Alistair Campbell | ukwatch.net

The Future of Spin

Ellie Keen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:26:36 +0000

Conservatives would perpetuate New Labour control freakery

Hand to hand combat between the government and political correspondents would continue if the Conservatives were elected because an administration led by David Cameron would be just as determined to try to control the news agenda. This was the conclusion of journalists and press officers at a seminar held by the Westminster Media Forum (1 July, 2008). The two sides felt that the politicisation of civil service information officers, and the likelihood that any future government would find itself on the defensive, meant that further trench warfare was inevitable.

There had been a fundamental shift under New Labour because Tony Blair’s government realised that unless it imposed control over the flow of information from the state to the public it would be “torn apart” by the media.

Opening up the Downing Street lobby system to televised briefings was put forward as one option for improving the government’s relations with the media. David Hill, who was Alastair Campbell’s successor as Blair’s director of communications, said the existing structure of lobby briefings for political correspondents had become counter-productive.

He proposed that the twice-daily briefings should be opened up to public scrutiny and whenever possible a senior minister should attend to answer the key questions of the day. Guidance given by the Downing Street spokesman would not only be on the record but televised. And, by forcing senior political correspondents to ask their questions in public, the government would be adding another element of transparency.

Hill, now a director of the Bell Pottinger group, said the problem with the existing system of briefings was that they had become “almost wholly defensive” and rarely gave the government the opportunity to get on the front foot. Because of the frisson caused by the briefings within the Whitehall machine, government departments were only asked to supply defensive information for the rebuttal of questions and civil servants found the process was entirely negative.

A description of how the civil service was politicised was given by Eben Black, formerly political editor of the News of the World and now a director and head of media at the public affairs practice DLA Piper. Black said that soon after Labour won the 1997 general election he telephoned the Department of Education and asked for a county by county breakdown of school class sizes.

With ten minutes of the call he was rung back by Conor Ryan, special adviser to the Secretary of State, David Blunkett, and asked why he wanted the information. A Labour spin doctor was checking out the reason for his request in a way which would never have been done by a civil service information officer.

“Given the intensely political way in which the Whitehall information machine has to operate under Labour, I think a Conservative government would behave in precisely the same way. The days of an impartial relationship between the civil service and the news media have gone and given that Whitehall is no longer above the political fray, I think there will never be anything but war between government spin doctors and journalists”.

Tony Collins, executive editor of Computer Weekly, said he had detected an increasingly aggressive mentality on the part of government press officers. “We often get supplied incorrect information. We know ministers are given incorrect information…the Prime Minister has even been given incorrect information about the NHS computer system”.

Collins claimed that another ploy used by government press officers was to tell Computer Weekly that news conferences were full and there was no more space. “I was told one press conference would not be of interest to Computer Weekly…at another a press officer barred my way. I have seen manipulation of information and control of journalists which I have never seen before”.

Although David Hill was not optimistic about the chances of any future government establishing a more stable relationship with the media, he was still convinced that the government would like to be more open and transparent. But given the fiercely competitive nature of an increasingly fragmented media, all governments would continue to be under pressure.

It would be harder for governments to respond if there was no incentive from the media to offer a calmer analysis. Whitehall press officers were ultra cautious because they feared they would get into difficulty.

“There should be confidence in the government to field officials who have detailed information and who could answer questions but Whitehall falls down and fails to deploy them because they are fearful of being identified and personally attacked in the media”.

The Power and Patronage of the British News Media

Ellie Keen — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:37:15 +0000

Does the power and patronage of the British news media constitute a democratic safeguard?

Any attempt to try to understand what is so different — dare I say unique — about the relationship between British politicians and the news media, has to begin by acknowledging the impact of campaigning journalism. Unlike the press in so much of the world, British newspapers are quite prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to expose wrongdoing and to promote what they believe are popular causes. Once a newspaper puts its full weight behind a chosen campaign, the news of the day can take second place to the propaganda. Over the years, the popular newspapers have claimed many a scalp: they can — and quite regularly they do — force policy changes to be made by the government of the day.

Editors of mass-circulation tabloids like to stress the importance of their role. They believe they are on the side of the public, against the might of the state, and they use their power and influence in ways which we don’t often see in the press of other leading countries. British politicians do acknowledge the significance of campaigning journalism and although they are often ridiculed and damaged in the process, they do grudgingly defend the freedom of the press. This leads on to other important questions: Does the British news media, despite its trivialisation and sensationalism, serve the democratic process? Is Britain governed more effectively because the media — and especially the newspapers — exercise the power of political patronage and support, especially during general election campaigns?

There is nothing new in the way the newspaper owners — the press Barons as they were once described — have used their papers for propaganda purposes. It has been happening for years. Nor is there anything new about the close relationships which have developed — and sometimes foundered — between Prime Ministers and media proprietors. Rupert Murdoch is the latest in a long line of media bosses who have chopped and changed in their political allegiances in order to protect their commercial interests. But we should not under-estimate the power of the press in the British context. I have long argued that a Prime Minister with a large Parliamentary majority and the support of the press can be all-powerful.

In the 1980s, the then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had an overwhelming majority at Westminster. But it was the near-unanimous support of the press which made her nigh on invincible in the early years of her Premiership when she succeeded in virtually smashing the power of the trade unions; when she pushed ahead with privatisation by breaking up the state-owned industries and selling them off; and when she introduced the flexible employment laws which gave the British economy such a boost in comparison with European neighbours such as France, Italy and Germany. Equally powerful was the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair who went ahead in 2003 in committing British troops to support the American invasion of Iraq despite widespread public opposition.

