Jun 12 2007
Tony Blair on the media: the lesson is try running the government rather than the media
<p>12 years ago Tony Blair posed as the white knight on the charger. He launched a ferocious Labour anti sleaze campaign on some hapless Conservative backbench MPs, a couple of Ministers and a former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party. He and his colleagues used the media brilliantly. Once in power his media acolytes bullied, pursued, briefed journalists to follow their lines. Their success in managing the media from 1995 until around 2000 was phenomenal.</p>
<p>??What a different figure is leaving Downing Street. Bloodied and bruised by endless sleaze rows within the Labour government, exhausted by ten years of government spinning, bemused that now the press and media have shown some independence and do not always follow the government line, the outgoing Prime Minister moans that we need a new relationship between politics and the media. He complains of a feral pack hunting down the mistakes, misjudgements and worse of this government.</p>
<p>He claims it is all so different today because of the technical changes in media and the more competitive market created by the internet. Does he seriously believe Labour and Conservative governments of the last century did not feel the heat of media pressure when they made mistakes or presided over scandals? Does he not recognise the important role of the press in exposing wrong doing and major errors in high places under several governments of the last century? How does he think we know about the sale of honours by one of the last Liberal governments? Or the Profumo affair under the Conservatives? Or the devaluation crisis under Harold Wilson and the winter of discontent under James Callaghan?</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>The Prime Minister came over as a sad figure, bemused by the strength of media attacks upon him and his government, when he had unleashed such power to ridicule and condemn the previous Conservative government. One of the main reasons Tony Blair has not achieved what many expected of him when he was first elected with so much goodwill and such a big majority, is that he wrongly thought he could manage the media. He would have done better to spend more time and attention on managing the government.</p>
<p>??I want a government that thinks running the administration is its most important task, not dreaming up new initiaitves and press releases to amuse the 7 x 24 media. What Tony Blair has proved is that no matter how much you spend, how talented you may be, politicians cannot control the media or their image in it. Staying out of the media is often a shrewder strategy for a Minister than inviting controversy and criticism. The best way to stay out of the media is to run your department well, and spend most of your waking hours on solving the problems that government can solve, whilst telling people honestly that other problems are beyond the scope of government.</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>There is something amusing about the master of spin departing by saying spin can damage your image. Let us hope politicians learn from the Blair experience. The media have a job to do, and governments cannot control all??of the media all??of the time. So why not concentrate on doing the day job better. Then handling the media will be easier, or less important.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
John
Look around, see how the media has changed. Blair is 90% right on this.
Think about how nobody anymore can “SAY” anything in a news bulleten, rather the “CLAIM” some position or idea - and are by implication wholly less trustworthy.
When the conservatives get into power the situation will only be worse. Recognise that it is what is is (and Blair says it is)and you might have a chance.
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The last conservative member for Croydon North West was virtually invisible and thus deservedly lost to Malcolm Wicks. So it doesn’t help to take avoiding the media to excess.
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John
I agree with Paul. Blairs 90% right. Too often, I get the feeling that story being reported is more about provoking emotion in me the reader than about the truth or relevance.
I feel that competition in the media has resulted in far more sensationalist journalism. One has to approach some of the stories reported in the press with a healthy level of cynicism. The old saying “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story” is certainly relevant in todays media.
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“Then handling the media will be easier, or less important”.
Yes John, but is this not precisely the point? Handling is simply a polite euphemism for manipulating and, in a democracy, that is not and should not be the business of government. Blair hired a team that was extraordinarily good at it and has come to be resented for it. The ‘feral beast’, like Frankenstein’s monster, has turned on its creator - and serve him right.
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I agree with Tony Blair too. In fact, a few months ago I said something along the same lines in my blog - http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com
Yes, smile if you must, but this blog is one of the few which doesn’t want to lynch the PM from Tower Bridge. In fact I’d quite like to lynch half of the press!!
Bloggers are an even bigger problem than the printed or broadcast press, because they swallow whole the ‘legitimate’ press’s lambasting of Blair at every turn.
It is MUCH much harder today than in the past for politicians to have any control over information or opinion or comment in today’s online environment. Blair was not asking for HIS angle to be put every time by all outlets. He would be content with editorial differentiation between fact and opinion, and less sensationalist headlines. This does not happen.
People quickly scan the papers, take in the headline - in The Independent’s case - all the bad news, then conclude that that is all there is. Nothing good to report. No way out, except to take the Indie’s way - hands up - you win.
DREADFUL irresponsible behaviour by a newspaper. I never voted for the Indie or any media outlet to tell me how international politics should work. That’s what my government is for. And if the government gets it wrong, THEY need to sort it out on their own terms not under a newspaper’s intimidation.
And all the rubbishing of the PM’s character and motives for going to Iraq, not to mention the cash-for-honours nonsense where people now assume guilt because of the leaks by the ‘insider’ press!
It’s character assassination in support of a paper’s political viewpoint and should be recognised as such.
The point you make to the previous commenter is fair enough and works for a backbench MP. It wouldn’t have worked while you were Welsh Secretary, though. The Western Mail would have seen to that! And it doesn’t work for a Prime Minister. Even now in Blair’s last weeks, the press hang on his every word. That’s just how it is.
By the way, I am NOT a Labour party member.
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He is 90% right and only has himself to blame, I don’t know what he is complaining about or why he bothers other than to keep the media fed. A debate is born regarding who is to blame for the lousy work (seems to agreed upon unanimously), in one camp Tony Blair in the other The Media. I usually think of those two as being on the same team, they share similar interest in maintaining certain political and economical standards. The debate is bogus in my opinion, and I think we would be better off looking into how the relationship between government and media. Specifically how their ever increasing co-dependence is at least part of the reason so many are losing trust in both and so many really question the legitimacy of our democracies (goes for the US too).
