity of

  newspaper partisanship remained evident, with traditional newspaper

  party loyalties being subjected to strain in the wake of Blair’s handling of

  the Iraq War issue. There was strong evidence of negative partisanship,

  21 Margaret Scammell and Martin Harrop, ‘The Press’, in D. Butler and D. Kavanagh, The

  British General Election of 1997 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).

  22 Colin Seymour-Ure, ‘Newspapers: Editorial Opinion in the National Press’, in P. Norris

  and N. Gavin (eds.), Britain Votes 1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 80–1.

  23 David Deacon, Peter Golding and Michael Billig, ‘Press and Broadcasting: “Real Issues”

  and Real Coverage’, Parliamentary Affairs, 54, 2001: 666–78.

  24 Margaret Scammell and Martin Harrop, ‘The Press Disarmed’, in D. Butler and

  D. Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2001 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 156.

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  often expressed in highly personalised terms of anti-Blair (for instance

  the Daily Mail), although criticism of the Prime Minister by several newspapers (including the Daily Mirror) did not necessarily persuade them to

  support the Conservative alternative in 2005.25

  Under Blair’s leadership, therefore, it is clear that New Labour was successful in decoupling longstanding ties of support between certain newspaper titles and the Conservatives. At the same time, press support for

  Blair and New Labour was less committed and wholehearted than that

  enjoyed by Thatcher and the Conservatives during the 1980s. Some newspapers, such as the Telegraph and Mail titles, were never won over to the

  New Labour cause. The Sun provided conditional support, but on the

  issue of Europe could be – and frequently was – extremely critical of any

  initiative that smacked of supranational integration. In 1998 it even portrayed Blair as ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’26 because of his stance

  on the single currency, and five years later led on its front page with the

  headline ‘Blair surrenders Britain to Europe’ in commenting on his

  stance on the EU constitution.27 Moreover, The Sun was generally more

  supportive of Blair personally than of New Labour as a whole.

  As some newspapers drifted away from New Labour in tandem with

  Blair’s diminishing electoral popularity, it was clear that the Blair era had

  not seen a structural realignment of national newspaper partisanship but

  rather a more muted partisan de-alignment. Faced with declining circulations in highly competitive market sectors, newspapers have become

  more fickle in unconditionally backing a particular party. Party leaders

  increasingly have to negotiate for newspaper support on an issue-byissue basis with owners and editors who keep as close an eye on public

  opinion and consumer trends as do politicians.

  The mediatisation of Blair’s leadership

  In the highly developed political communication networks
of advanced

  democracies, key political actors such as heads of government and leaders

  of the major parties have to devote a considerable amount of time and

  energy to news media activities. One aspect of this attentiveness concerns

  the projection and maintenance of a well-defined leadership image in

  the mediated public sphere. This is because the media have exerted an

  25 John Bartle, ‘The Labour Government and the Media’, in J. Bartle and A. King (eds.),

  Britain at the Polls 2005 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006), pp. 124–50.

  26 The Sun, 24 June 1998.

  27 The Sun, 15 May 2003.

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  important influence on the emergence of a clear ‘leadership dimension in

  contemporary British politics’ which ‘has established the meaning and

  value of leadership as a political issue in its own right’.28 As voters have

  become less aligned with political parties, the role of the leader in influencing electoral perceptions, attitudes and behaviour has grown. A

  popular leader, like Blair in 1997, attracts voters, while an unpopular one,

  like Blair in 2005, repels them.

  Much of the British news media, notably the tabloid press and television, tend to personalise political issues and to focus overwhelmingly

  on the role of leadership figures in their coverage of politics. Prime

  Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons, for example, is an

  occasion for the two main party leaders to go head-to-head in a competitive contest in front of the television cameras, with an edited version of

  their exchange being served up in the main evening news programmes

  and in press coverage. Journalists frequently evaluate the performance of

  the two leaders as they would boxers in a championship fight, assessing

  whether either managed to land a knockout punch, while opinion polls

  constantly measure the public’s evaluation of leadership performance.

  More importantly, many policy issues are now presented and interpreted

  by the media through the prism of their impact on a leader’s authority

  and electoral popularity. While there is no single template for success in

  the mediatisation of leadership, an image that is weak, blurred or incoherent is potentially highly damaging.

  Blair not only understood this media dimension of contemporary

 

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