What has to be remembered was that despite the unpopularity of the war against Iraq, Blair still retained widespread support in the press for military action, especially in the newspapers of Rupert Murdoch. So here we see a clear illustration of my belief that for good or for ill, the newspapers of Britain do play a significant role, they do exercise considerable influence when governments seek to act decisively. We do not see the same degree of interaction in many other European democracies, where the press is not so powerful and where there are weak, coalition governments. So a strong British government, working hand in hand with a sympathetic press, can bring about significant change within the country.

The question that has to be answered is whether you think this constitutes a democratic safeguard, whether you think it leads to better government. The power of the press explains why Britain is one of those countries — again for good or for ill – which is at the cutting edge in the development of media manipulation, most recently through the use of spin doctors like Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell. Britain has always been strong on advertising and public relations and that is why the communication techniques used here — especially when it comes to the government trying to influence, even dictate the news agenda — attract so much interest.

The point which we have reached is that the state — and especially the opposing political parties — believe they have to compete in the media market place if they are to stand any chance of securing public attention. No wonder that in 1997, once he was installed in Downing Street as Tony Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell’s first task was to re-write the rule book for government information officers, instructing them to "grab the agenda" by leaking new policies and decisions even before ministers had made their announcements to Parliament. But first let me put the work of the spin doctors in context, to explain why they are considered so necessary.

If there is one characteristic which marks out British newspapers from their counterparts around the world it is their ability to command the news agenda. Indeed the British press is by far the most inventive and perhaps the most sensational when it comes to the art of manufacturing exclusive stories which are often very effective in grabbing the headlines. And, more often than not it is the news media which has the upper hand. Editors of mass circulation newspapers and producers of popular television programmes believe they are serving the democratic interest by exposing the inadequacies of government administration.

It is in this way, by forcing British politicians to answer the questions posed by the news media, that journalists believe they help make the government of the day more accountable to the public. British newspapers are quite prepared to manufacture their own news: no investigation or publicity stunt is off limits; and such is the lack of respect and deference for the national institutions of the country that nothing is sacred when it comes to challenging authority. Officials working for the state, whether at a central or local level, are always a favourite target. Indeed anyone in British officialdom is well aware that exposure in the media for wrong doing can be extremely embarrassing and can often result in their dismissal from employment.

If journalistic endeavour fails to deliver a story there is always what is known as cheque-book journalism to fall back on. British media companies are among the most profitable in the world and certainly have some of the deepest pockets when it comes to buying up sensational information, pictures or interviews. Such is the strength of the competition between media outlets, that it is exclusive stories which command the highest price. While the popular papers delight in printing dramatic and often intrusive disclosures, especially about the private lives of footballers or celebrities, the serious press have their own distinct preferences.

Stories based on campaigns and investigations; exclusive interviews with politicians and prominent public figures; and the findings of opinion polls and surveys provide a regular supply of editorial material for what is known as the quality press. British newspapers are often outrageous and irresponsible but they do have the knack of treating important issues in popular ways and because the daily readership of the press is far higher in the United Kingdon than in many comparable countries there is a high level of public awareness on topical issues. Because of the impact they can achieve, newspapers in the United Kingdom exercise a considerable degree of influence over the way stories are covered on radio and television.

Indeed the front pages of next morning's papers are often news items in themselves and the varied press coverage is discussed regularly in late-night and early-morning current affairs programmes. But the desperate desire of the media to try to dictate the news agenda has become such an overpowering addiction that it has opened the door to all sorts of influences which are not always understood by readers, viewers and listeners. Perhaps not surprisingly British journalists are not at all keen to discuss the behaviour of the hidden information pushers who have become so successful in feeding their habit by supplying exclusive stories. It is difficult to know where to start in the hit parade of "world exclusives" which have filled the front pages of the popular press.

Perhaps I should begin at the top with the Queen and Buckingham Palace. Under the red banner headline "Intruder" over the picture of a palace flunkey, the Daily Mirror published its scoop about the "biggest royal security scandal ever". It was the story of how a Mirrorman, reporter Ryan Parry, had been working as "a palace footman for two months….and was able to prepare the Queen’s breakfast and take pictures of the bed which President George Bush slept in" the previous night. ( Daily Mirror 19.11.2003) The aim of the story was to expose the lack of security at Buckingham Palace but using a reporter to invade the Queen's privacy was not a tactic which would have been permitted in many other countries.

For example, such is the respect for the office of the American President and the sanctity of the White House that such an escapade would have been unthinkable in the USA. But the trick of asking a reporter to fool the authorities so as to expose weaknesses in security and highlight potential dangers to the public is hardy perennial for British newspapers. The Sun used the same technique two years later in another world exclusive on the eve of Prince Charles’ wedding to Camilla: "Gatecrasher in the Castle: 72 hours before the wedding…Sun man drives fake bomb up to the Queen’s apartment" (Sun 7.4.2005).

