MEDIA STUDIES
Old Express, New Labour but not necessarily new readers
STEPHEN GLOVER
So what, you may say. It is a long time since educated, sensible or fashionable people even looked at the Daily Express. But although the paper may be a shadow of its former self, it still sells just over 1.2 mil- lion copies a day, and has some three mil- lion readers. Out there in the great heart- lands the one-time upholder of imperial ideals and Conservative causes still counts for something. Its conversion to Labour is in its way more startling than that of the Sun. The Sun may have been Thatcherite, but it was never true-blue Tory in the sense that the Daily Express was.
Only 12 months ago the recently installed Mr Addis was leading a campaign against Europe. On one occasion, I recall, he cov- ered his front page with a union flag. Then came the absorption of the Sunday Express — until then a distinct title with its own staff — and Mr Addis's emergence as supremo of both papers. He seemed to move a few degrees leftwards. Perhaps one reason was that the merger had been engi- neered by Lord Hollick, the Labour life peer, who had in effect wrested control of the Express titles from Lord Stevens, a Tory. Even so, the Daily Express supported the Conservatives before the election, though without much enthusiasm.
There is no reason whatsoever to sup- pose that Mr Addis is unhappy about the paper's subsequent conversion, but it is cer- tain that it would not have taken place without Lord Hollick. One might plausibly argue that its support for New Labour is unwise given that, even at the low point of Tory fortunes, 49 per cent of the paper's readers who voted plumped for the Conser- vatives, and only 29 per cent for Labour. (These are MORI's figures, and probably reliable.) Lord Hollick nonetheless believes that the future lies with Labour. The inten- tion is that the paper should stick with Mr Blair through thick and thin, through good times and bad, until the next election.
That is his decision, and I'm not going to quarrel with it. But a few weeks ago an event took place which may suggest that the influence of New Labour at the Express is even more pervasive than had been thought. A day or two after he had pub- lished his political confessions in the Inde- pendent, Mr Addis removed Nicholas Wood from the political editorship of his paper, offering him a lesser post which he has since declined. Mr Wood was by all accounts good at his job — indeed one of Mr Addis's first acts as editor had been to poach him from the Times. He was also known to be a Tory, and that is perhaps not a good thing to be at Lord Hollick's Daily Express.
A couple more facts should be taken into account. A day before Mr Wood was removed, Mr Blair's number two press man, Tim Allan, was observed within the precincts of the Express headquarters on Blackfriars bridge. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that Mr Allan's presence was not unconnected with Mr Wood's dis- missal. Indeed, they say that he and Lord Hollick cooked it up. Mr Allan has vigor- ously denied that his presence at the Express had anything to do with Mr Wood. But the theorists also point to the interest- ing fact that Mr Wood's successor, Roland Watson, is as ardent a Blairite as Mr Wood is a Tory, if not more so. The allegation is that at Lord HoRick's behest, and with New Labour's connivance, political skulduggery took place.
Naturally, this is denied by the Express's management, who assert that there were other factors behind Mr Wood's removal. I do not know. It is a story worth telling in case Mr Allan or his superior, Alistair Campbell, or the ubiquitous Peter Mandel- son should think of repeating what is alleged to have been done on this occasion. There is, I admit, a tendency to divine occult properties in these men, especially Mr Mandelson. But they are undoubtedly very determined and ruthless. The conspir- acy theorists have also seen awful warnings in the transfer of Mandy Brown — John Major's favourite journalist — from her role as political correspondent of the Press Association to a non-political job in the same company.
To return to the Express. Will its conver- sion to New Labour arrest its long-term cir- culation decline? I suppose it might, though I remain worried by those 49 per cent of readers who voted Tory. What will they think when their paper attempts to excuse or explain away New Labour's mis- takes? The chances of it attracting very many new readers must be slim, particular- ly in view of its modest marketing budget. The danger is that the paper will irritate its old readers without attracting enough new ones. That said, figures for June, which will be published on Friday, show that its sales have increased by 1.7 per cent over the last year — the first time in ages it has recorded an increase over 12 months. This may be attributable to Mr Addis's lively style of editing. It can have nothing to do with the Daily Express's recent new politics.
On Mondays, the Times sells for 10p in the hope of catching the eye of transient readers and tempting them back for more. So this Monday was a good time to run the raciest excerpt from The Last Party by Adele Mailer, who had the misfortune to be Norman Mailer's second wife. Was a more meretricious piece of trash ever pub- lished in a quality newspaper? It is an account of orgies, wife-swapping, drunken- ness, violence (chiefly on the part of Mail- er) and general boorishness. But my objec- tion is not so much to the content, squalid though it undoubtedly is, as to the utter banality and shallowness of the writing. It would be possible to go through all these gruesome experiences and emerge with something interesting to say. Adele Mailer has nothing. She seems as foolish now as she must have been then. And yet the Times gives her pride of place only two pages away from the blessed Rees-Mogg.
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