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I agree with your conclusions completely, with one caveat.
The caveat is, that although as you say, Tony Blair ignores his own and other politicians’ part in the shift, nevertheless the dumbing-down, the sensationalism, and the refusal to engage intelligently with substantive issues is I think largely accurate. I refer you to the widespread surprise that Des Browne could make a mistake, admit it (under duress) instead of engaging in the ridiculous yet traditional insistence that he’d do it all the same way again, and keep his job. {http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2007/04/considering_his.html} In what other line of work is “SPECTRE does not tolerate failure” considered an appropriate management style?
I work as an organisational consultant, and one of the recurring themes in my work is encouraging more creative and effective working practices, by moving organisations away from cultures of finger pointing and blame towards solving problems, co-operation and finding solutions. I don’t expect to be working anywhere close to government any time soon.
On a separate point, as someone who voted Conservative in the last election, I find it…disappointing…that Gordon Brown seems the more likely candidate to lead a clear and deliberate move back to substance and due process {See here for the words of a well-known former OUCA President: http://blogs.bbc.co.uk/nickrobinson/2007/06/a_new_and_vital.html} . While in this issue more than any other David Cameron does genuinely seem to me to be most completely Blair’s heir. But then, I’d find Conservative criticism of “spin” more convincing if, just once, they could acknowledge its true originator. Who was, of course, Bernard Ingham.
I’d genuinely like to be persuaded that Cameron is a man who cares about substance, and about due process. I’d love to see him announce that a future Conservative government will prevent any repeat of the Blair era by, for example, producing a written constitution.
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How about banning opinion polls then? That’d make elections more interesting, probably increase voter participation and allow politicans to believe that they will win when they have no chance.
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Mr Redwood, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment.
Interesting what you say about the Western Mail’s political bent. Many have been of the opinion that it is heavily Plaid Cymru and has been for years, probably even when you were Welsh Secretary.
You say: “My task, as I saw it, was not to amuse the media every day, but to make good decisions on planning, roads, schools, hospitals and jobs which would benefit the people of Wales whom I served. If my opponents challenged me to media debate I accepted, as long as it was live so it could nto be edited against me. In the post Blair era we need to move on from whingeing about the media, and get on with sorting out the way the government runs.”
Agreed. Except that even THAT kind of comment infers that Blair is or has been whingeing. This jibe also appears in the hurt, innocent press’s comments on Blair’s speech. But I haven’t noticed much whingeing over the decade, though much of the press fell out of love with the PM and this government after a couple of years. And to be quite blunt about it, considering he’s supposed to be a “lame duck” the government and the country seems to be running along quite nicely thank you. (Makes one wonder if we need government at all!)
Blair prefaced his speech by saying that he is not whingeing but pointing something out for the good of all. I have made a similar point in the past. If this fourth estate is to continue(?) to be respected in future, it needs to differentiate to its readers between fact and opinion and stop the ad hominem stuff. Its constant personalisation and dramatisation of issues means that we switch off, unless we are already switched on to that message, in the same way that you switched off reading the Western Mail (because you understood it was pro-Labour).
But the effect of this drip-drip of personalised criticism can be that we are COMPLETELY persuaded by an argument without really thinking about it, (viz - in Wales and Scotland, the Tories are seen as ‘bad’). In other words - a perceived bad outcome=bad decision=dodgy motives=evil intent=rotten government.
Blair tries to keep away from sounding as though it is about HIS treatment that he is concerned, but I have no reason to keep away from that. Blair doesn’t gain personally by mentioning any of this. It might just be considered important that other politicians do not suffer from relentless ad hominem attacks, although we should never expect the press to remain mute on the individuals. But MPs have been elected democratically on manifestos. Papers may well have their own agenda and they answer to no-one in the end. The Indie might SAY that its attacks have been only about policy but we don’t FEEL that, do we? We FEEL that they must KNOW something the rest of us don’t, but they are constrained legally or in some other way, to tell us, yet. So - power without responsibility?
And as for the online world - it’s a disgrace in places (apart from bad spelling!) Some bloggers regurgitate anything that follows THEIR line as though it is fact, when it’s often only opinion. The Guardian CiF pages are full of this. And their use of violent language, I DO think needs to be stopped. Honestly.
Blair said:
“My principal reflection is not about blaming
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Mr Redwood - I don’t think anyone’s mentioned ‘censorship’, except yourself. You’re not playing the press’s game of conflating personal dislike or distrust with another hobby horse, are you? The PM’s speech, which your readers can view from my site - only refers to the regulatory systems and changes that may be made. But Blair DOES recognise that the internet may come under some international agreement, if I remember correctly. I really have no idea how we do that - better ask Tim Berners Lee! There is undoubtedly a lot of dreadful stuff on there which is more in need of some sort of control than even the plots and threats to do away with democratically elected politicians, important as that may be. And if the child pornography sites can get around the system as it is, well, surely it’s not regulated sufficiently?
I suppose it’s possible that in time the instant publishing of blog comments will moderate in tone or even diminish, once we’ve had some time venting our spleen! But I don’t know about that. If people would only behave fairly and in a more civilised manner towards each other, in the same way that most of them would face-to-face, we wouldn’t need heavy regulation.
Your readers can go here to view Blair’s videos of his speech:
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/blair-blasts-the-feral-beast-press/
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