We see the same ploy again in the aftermath of the row about whether Muslim women should be asked to remove their veils and the news report that a terrorist suspect had left the country disguised as a woman in Islamic dress. "Wearing a burka and carrying a handbag, bomber at bus station" was the Sun's headline. The temptation was irresistible: "Hidden Danger" was the subsequent headline on an exclusive story about the "veiled Sun girl waved through UK airport" in a security shambles which revealed that airport staff had failed to ask her to lift her veil. (Sun 9.10.2006). What was so troublesome about this particular stunt was that the Sun knew full well that it was not only being alarmist but was also perhaps making life uncomfortable for Muslim women who choose to wear veils.

Whenever the popular papers are challenged about the ethics of their reporting the editors insist their job is to reflect public opinion. Some British people do fear that Muslim extremists might be terrorists and no doubt the Sun would claim vindication with its headline the following year "Bomber in a Burka" reporting precisely what it had claimed. (Sun 16.1.2007) The issue of veiled women excites the tabloids. One picture used again and again is of a group of young Muslim mothers in Birmingham, all veiled and one of whom gives the V sign when they were stopped in their tracks by a newspaper photographer. The headline says it all: "Raging against decadent Britain. And hungry for the harshness of Sharia law." (Daily Mail 3.2.2007).

But the tabloids do make a stand against racism, especially in sport. "Lewis in Racism Storm" was the Sun’s front-page headline (4.2.2008) when it broke the story about racists at the Barcelona circuit blacking their faces to taunt the Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton. No expense is spared when it comes to some of the imaginative stunts which take place. "The End: Moment justice caught up with Ronnie Biggs thanks to the Sun" (8.5.2001) was the headline over the exclusive story about how Sun tracked down the Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs at his hideaway in Rio de Janeiro, hired a private plane and flew him back to Britain where reporters handed Biggs over to the Police.

The News of the World was equally enterprising when one of its reporters was told to get a job as a warder at Woodhill Prison. Using the access he gained, he took photographs of the Soham School murderer Ian Huntley languishing in his cell. (15.6.2003). This behaviour would not be tolerated in most countries. More likely than not a deception like this would result in a journalist going to jail. But the British newspapers are so powerful and so strong is the belief that Britain needs a free press, that the authorities dare not retaliate. This gets to the heart of campaigning journalism: politicians who find themselves in the firing line often have no alternative but to give way or at least appear to do so. It explains why Prime Minister Gordon Brown is often only too keen to dance to the tune of the tabloids.

Let us look at the example of the humble plastic carrier bag and a campaign by the Daily Mail which had the Prime Minister falling over himself to give his support. "Banish the Bags" was the front-page headline (27.2.2008) and the following nine pages told the ecological damage that plastic bags were inflicting on nature. On day two of the campaign, the Daily Mail claimed its first victory: "M&S banish the free bag" (28.2.2008) and on day three the Prime Minister was rushed in to give his support: "Brown: the bags will be banished" (29.2.2008). Day after day the campaign continued culminating in the pre-Budget exclusive and one word banner headline: "BANISHED". The storyline was triumphant: "Budget will introduce a law compelling every supermarket to end the scourge of free plastic bags." (Daily Mail 11.3.2008)

However much we might be amused that the country’s second largest daily paper can devote so much space to plastic bags, what one cannot deny is the brilliance of the campaign and the dramatic effect it had on government thinking. Some campaigns take years rather than days to affect government thinking. And when it comes to awarding the accolades, I suppose the News of the World has to be the newspaper that remains head and shoulders above its competitors. "Named, Shamed" was the front-page headline eight years ago when it published the photographs of fifty "highly dangerous paedophiles". (23.7.2000). It was this edition of the News of the World which itself became headline news. It triggered a political storm by provoking a witch hunt for paedophiles, although in one case protestors mistook a paediatrician for a paedophile.

The newspaper justified its campaign for what it called "Sarah’s Law" on the grounds that Britain needed an equivalent of the American legislation known as "Megan’s Law" which provides parents in the United States with access to information on sex offenders living in their locality. It took a long time but in the face of continued pressure the government gave ground. In December 2006 the Home Office finally agreed that parents would be allowed access to some limited information about sex offenders residing in their neighbourhoods. It was the police who finally made the first move. They agreed to publish on the Internet the names of known sex offenders who were not obeying compliance orders. The Sun's headline could not have been more explicit: "PERV HUNT.COM" (17.12.2006). Several of the paedophiles identified on the Most Wanted Website have now been caught. No wonder civil liberty groups are so concerned about possible witch hunts. Just look at the Daily Mirror headline "The Paedo Hate Mob" (12.12.2006). But a couple of months ago the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith finally accepted the News of the World’s argument and agreed — that at least in certain parts of the country — parents can be told whether there are paedophiles living in their neighbourhood. "It’s a victory for Sara" was the inevitable headline. (17.2.2008).

There is, it seems, no limit to the ingenuity of the British press when it comes to whipping up pressure for instant action by the authorities. We saw again in October 2006 how the News of the World demonstrated that same flair for exploiting public fears by launching its "Devil Dogs Campaign" (1.10.2006). It demanded that dog owners should be made criminally liable for attacks by dogs like Rottweilers. That campaign was just a foretaste of the tabloid fury unleashed a couple of months later after a pitbull terrier savaged five year old Ellie Lawrenson on New Year’s Day. Merseyside Police have now rounded up dozens of pit bulls amid demands that the Dangerous Dogs Act should be strengthened and properly enforced.

