BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
Page 23
political leadership, but sought to use it to his advantage in a way that his
predecessor as Prime Minister, John Major, had rarely been able to do.
For instance, Blair’s capacity to come over well on television was recognised as a distinctive electoral asset by many party members who supported him in the 1994 contest for the Labour leadership.29 More
important than his telegenic and rhetorical skills, however, was Blair’s
ability to convey through the media an image of leadership which was
consonant with public expectations. Blair tried with considerable success
to portray himself as a combination of decisive political leader and everyday family man, and through media management ‘to define the private so
as to fit a public image’.30 This constructed image thus combined both
‘formal authority and the ordinary “blokeishness” that is so central to his
28 Michael Foley, John Major, Tony Blair and a Conflict of Leadership (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 5.
29 Nicholas Jones, Soundbites and Spin Doctors (London: Cassell, 1995), p. 157.
30 Seymour-Ure, Prime Ministers and the Media, p. 45.
style’.31 During his first term as Prime Minister one commentator argued
that a crucial part of the success of Blair’s style was ‘his capacity to, as it
were, “anchor” the public politician in the “normal person” – the necessary posturing and evasions of politics are it seems at least partially
redeemed by Blair’s capacity to reassert constantly his normal, decent,
likeable personality’.32
Blair actively and consciously sought to focus media attention on his
self-ascribed role as a strong leader by deliberately associating himself
with high-profile policy proposals across the range of government activities. In a memo leaked to the media in the spring of 2000, during a period
when the government was going through a bad news trough, ‘he asked his
aides to provide him with “headline grabbing initiatives” on touchstone
issues that would change public perceptions of the government’.33 Blair’s
highly proactive stance during the war in Kosovo in 1999 and his
unflinching ‘shoulder to shoulder’ support for President Bush in the ‘war
on terror’ in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 were eloquent media manifestations of Blair playing the role of international
statesman. Television news footage of the Prime Minister talking to
British troops on active duty in the Balkans, or visiting ‘ground zero’ in
New York, can be seen as created media events where good pictures were
the principal object of the exercise. In addition, Blair was not averse to
displaying a tough side to his mediated persona in statements on domestic policy issues such as crime and anti-social behaviour. Yet Blair also
cultivated a concerned, emotional side to his image, evident when he
talked about the ‘caring’ issues of education and health as well as his feelings as a father.
As a modern political leader, Blair did not just use traditional news
media genres to get his message across. In a communications environment characterised by the fragmentation of audiences into niche sectors
and the decline in popularity of traditional means of political communication such as television news programmes, Blair was open to the use of
new media outlets and genres. For instance, he was the first British Prime
Minister to use the internet to reach out to the electorate and to seek to
get his message across to the public without having to go through the
potentially distorting intermediary filter of the journalistic process of
selection and construction. The internet may not yet have established
31 Alan Finlayson, ‘Elements of the Blairite Image of Leadership’, Parliamentary Affairs, 55,
2002: 593.
32 Norman Fairclough, New Labour, New Language? (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 7.
33 Butler and Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2001, p. 27.
itself as a routinised medium of political information for much of the
electorate – in the 2005 general election, for example, ‘only 8 per cent of
the public claimed to have paid “a lot” or “some” attention to politics online’.34 Yet notwithstanding this, the internet provides a platform for a
politician to express views which may then be taken up by journalists
working in the mainstream media. Certainly the impact of the internet
on the mediatisation of political leadership in the contemporary era
cannot simply be evaluated by the number of visits by members of the
public to a website. It is likely, for instance, that more voters have heard of
the ‘WebCameron’ initiative through traditional media coverage in newspapers, radio and television, than have accessed the Conservative leader’s
site directly themselves.
In addition to using the internet, Blair also exploited non-traditional
genres in mainstream media to get his message across and to maintain his
image – for instance, in appearances on television chat shows such as
Richard and Judy and Parkinson. In early 2003 he went on MTV as part of
his campaign to make the case for the war against Iraq. Politicians argue
that these sorts of media appearances are necessary to reach out to those
sections of the electorate, such as young voters, who do not regularly
access more traditional media formats for the coverage of politics. This
may well be true. At the same time, in the eyes of critics such media
appearances are exploited by politicians in the hope that they will escape
tough questions from professional political journalists and bypass hostile
interviewers.
