MEDIA STUDIES
Mr Blair's Ministry of Truth is keeping tabs on the Mail and the Telegraph
STEPHEN GLOVER
Last Thursday the Guardian columnist Hugo Young inclined his noble head and poured scorn on the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. These two papers were mouthpieces of a 'destructive' nationalism. The Telegraph's opposition to the peace set- tlement in Northern Ireland was 'deeply sick'. The Mail's judgment that the euro had collapsed was 'grotesque'. As 'prophet- ic guides' these newspapers were 'malign' and, worse still, 'blind'.
Wow! Mr Young, as he pads about the slopes of Mount Olympus, does not nor- mally descend to such invective. Why now? The two newspapers which he identified as the engines of extremism happen to be the two papers which Tony Blair and his spin doctors have decided to demonise. Of course, this must be a coincidence. Mr Young is far too grand to be influenced by any politician. It is simply an instance of elevated minds thinking alike.
I wish Mr Young would take a broader view, whatever his feelings about the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, and consider whether it is desirable in a democratic soci- ety for a government to attempt to stifle opposition in the press. For that is what is happening, and I am not sure it has hap- pened before in this century. The Blairites survey a supine House of Commons, a demoralised and accident-prone Tory party and a generally benign press, but that is not enough. The Telegraph and the Mail are almost the last redoubts of dissent, and must be crushed.
For some months the Daily Telegraph has been particularly irritating the Prime Minis- ter. After his party conference speech, he made three dismissive references to the paper, associating it with the 'forces of con- servatism'. I forecast then (16 October) that it would not be long before Mr Man- delson, the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, put pressure on his acquaintance, the Telegraph's proprietor Conrad Black, to moderate the newspa- per's line on Northern Ireland. That is exactly what happened some three weeks ago. Mr Blair was also involved, warning that the Telegraph's continued opposition. would 'cost lives'.
Consider how extraordinary this inter- vention was. The Daily Telegraph is the only newspaper that has unwaveringly opposed the Good Friday Agreement. After David Trimble had abandoned his policy of `no guns, no government', the Telegraph still clung to it. But it was one solitary voice. By itself it could hardly derail the peace agree- ment to which the governments of three countries and most political parties in Northern Ireland were committed. Nonetheless, Mr Blair and Mr Mandelson wanted the lone voice silenced. There could be no dissent on so important an issue.
What they had not bargained for was the Telegraph's resilience. In all conscience it could not abandon arguments it had deployed with such passion for so many months. There isn't the slightest evidence that readers have been repelled by the paper's unionism. So after various conversa- tions between Mr Black and Charles Moore, editor of the Daily Telegraph, it was decided to proceed full-steam ahead. The leader which appeared on 26 November —the day before the crucial meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council — was as uncompromising as any that had gone before. The paper's unequivocal advice to the unionists was not to govern with Sinn Fein before IRA weapons had been decommissioned. That the Ulster Unionist Council decided to ignore this advice illustrates rather graphi- cally the limits of the Telegraph's influence.
Mr Black should be congratulated for standing by his editor whose views on North- ern Ireland, whatever you think of them, are impelled by that rarest of things in modern journalism, high principle. Mr Blair is too cool a customer to deliver threats of retribu- tion, or of favours withheld, but it must be unnerving for any proprietor to find himself the subject of such pressure. We can be pret- ty sure the experience will be repeated. If the IRA refuses to decommission any weapons, Mr Moore's inclination will be to tell the Ulster Unionist Council to vote in favour of withdrawing from the executive. Mr Blair and Mr Mandelson will be on to Mr Black again. And, when it suits them, they will also attempt to represent Mr Moore's views on Europe as similarly way- out, and to chip away at Mr Black's belief in his outstanding editor.
All this was, and is, predictable. What surprises me more is that the government has opened a second front against the Daily Mail. Until recently Mr Blair had assidu- ously courted the newspaper. After the Mail criticised Mr Blair's 'forces of conser- vatism' speech, an anxious Prime Minister sought an immediate meeting with Paul
Dacre, the paper's editor, to try to set his mind at rest. He would not have bothered to do that with Mr Moore. Mr Blair may be disenchanted with the Mail but this alone cannot explain the government's decision to monitor the paper's coverage, rather as a teacher may keep a special eye on a recalci- trant pupil. The idea was dreamed up by the Prime Minister's turbulent press spokesman, Alastair Campbell.
The man in charge of the monitoring unit is Gerald Kaufman. His first two reports were published last week. With only a slight jump of the imagination one might be read- ing the report of an official censor in a totalitarian state. The Mail is criticised for carrying stories which other papers have also run, often in a more critical way. It is chided by Mr Kaufman for suggesting there has been a U-turn in the government's transport policy. But the Independent, the Telegraph and the Sun made similar points, as did the Guardian, which gave the story more prominence than the Mail by putting it on its front page. A piece on page 18 of the Mail about the growing North-South health gap was matched by a long article on page six of the Guardian. The story about the collapse of the plan for Wembley was the lead in the Sun and the Times but only on page two in the Mail. Yet it was that paper, not the others, that was censured by Mr Kaufman's monitoring group.
I have written a column for the Mail for the last 18 months and the paper has scarcely grown more critical of New Labour during that period. It tends to choose its favourite issues and then give the govern- ment a good old bashing in its usual fash- ion. It is not so uniformly antagonistic as the Telegraph, and has less time for the Tories. So why the monitoring group? Because, as it finds itself master of most of what it surveys, the government is mad- dened by remaining pockets of opposition.
Bullying is unlikely to intimidate the Mail, whose editor won't appreciate being pushed around and whose proprietor, Vis- count Rothermere, is an outsider like his father, who wants nothing that the govern- ment can give. I hope it won't work with the Telegraph. I just find it incredible that this government should try to silence all dissent. And for those like Hugo Young who may not give a fig about what is done to the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph, there is an obvious warning. It may be you next.
Previous page