Another government scalp for the Daily Mail has been the campaign it waged against government plans for a whole series of Las Vegas style casinos. One memorable front page said: "Gambling with out Futures" (15.10.2004). Ten days later the government backed down — there would not be a gambling free-for-all: "Labour retreat over Super Casinos" (25.10.2004). Only one Las Vegas style casino was approved — for Manchester — and the story continued to cause ministers grief. Finally, after Tony Blair resigned and Gordon Brown became the new British Prime Minister in July 2007, one of his first acts was to abandon the plan for a Las Vegas style casino in Manchester. "A very moral victory" said the Daily Mail (12.7.2007). Another successful media campaign, helping force a U turn by the government.

While it is the mass-circulation papers which can force ministers to dance to their tune, we must not forget the power of the serious, quality papers. National and local elections, party conferences and other fixtures in the political calendar provide a peg for one of the sure-fire ways for political journalists to create news. Opinion polls are a regular feature in most newspapers and as the date of their publication is entirely at the discretion of the editor, they can be timed to cause maximum embarrassment for the political parties. What always infuriates the politicians is that it is the journalists who pose the question and they do it in a way that allows the newspaper to keep control of the story.

Opinion surveys provide a rich harvest for the press because for an outlay of a few thousand pounds the questions — and results — can be tailored to address the burning issues of the day. "Stand up to US, voters tell Blair" was the Guardian's front-page lead (25.7.2006) over a survey which showed that 63 per cent of the electorate believed Blair had tied Britain too close to the White House. "Ten million want to quit ‘over-taxed’ UK" was the finding of a poll for the Sunday Times (27.8.2006) which revealed that one in five Britons was considering leaving the country. The pro-Conservative Sunday Telegraph pre-empted a clutch of polls about the need for a separate English Parliament. Scotland has its own Parliament and it is the Scottish Nationalists who are in government. Talk about breaking up the UK so that Scotland achieves full independence is a regular issue for the opinion pollsters. One poll was decisive: "End of the Union? England wants its independence" (Sunday Telegraph 26.11.2006).

Religion is not sacred as far as the newspapers are concerned and in a pre Christmas jibe at the churches, an opinion poll in the Guardian showed that 82 per cent of people think faith causes tension: "Religion does more harm than good" (23.12.2006).

Another illustration of how the newspapers can create talking points for the people was a poll for the Independent last December which showed that 80 per cent of us plan to cut our carbon footprint in 2008. "Britain demands a greener Christmas" was the seasonal front-page headline. (Independent 23.12.2007). So the newspapers believe that by commissioning these opinion polls they can influence government policy. The Times had a poll a month ago indicating that 76 per cent of us want the surgeries of family doctors to be open for longer (23.2.2008)…and that is precisely what the government announced a couple of weeks later.

Consequently with so many weapons in their armoury you can understand how difficult it can be for the state to compete in such a crowded media market place. The competition is so great that governments have been forced to employ the smartest communicators — the political spin doctors of today — to put across their message. Sometimes unpopular governments are fighting a losing battle. In the long run-up to the 1997 British general election — which ended in defeat for the Conservatives after 18 years in power — there was no doubt that many journalists were doing all they could to excite the public interest in the prospect of a change of power. The journalists were in effect voting for change. They knew that if the Conservatives were defeated and Tony Blair became Prime Minister it would be in the journalists self interest. It would be good news for the news industry as a Labour government would seek to bring in new and perhaps controversial policies.

You can see this same process underway in the US Presidential elections. Long before Super Tuesday when Barak Obama came from behind and closed the gap between himself and Hilary Clinton, the British newspapers were already right behind him and castigating the Clintons. "The dangers for Britain if this poisonous pair triumph" (Daily Mail 2.2.2008) was in sharp contrast to the page after page of favourable coverage for her opponent. "My America: By Barak Obama" was the front page of the Independent Extra (4.2.2008). Much of the coverage in the states for Obama has been so positive that the Clinton campaign has complained that he has been given an easy ride.

But it is because managing the media is a such a fickle business that Tony Blair went to great lengths to ensure that he had the best possible team around him. Alastair Campbell, a former Daily Mirror journalist, was appointed Blair’s press secretary and the new Prime Minister doubled and then trebled the number of what are known as special advisers. These are largely politically-appointed spin doctors. They are committed Labour Party supporters and many were formerly journalists who were sympathetic to Blair. The first thing Campbell did was change the rules for the civil servants who work as information officers. They were told that they had to "grab the agenda" by trailing announcements. That is the art of official leaking: supplying information exclusively to certain journalists in the hope they will give the government favourable coverage.

Trailing is important: it helps the government set the agenda, it creates a favourable impression, that something is being done, and as with the Budget yesterday, it helps calm the financial markets. So over the weekend there were plenty of official leaks: Yes, there would be more on alcoholic drinks, the tax would be increased on 4×4s and other gas-guzzling cars. But on the eve of the Budget the Treasury confirmed that the 2p a litre increase in the duty on petrol would be postponed. That provided a good news headline for the Sun on Budget morning: "2p petrol hike is frozen…for now" (12.3.2008). Obviously the Chancellor Alistair Darling wanted to sweeten up the public ahead of the bad news that was to come: "Tax Hikes of booze and 4×4s" (thelondonpaper 12.3.2008).

The art of trailing announcements is all too apparent in the Sunday newspapers. They thrive on speculation, on stories which look ahead to what the government is proposing which explains why Tony Blair’s spin doctors were so determined to seize the agenda.