Blair’s mediated image involved a complex mix of values, including
competence, firmness and fairness. He made much of his personal
integrity, emphasising the notion that he was a leader who could be
trusted. The aftermath to the 2003 Iraq War did much to tarnish this constructed image, as Downing Street’s role in preparing the case for war was
called into question by some media outlets, including most controversially the BBC, and the question of whether Blair had knowingly misled
the British public became a topic of public debate. These events were a
reminder that the media may help undermine a leader’s carefully crafted
image just as effectively as they can reinforce it.
Almost a year before the 2001 general election, for example, Blair was
given a slow handclap by sections of the audience as he was making a
speech at the annual conference of the Women’s Institute. Television
34 Dennis Kavanagh and David Butler, The British General Election of 2005 (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2005), p. 173.
news coverage that evening showed an obviously embarrassed Prime
Minister failing miserably to get his message across to the representatives
in the conference centre. The story in the next day’s newspapers concentrated not on the government’s proposed policy initiatives – the formal
substance of the speech – but rather on this very public failure of primeministerial communication, the resonance of which was hugely amplified
by being shown on television. Two years later, stories in the Spe
ctator
magazine, the Evening Standard and the Mail on Sunday that No. 10 had
intervened to try to enhance the Prime Minister’s role at the funeral ceremony for the Queen Mother conveyed the impression of an arrogant
Blair trying to hijack the occasion for his own purposes. The fallout from
the episode was again damaging to the Prime Minister’s reputation.35 In
similar vein, when Blair appeared on various audience-participation
programmes in early 2003 to make the case for British involvement in
military intervention in Iraq, he was subjected to some very hostile questioning from members of the public, and at times the Prime Minister
looked visibly shaken by the experience. The strength of his own convictions and of the audience’s views were clearly in evidence.
The Iraq War
The war in Iraq was the single most controversial issue of Blair’s premiership and as such was a key test for the government in its relations with the
media. Prior to the launch of the coalition offensive, the government
sought to use the news media to prepare public opinion for the impending war and mobilise support for an armed invasion. Several newspapers
were willing to act as more or less uncritical transmission belts for the
official line regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.
In particular, the government’s claim in its September 2002 dossier that
these weapons could be used by Saddam Hussein’s regime within fortyfive minutes of an order being given to deploy them was given significant
prominence in news coverage. Misleading newspaper headlines about
Britain’s vulnerability to an attack by Iraq were allowed to go uncorrected
by ministers and officials, who instead could allow themselves to be selfcongratulatory regarding the success of the dominant news framing.
In contrast to much of the press on the Iraq issue, the BBC was
regarded by Campbell as being significantly ‘off message’ in this crucial
period in the run-up to the outbreak of armed conflict. Animosity
35 Peter Oborne and Simon Walters, Alastair Campbell (London: Aurum, 2004), pp. 303–12.
between No. 10 and the Corporation built up over a period of weeks and
came to a head over allegations made on 29 May 2003 by the defence and
diplomatic correspondent Andrew Gilligan in a two-way exchange with
John Humphrys on the Radio 4 Today programme that the government
had knowingly misinformed the public in presenting its case for war. In
particular, in a phrase that was to reverberate for months afterwards,
Gilligan claimed that, according to his unnamed source, the government
had ordered the contents of the September dossier ‘to be sexed up’. This
broadcast, which indirectly led a few weeks later to the suicide of the government scientist and former weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly, was
seized on by Campbell as an instance of inaccurate reporting, which he
argued typified much of the BBC’s coverage prior to, during and immediately after the war. While the government may have chosen to hit out at
the BBC in an attempt to divert attention away from other war-related
issues, such as the controversy surrounding the failure to find weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq, there is little doubt that the government’s anger
with the Corporation was real and that in showing its ire in public one of
its aims was to send a warning shot across the BBC’s bows.
Gilligan’s comments were at the heart of the inquiry led by Lord
Hutton into the circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death. The Hutton
Report, published at the start of 2004, controversially exculpated the government from responsibility for Kelly’s suicide and instead directed its
fire at the BBC.36 With regard to the issue of the preparation of the
September dossier, Hutton exonerated Campbell from the ‘sexing up’
charge. With regard to the conduct of the BBC, Hutton was damning.
