THE IMAGE OF MR KINNOCK
the charge that journalists knock Labour's leader
COMPLAINTS by Neil Kinnock and his circle about the way the press treats him have so far received less publicity than Norman Tebbit's criticisms of the BBC, but they are at least as bitter. How justified are they? Not very, if we apply the comparative test. There has been nothing in the recent press duffing-up of Kinnock to equal, for instance, the Guardian's foisting on Tebbit of the quotation: 'No- body with a conscience votes Conserva- tive.' The history of this fabrication re- mains to be unravelled. All we can be reasonably sure about is that Tebbit never said any such words. Yet they have already been made the basis for a leader in the Observer (`Mr Tebbit and the New Tory Brutalism') and clearly some of the mud is sticking.
Again, while Kinnock is unhappy about the way his wife's unilateralism has been brought into the argument about him, the Kinnock family has had to put up with a great deal less than the Thatchers. Mrs Kinnock is a strong-minded woman and quite an active campaigner in her own right. Hence speculation on her political influence, reinforced by Shadow Cabinet grumbles, is reasonable. By contrast, both Mark and Denis Thatcher, who play no political role at all, have had their business lives dragged into the public arena over a period of many months, compounded, in. Denis Thatcher's case, by a shocking example of bank-tapping by one newspap- er. The smears have undoubtedly done damage. Whereas the Kinnocks are not inhibited by public office from taking legal action — Mrs Kinnock is already suing one newspaper for instance — Denis and Mark Thatcher cannot, in practice, involve the Prime Minister in a court action, as their detractors well know. So the innuendoes remain, unsubstantiated and unretracted. Neil Kinnock has not had to put up with this kind of treatment and I hope he never will.
The belief that Kinnock was not getting a square deal really dates from the time of his last American visit. But who is to blame for that? This trip was bound to be a high-risk venture and should have been prepared meticulously to avoid the small- est possibility of any remediable mishap. For instance, Kinnock's public appear- ances should have been ticket-only occa- sions and all tickets should have been sold in advance to ensure that Kinnock spoke to full houses. The organisation of speaking tours is a highly professional business in the US. I have spoken all over America on innumerable occasions and never have I been exposed to the kind of humiliation Kinnock was forced to endure. I can only assume that the people he was dealing with did not know their job, and for that I blame his own staff. The whole trip had an amateurish air. Some of the reporters who accompanied him would have sniped any- way but it was simple mismanagement which gave the press the opportunity to build it up into a damaging drama.
If I were Kinnock I would have a big shake-up in my entourage. Those who form it are too exclusively middle-class for a Labour leader. They confirm the growing belief that Labour is no longer a party with its roots in working people but is run by embittered intellectuals. Kinnock's own weakness is that he is a talkative college lad who has never been in industry. So that is an added reason why he should have near him people who know what it is like on the factory floor or down a pit. The trouble with intellectuals is that, once they geQ modicum of authority — as, for instance, the right to bar or permit access to a party leader — they tend to be arrogant in exercising it. One hears of many com- plaints about the decisions of Kinnock s staff on who gets to see the great man, and equally important about the way those decisions are conveyed. Moreover, these grumbles come not merely from newspaper editors and the like but from backbench Labour MPs and even from Kinnock's senior colleagues. If Kinnock wants better media coverage he should surround him- self with people who understand one of the harsh facts of public life — that there are times when a little humility, or even a little friendliness, does not come amiss.
Having said all this, I think there is some anti-Kinnock bias in the press (none at all, that I can detect, on television). But is this surprising? After all, for obscure reasons of trade union theology, Kinnock refuses to have any relations at all (at least in theory), with four of the most important papers, the Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World. Journalists rightlY interpret this as meaning that his belief in press freedom and the public's right of access to news takes a second place to ins fear of the union bosses. His pusillanimous attitude on this issue compares badly with the behaviour of the Murdoch papers themselves, which on the whole have continued to give him fair play despite the Labour Party boycott. But obviously Kin' nock's submission to this childish rule does not endear him to the Fourth Estate.
'There are also, it must be said, wide' spread doubts about Kinnock himself, on public rather than personal grounds. KO' nock is well-liked as a man. But then s° was Michael Foot. Probably no parry leader in modern times enjoyed such a natural capital of good will among the press as Foot. But in the end it gave him the thumbs down decisively not because anything he did but from a collective, judgment that he was not up to the job 0' running the country. He was too old, tc'e, eccentric, too out of touch with the brow.' mass of the people. Kinnock is in danger of a similar verdict' though for rather different reasons. He 1.5 seen by journalists as too young, inexpert" enced and ill-briefed. They have to take down an awful lot of his words and are left at the end with very little meat. Mrs Thatcher is also judged to talk too much, but she doesn't waffle. Indeed, the aa- parison with her is generally harmful to Kinnock. Some journalists admire het; some actively dislike, even hate, her. /3,11_1 all concede she has the prime ministerial aura: decisive, competent, industrious and, , after eight years in the job, immense'? knowledgable on almost all subjects. This would be bad enough; but Kinnock is als° compared unfavourably to some of his ogia shadow colleagues, notably to John Smith' who increasingly strikes the press as the man who ought to be leading Labour. 1., 11 short, Kinnock's problem with the press 1; a matter not merely of image, but 0' substance.
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