The biggest selling quality Sunday paper, The Sunday Times was the favourite, hence a string of exclusive previews, all dominating the front page:

"Blair to toughen rape laws" (15.10.2006)

"Blair wants super-Asbos for violent thugs" (14.1.2007)

"Blair crisis summit on teen gangs". (18.2.2007)

Gordon Brown and his ministers have been equally assiduous in supplying exclusive agenda-setting stories to the newspapers. The government’s campaign to stop binge drinking among young people produced a front-page exclusive for the Daily Mirror:

"Blitz on shops peddling booze to kids" (3.3.2008). The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith floated a similar initiative on gun crime with the News of the World: "War on Guns – government launch amnesty" (26.8.2007).

These are calculated attempts to influence the news agenda and in what is now a mirror image of Labour’s strategy, we see the Conservative Party promoting its new leader David Cameron in precisely the same way. Soon after his election as leader, Cameron moved to distance himself from the legacy of the Thatcher years and he has often used The Observer as the platform to signal that his party is changing. Here we see a typical trick in media manipulation. By giving the story exclusively to a newspaper that traditionally might be hostile to the Conservatives, Cameron has achieved the maximum possible prominence.

The Observer was the Sunday paper which protested the loudest about the Conservatives’ support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. So when the moment came to dump the Thatcher legacy, that paper was the ideal vehicle and its front-page lead story demonstrates the point: "Cameron: We got it wrong on apartheid" (The Observer 27.8.2006)

Here was Cameron securing the front-page splash for his declaration of support for the ANC leader Nelson Mandela, whom Margaret Thatcher had denounced as a terrorist leader. Another objective of Cameron is to persuade voters that a future Conservative government could be trusted to support the National Health Service. It helps explain why The Observer was the chosen recipient for another exclusive: "Tories plan nurses at home for all new babies" (3.2.2008)

The biggest prize of all for the Conservatives would be to win back the support of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers which deserted the Tories under John Major and switched Tony Blair in the lead-up to the 1997 general election. Two months before polling day, New Labour was celebrating: " The Sun backs Blair — give change a chance." (18.3.1997). The importance of the support of the Murdoch press should not be underestimated. Despite the unpopularity in Britain of Blair’s support for George Bush in the war against Iraq, The Sun remained steadfast and in fact all four of the Murdoch’s newspapers urged readers to vote Labour in the 2005 general election.

Two front pages illustrate the closeness of that relationship. On the eve of the general election The Sun declared that it had got "deep down and personal with the Blairs" and the front-page headline, "Why Size Matters" (4.5.2005) led on to an inside spread which showed a tanned Prime Minister in his torso alongside some intimate quotes from his wife Cherie. In return for granting this titillating interview, The Sun repaid the compliment on polling day with a front page that urged readers to "Vote Labour Today"(5.5.2005). It showed the Prime Minister and the Chancellor dressed in red strips like Manchester United footballers and the headline said it all: "Come On You Reds" with Blair in the No.10 shirt and Gordon Brown as No. 11.

Where The Sun’s support was so critical has been over the Iraq war and its consistent support for "Our Boys" or "The lions of Basra" (4.9.2007) as they tended to be dubbed in Sun-speak. The supposed invincibility of the British troops was encapsulated in the report over the arrival of the Black Watch regiment in Basra: "Watch it: Our Boys off to the battle zone. We beat Napoleon, Kaiser and Hitler…it’s just another job." (25.10.2004). When the action switched to Afghanistan, there was the same Boy’s Own style of coverage when a reporter was sent to join troops on the front line: "The Sun takes on the Taliban" (9.10.2006).

So the closeness of the link between politicians and media proprietors should never be overlooked and while there is no doubt that newspaper sales are declining at some speed, the owners are doing all they can to ensure they retain their dominant position as news and information providers. Their first significant victory has been to ensure that not just text but also all audio-visual material on their websites has escaped regulation by Ofcom and will instead be subject to self-regulation by the Press Complaints Commission. This means that newspaper websites can take full advantage of the growth in internet television.

The Daily Telegraph is ahead of the pack and has begun streaming its own programmes via its website. Right On is Telegraph TV’s weekly political programme and unlike the traditional mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Sky which have to remain politically impartial, the newcomer is blatantly partisan. It is the "show that’s politically right, not politically correct". Right On is chaired by the Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe and she is joined by a trio of right-wing journalists, Simon Heffer, Andrew Pierce and Jeff Randall.

The Murdoch press is concentrating most its push on the internet into developing the websites of The Sun and the News of the World which regularly feature full length videos of topical and exclusive interviews obtained by the two papers. "Burrell: I lied to Di inquest" was The Sun’s front-page headline (18.2.2008) over a report about a secretly-filmed video in which the former royal butler Paul Burrell was said to have admitted perjury at the inquest into the death of Princess Diana. "Amy On Crack" was another of The Sun’s secretly-filmed videos which provided a world exclusive (22.12008) and boosted the number of hits on the website. Footage of the "troubled Amy Winehouse plumbs the depths" provided exclusive after exclusive: "Cops Seize our Amy drug film" (23.1.2008) and "Cops grill Amy over crack video" (6.2.2008). Within a month the Amy Winehouse video had secured nine million hits on The Sun Online.

The scramble by the newspaper owners to protect their businesses is underlined by the fact that the total spend on online advertising has been doubling every year and by next year is likely to exceed the amount which UK advertisers spent on television. What has yet to be established is whether the media proprietors will continue to exercise the same degree of political influence which they achieved with their newspapers. I believe they will: the power of political patronage of the press barons is moving into the electronic era.