Gilligan’s allegations on the Today programme were deemed to be
‘unfounded’; the BBC’s editorial system was ‘defective’; BBC management was at fault ‘in failing to investigate properly the Government’s
complaints’ regarding the Gilligan broadcast; and the governors were
criticised ‘for themselves failing to make more detailed investigations
into whether this allegation reported by Mr Gilligan was properly supported by his notes and for failing to give proper and adequate consideration to whether the BBC should publicly acknowledge that this very grave
allegation should not have been broadcast’.37 The publication of the
Hutton Report was swiftly followed by the resignation of the chairman
of the BBC Board of Governors, Gavyn Davies, the Director-General,
36 Lord Hutton, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr
David Kelly C.M.G. by Lord Hutton, HC 247 (London: TSO, 2004) and www.the-huttoninquiry.org.uk/content/report/index.htm.
37 Ibid., pp. 212–14.
Greg Dyke, and Gilligan himself. The Hutton Report, however, was
widely reported as a whitewash, especially in the quality press, and
despite its official verdict it singularly failed to clear the air on the issue of
whether the government had played fair with the media and the public in
making the case for war.
The discrediting of the ‘spin’ culture
During Blair’s second term one incident in particular appeared to many
to exemplify the unacceptable face of the New Labour government’s
approach to news management: the Jo Moore affair. The exploitation of
the events of 9/11 as a ‘very good day to get out anything we want to bury’
seemed to exemplify a cynical downside to the concern with favourable
media coverage.38 For some critics Moore personified everything that was
wrong with New Labour’s approach to public communication: too much
emphasis on presentation and spin; the short-circuiting of official channels of communication by non-accountable special advisers, always
seeking to secure maximum partisan advantage from every ministerial
announcement; and the amorality of the belief that all is fair in news
management, with the only criterion of success being the quality of the
subsequent media coverage.
The Jo Moore affair acted as a catalyst for a structural overhaul of the
government’s approach to media relations. In early 2004 the report of a
review group chaired by Bob Phillis, chief executive of Guardian Media,
argued that there had been a three-way breakdown in trust between government and politicians, the media and the general public, which had led
to popular disillusionment and voter disengagement from the democratic process. In particular, the aggressive approach of Labour and ‘their
increased use of selective briefing of media outlets, in which government
information was seen to be being used to political advantage, led to a
reaction from the media that has produced a far more adversarial relationship with government’.39 On the particular issue of the use of special
advisers by New Labour, the report commented that many of them ‘concentrate their limited time on the political reporters in the “lobby” and on
a handful of specialists . . . this has created an “inner circle” of reporters
who have good access, but a disenfranchised
majority who do not’.40
38 Raymond Kuhn, ‘Media Management’, in A. Seldon and D. Kavanagh (eds.), The Blair
Effect 2001–5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 94–111.
39 Bob Phillis, An Independent Review of Government Communications (London: TSO,
2004), p. 7, and www.gcreview.gov.uk.
40 Ibid., p. 10.
Among the twelve specific recommendations of the Phillis report was
one for a stronger communications structure at the centre, headed by a
new permanent secretary, and a clearer definition of the roles of the
Prime Minister’s official spokesperson – a Civil Service appointment –
and that of his politically appointed Communication Director. Phillis
thus supported two separate but complementary communications teams
at the centre of government: one a strong civil service-led communications unit, based in the Cabinet Office, and the second a well-resourced
communications team supporting the Prime Minister, based at No. 10
and including both civil servants and political appointees. Phillis also recommended that the Prime Minister’s Director of Communication should
not have Order in Council powers that enable special advisers to manage
civil servants.
With regard to the system of lobby briefings, Phillis argued that the
system was no longer working for either the government or the media, with
ministers and officials complaining about media distortion and deliberate
misrepresentation, while journalists complained about information ‘being
used as the currency in a system of favouritism, selective release and partisan spinning’.41 Phillis recommended that the lobby briefings should be
televised, with full transcripts made available promptly online and with
proceedings webcast. The review also recommended that government
ministers should play a bigger part in the daily briefings rather than official
spokespersons, thus bringing the daily meetings closer to the model of the
Prime Minister’s monthly press briefings.
Blair had already accepted the break-up of Campbell’s role into its constituent parts when Phillis had published its interim report in September
2003, just a few weeks after Campbell’s resignation. Because of the special