The press
Labour waits for Godot
Paul Johnson
Talking to Arthur Scargill the other day, I was not surprised to find that he is getting ready to blame the approaching failure of his strike on the media. He implicitly conceded that the strike was ineffective because (as he put it) 'the media day in and day out consistently pump out news media' critical of the NUM case. He added: 'The fact is that if public opinion were to be influenced by the media who could say if the miners have a justifiable ease . . . this dispute could be over, I'll tell You what would happen, within a week you Would see a dramatic change in public opinion. . •' As I said to him, would that it were true! Those of us who work in the media would be delighted to possess such enormous Power, lead the public by the nose and transform the entire course of events by the flick of a typewriter. On the Left, and especially on the far Left, it is a central article of belief that the media, and espe- cially newspapers, possess this unqualified ability to manipulate people. In fact it is a Psychologically necessary part of their be- liefs. For these intellectuals in the Leninist tradition see themselves as a 'vanguard dine', embodying the aspirations and will Of the working class; if this class refuses to follow them, it cannot be that they them- selves are wrong — that is an impossibility, by definition — it can only be that large numbers of workers have been deceived and brainwashed by the capitalist media lackeys.
Recently the New Socialist attempted to give some substance to this explanation by publishing a survey by Patrick Dunleavy (of the LSE) showing correlations between newspaper readership and voting patterns, and concluding: 'Far from being a small scale or peripheral influence, therefore, the media, dominated as they are by a partisan press under the control of private proprietors, are one of two predominant determinants of voting behaviour.' All the survey really shows, however, is that Labour voters are more likely to read the Mirror, Star and Guardian than other papers — and we knew that anyway — but this does not explain why so many consist- ent Labour voters read the Sun, Mail and Express. Probably it is something to do with the sports pages, but that kind of explanation would not appeal to Labour analysts, as they need to assume that everyone is as obsessed by politics as they are themselves.
One obvious reason why Labour is failing is that its writers cannot put their case in words which have any meaning to ordinary people. The great turn-off in Britain has always been class politics and any kind of political programme based on class warfare. People like Attlee, Sevin and Morrison understood this very well. They did not mix with class-obsessed intel- lectuals or read their literature. But Labour is now dominated at all levels by small, inbred circles of sub-intellectuals who regard 'correct' class analysis as far more important than the practical every- day needs of Labour voters (or ex-voters). A few of the more superior Marxist scho- lars, like Eric Hobsbawm, recognise the hopelessness of this approach, and he is said to have the ear of Neil Kinnock. But he is in a minority — he is not even in the Labour Party — and most of the Labour intelligentsia are determined to learn no- thing. Recently, the Guardian published a long article extracted from a book Class Poli- tics: An Answer to Critics in which no less than five writers argued that what the Left in Britain needed was not less class politics, but more; and they accused Hobsbawm and Co of having 'denied intellectual and political legitimacy to the class they should seek to serve.' The article was written in the most appalling jargon throughout and aroused ire among a few sensitive Guar- dian readers. Ian McRobert, of Peterbor- ough, wrote that he had indeed struggled through it 'although I am not sure that any writing which includes such phrases as "the hegemony of bourgeois ideologies" is quite worth the effort.' McRobert's point was that ordinary working people cannot afford Labour's purity of ideology; the party should escape from its 'pseudo-intellectual debating society', get out into 'the real world' and actually find out 'what real people want instead of telling them what is good for them'.
Sensible, you may say. But it provoked angry dissent from other Guardian read- ers. A. C. Mason from Merseyside thought this kind of 'trimming' a formula for disaster. The chances of Labour gaining a majority at the next election were 're- mote'; better to write that off and `go all out for a change from capitalist ethics to socialist ethics'. Then, 'perhaps in the Nineties, a truly socialist government will be swept into power.' H. M. Lowry of Tinpit Lane, Marlborough — good address, that — agreed it was good for Labour, in some mysterious long-term sense, to lose elections: `Thatcherism has to wear itself out . . . . Her second victory in 1983 was fortunate for the Left.' Ian Flintoff of SW6 thought the decline of Labour was due to cultural debauching by `a series of imported nasties ranging from hard drugs, through meretricious TV, films and books'; personally, he was waiting until 'the spirit of Chartism, the suf- fragettes, or even the Primrose League is rekindled in the hearts and minds of British men and women.' Then we could say goodbye to 'Dallas and Coke'. Mr Lowry assented: he feared 'the bland, undiffe- rentiated culture of North America . . . the result of Coca-Cola and Dallas "imperialism".' After all this rant I turned to an article in the Times by Bryan Gould, who as MP for Dagenham holds one of Labour's last remaining seats in the south of England. It was called 'When Will Labour Face the Truth?' and was a plea to the party to forget class and revolutionary politics and get back to the serious business of winning power through Parliament. The note was one of total despair. Labour will not face the truth because it is now effectively controlled by people for whom the truth is too hard to bear.
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