Yes, it was Dodgy

Ellie Keen — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:19:36 +0000

Make no mistake, the John Williams draft of the Iraq dossier, finally released yesterday, is a smoking gun. The document proves that Williams (a spin doctor friend of Alastair Campbell) who gave his own view of the affair in an article for Cif on Monday, was in the thick of drafting the document that took Britain to war. He wrote what became the dossier’s executive summary. When the dossier was published, false claims from Williams were presented as “judgements” of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). It does not get any more serious than that.

The first thing the Williams draft does is to show that the government lied to the Hutton and Butler inquiries and to parliament when it claimed that the Williams draft did not influence subsequent versions and was put aside when JIC chairman John Scarlett made a “fresh start” the next day.

Here’s what the Williams draft said in its bullet-point summary:

“Our judgement is that iraq is covertly attempting to acquire technology and materials for use in nuclear weapons.”

And here’s what Scarlett’s draft said:

“Our judgement is that iraq is covertly attempting to acquire technology and materials for use in nuclear weapons.”

The earlier versions of this claim referred only to technology and materials “with nuclear applications”. There was never any certainty that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons (it wasn’t). Obviously, any similarity between the two exaggerated claims is explained by the fact that one was based on the other. It is astonishing that the government is still claiming that the Williams draft was immediately “set aside”.

Some of Williams’ sexing-up didn’t survive the drafting process. But some did. Williams appears to have invented the claim that the Iraqis had developed mobile biological weapons facilities, where previous wordings only said that they had sought to do so. The claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction rather than just seeking them was key to the politicians’ and spin doctors’ claim that he was a current threat.

It’s clear now that Williams cherry-picked the intelligence that would make the best case and made some of it stronger. He remains a candidate for the insertion of the “45 minutes“ claim, at the meeting he attended after producing his draft. That claim also turned into a “judgement” when someone crassly rewrote the executive summary. Now, who could have done that?

Scarlett told Hutton that the 45 minutes claim, which was not a judgement in internal JIC reports, “became a judgement of the JIC” when the committee allegedly approved the dossier. For a spin doctor to be putting words into the mouth of the JIC is about as serious as it gets.

What is gratifying is that it is now widely acknowledged that the Williams draft was the first draft of the dossier. Anyone who can still remember the Gilligan/Kelly row will know that from the outset the government staked its case on Scarlett’s draft being both the first draft and produced without spin doctor interference.

Had the Williams draft been published five years ago, we would have known they were all lying then.

Alastair Campbell: making a mockery of the memory of Hugh Cudlipp

Ellie Keen — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:00:03 +0000

After a cynical betrayal of the idealism which every journalist should strive for, Alastair Campbell finally tripped himself up in the mire of his own double-speak.

His utter contempt for the journalists of tomorrow and the challenges they face was underlined by his choice of title for the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture, “The media: a case of growth in scale, alas, not in stature”. (28.1.2008).

At the heart of Campbell’s reheated diatribe was his assertion that he and Tony Blair went the extra mile to improve the reporting of politics but it was rebuffed by the “relentless negativity” of political journalists who “culturally and collectively present an utterly one side view of political debate”.

Instead of trying to inspire the numerous media students in the audience at the London College of Communication (there were so many they filled an overfill hall), Campbell traduced the profession which gave him his own career break: “I don’t think there are many journalists left who take their responsibilities seriously…My experience on the political side of the fence has meant that any idealism I had for journalism has been extinguished to zero”.

After his lecture, Campbell tossed aside a few ineffectual questions but when asked to justify the leaking of ministerial announcements in order to gain advance publicity, he did momentarily let his guard down. Yes, he admitted, as Tony Blair’s press secretary, he had continued to brief journalists once the official lobby briefings had finished but his aim had been to have an input into any speculation.

“I think a legitimate communications function (for New Labour) was to try to create a framework in which a major speech or political development would land”.

Here we got the briefest acknowledgement of Campbell’s modus operandi and, as so often in the past, he skated over what he meant by the “techniques” which he said the Blair government had developed, first in opposition and then in office in order to secure favourable headlines.

Yet it was these self same “techniques” which accelerated the decline in the standards of news reporting, which Campbell blames on journalists while conveniently disregarding his own culpability.

Against each of the ills which Campbell identified, there was an alternative explanation and instead of journalists being the perpetual target, an accusing finger could have been pointed just as firmly at the control freakery of the Downing Street press office.

Take for example his condemnation of “every exclusive which is not an exclusive”. It was Campbell’s practice of providing exclusive stories and access to favoured journalists which did so much to heighten the amount of political speculation. Correspondents who had been left out of the loop retaliated with speculative and often negative stories, so desperate were they to challenge New Labour’s attempts at agenda setting.

When castigating broadcasters for failing to differentiate between speed and accuracy, Campbell omitted to mention that most of the stories which Downing Street supplied on an exclusive and off-the-record basis were supplied to newspapers rather than to television or radio and in such circumstances it was hardly surprising that news bulletins found it difficult to catch up.

Likewise with his assertion that it was “a devotion to impact which is unravelling standards” along with a failure to make greater use of the initiatives which the government had taken by instituting on-the-record lobby briefings and Blair’s televised news conferences. But again Campbell told only half the story.

While defending the need for New Labour’s “media handling plans” he did not own up to the fact that when trailing government decisions in advance of ministerial announcements it was his policy to help only selected news outlets and other news organisations would be purposely excluded, again an approach that was hardly like to drive up editorial standards.

Here was Campbell, himself a winner of the Hugh Cudlipp award for student journalists, refusing to offer even a hint of an apology for his abject failure to at least defend the best practices of journalism by ensuring equal access for all journalists. Perhaps it was no surprise that among his many boasts he did not repeat the line from his diaries, The Blair Years, about not minding if journalists were fearful of falling out his favour because he “wanted to undermine them, divide and rule”.

Lady Cudlipp congratulated Campbell on what she believed was the greatest speech which had ever been delivered as a Cudlipp lecture but I could not help thinking that the former editor of the Daily Herald and News Chronicle columnist would have turned in his grave at the thought that a former prize winner had been allowed to make a mockery of journalistic ideals.

Alastair Campbell: The Superficiality of The Blair Years

Tim Holmes — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:31:58 +0000

After all the pre-publication hype that Alastair Campbell’s diaries would provide “a fuller and more complete truth” about political life in Britain, the upshot three months later seems to be the reverse: his book’s superficiality has been equalled only by its apparent irrelevance.

Campbell was likewise wide of the mark in his over-blown claim that The Blair Years would become “part of the historical record of a fascinating period in British and international politics” and his belief that “millions of words will be published and broadcast…about TB, his leadership and his legacy”

Again the opposite seems to be the case. Apart from the ongoing nightmare over what to do about the tragic trauma of the Iraq war, the relevance of the Blair decade appears to be disappearing over the political horizon at a rate of knots. When contrasted with the repercussions of the far-reaching changes of the Thatcher decade — whether their impact was ultimately thought to have been for good or for ill — the checklist of achievements for Tony Blair during the ten years he was in office bears no comparison.

No wonder at his first televised news conference in Downing Street (4.9.2007), Gordon Brown avoided any reference to the legacy of his predecessor and declared instead that he admired Margaret Thatcher for having seen the need for change and for having been “a conviction politician…I am a conviction politician like her”.

Perhaps it was the ultimate shallowness of New Labour, the lack of conviction in the Blairite elite and the doubts now about the durability of their accomplishments which explained why Campbell’s diaries were subjected to so little detailed scrutiny.

A sense of disenchantment, even indifference, might explain why so few journalists could be bothered to take Campbell to task over the ethical stance of his media regime in Downing Street or the trail of damage which he left in his wake.

On the odd occasion he was probed about his role in hastening the creeping politicisation of the government’s information service, or when he was asked to justify why he had cashed in so promptly after promising not to publish his diaries during the lifetime of the Labour government, he was able to brush the questions aside with effortless ease; follow-up challenges were even rarer.

And, despite having consistently condemned the media for being obsessed with personality politics, there was no hesitation on his part in lacing his book with gossipy asides and private, even intimate, information. Surprise, surprise, as he knew full well, it was the trivia which dominated most of the coverage and grabbed the headlines.

If I had been given a chance to try putting him on the spot during his round of promotional interviews, and if, which is even more debateable, he had deigned to given me a reply, the issue I would have wanted to return to was his assertion that when it came to the dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, his role had simply been to “help” prepare the document for publication. Time and again he had insisted that John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee, had always retained ownership of the contents of the document.

What Campbell has purposely skated over, and the point on which he failed to get challenged, was whether Blair should have ever given him the authority in the first place to chair meetings in Downing Street to oversee the presentation of intelligence material.

To his credit, immediately after succeeding Blair, Gordon Brown promised in his constitutional statement, The Governance of Britain (3.7.2007), that he would legislate to make sure that never again would a political appointee like Campbell be allowed to have the power to give instructions to civil servants.

On a visit to Baghdad the previous month (11.6.2007), the Prime Minister in waiting went even further, giving a pledge that future analysis by the security and intelligence services would be kept independent of the political process; party spin doctors would not be allowed to get involved; he would ensure that the assessments of the joint intelligence committee were reported direct to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, rather than to the Prime Minister.

However, nothing further has been heard from Brown about how the undertakings he gave in Baghdad are to be implemented and his failure so far to take action underlines why the chance to highlight Campbell’s culpability was such a sorely missed opportunity.

Another point on which he should have been held to account was the way in which his unprecedented power had the effect of encouraging similar excesses by the other political advisers under his control.

Their ability to pull the strings and politicise the work of civil service information officers was exposed in Jo Moore’s infamous email telling staff in the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions that 9/11 was “a very good day to get out anything we want to bury”.

Again, to be fair, Brown was on the ball in his constitutional statement promising that in his first Parliamentary session as Prime Minister he would bring in legislation to enshrine in law the “core principles and values of the civil service”.

Here again was another missed opportunity to test the corrosive influence of the Downing Street press office. Tucked away in the odd diary entry in The Blair Years, Campbell has provided, perhaps unwittingly, some chapter and verse illustrations of his Rambo-like behaviour towards senior civil servants and his disregard for the code of conduct for special advisers.

Sir Richard Wilson, cabinet secretary for most of Campbell’s stint in Downing Street, was effectively sidelined both by the Prime Minister’s and his director of communications. In a series of gloating asides Campbell describes how he stamped on Sir Richard’s wretched attempts to claw back a degree of control for the civil service.

Campbell’s unprecedented power to instruct civil servants, which he shared with Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, was authorised by an order in council approved by Wilson’s predecessor, Sir Robin Butler. Amid the euphoria following Labour’s 1997 general election victory, Butler was anxious to be as accommodating as possible towards the new Prime Minister, believing that over time the civil service would regain any lost authority.

In subsequent years Butler has had the good grace to admit, at least in private, that he made a mistake, an error which rendered his successor powerless in the face of Campbell’s flagrant abuse of all the supposed safeguards against the politicisation of the Whitehall machine. The Blair Years constitute a compelling charge sheet for the way Campbell’s media strategies contributed to the steady erosion of trust in the political process.

While making no attempt to explain or even justify his behaviour, his insights give an indication of how it was that he and the Downing Street staff were able to get away with their misleading dossiers on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; how he and the other political advisers had no inhibitions about leaking government decisions and other confidential information; how they paid lip service to the concept of parliamentary accountability; and were quite prepared, through their use of anonymous briefings, to spread poison about Labour Party members or public figures who fell foul of the Blair regime.

If confirmation was needed of his utter contempt of the ground rules for a special adviser like himself, a post which has the status of a temporary civil servant, the former Labour MP Oona King provides the evidence. In her recently published diaries she recalls the moment in November 1998 when she was summoned to No.10 and asked by Campbell to write an article saying that Ken Livingstone could not be trusted to become Mayor of London. (House Music, The Oona King Diaries).

Another insight into Downing Street’s skulduggery in attempting to block Livingstone’s attempt to win the Labour nomination for the Mayoral election leaps out of the pages of the diaries of Lance Price, one of Campbell’s assistants, who relates how No.10 were “hitting him quite hard” but “AC thinks we should go a lot further”. (The Spin Doctor’s Diary).

What has to be factored in at this point is that Campbell’s orchestration of the anti-Livingstone campaign was in direct contravention of the personal undertakings he had given both to the Cabinet Secretary and the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration. He had assured them that he would not use the Downing Street press office for party political purposes and that he could do his job of presenting the government’s case, “without frankly briefing against anybody”.

Even before Oona King had her unnerving experience with Campbell and refused to get involved in blackening Livingstone’s reputation, Sir Richard Wilson had expressed his first doubts about Campbell’s disregard for civil service rules and regulations. After an earlier diary entry revealing how Wilson thought Campbell had been “brilliant” in putting Harriet Harman and Frank Field in their place (March 30 1998), Blair’s spokesman reveals that the Cabinet Secretary was “worried about his profile and how he was seen to be clearing everything we put forward”. (September 18, 1998).

Wilson saw the 2001 general election as an opportunity to claw back the authority he had lost and rein in the political appointees. On election day Campbell discovered that the Cabinet Secretary had been “up to a few tricks” and had sought to reverse the order in council giving Campbell and Jonathan Powell their unprecedented power to instruct civil servants. “We would have to sort that”. (June 7 2001).

Blair was resolute in insisting that the order in council remained in place but Campbell had marked Wilson’s card for “trying to retrench” and for having “wanted to clip our and my wings in particular”. (June 8 2001).

Sir Richard Wilson’s feebleness in standing up to the likes of Campbell was pitiful to observe but for No.10’s media supremo it was opportunity to gloat. Shortly before the Cabinet Secretary’s retirement, Campbell observed that Wilson “seemed pretty down” and was concerned because of the way the government’s information service had “withered a bit” under Campbell’s weight (March 4 2002). An understatement if ever there was one!

Within weeks of Wilson’s departure, Blair and Campbell were deep into preparations for the Iraq War and in view of the demoralised state of the Whitehall mandarins, it was no wonder that John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, rolled over so easily when Campbell got his hands on the intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction.

What was Scarlett supposed to do when asked by Campbell to attend a meeting in Downing Street and when told that the Prime Minister’s director of communication was there to “help” with the preparation of the dossier? The Blair Diaries provide the answer: the Cabinet Secretary had failed to redress the balance, it was Blair’s spin doctor who was issuing the instructions.

Much was made by Campbell when promoting the diaries that Blair was the first Prime Minister to face the “relentless scrutiny of a 24-hour media”. While it is true that the Blair decade coincided with the growing dominance of the continuous television news services, the pressures imposed by the media were not dissimilar to either the Major years or the Thatcher decade.

What so struck me about Campbell’s time in Downing Street was his failure to embrace the opportunities provided by the 24-hour news culture and the more open and accountable approach of online journalism. Instead of pioneering new ways to communicate via the internet and websites Campbell’s preferred channel of communication was the un-attributable briefing and his off-the-record conversations with newspaper editors and journalists.

So far Gordon Brown, like Blair and Campbell before him, has shown every sign of following the New Labour routine of doing all he can to maintain the closest possible relationships with newspaper publishers like News International and even, it seems, the Daily Mail group.

I am sorry to say it, but yet another missed opportunity…I would loved the chance to have cross-questioned Campbell about the importance of on-the-record, televised briefings and the desirability of using the internet to ensure all journalists receive the same information at the same time. That chance has come and gone, but what Campbell has done, however inadvertently, is provide a checklist of the abuses which need to be corrected if the flow of information from state to public is not to be politicised again in the way it was during the Blair era.

(Speech by Nicholas Jones to the National Union of Journalists, press and public relations branch, London, October 3 2007).