THE HARLOT PREROGATIVE
the Archer case as the tip of a constitutional iceberg
THE karate chop administered by the News of the World to the reborn political career of Jeffrey Archer was an impressive demonstration both of the power and the unscrupulousness of the British press. Here was a case, not of journalism tout court, or even of 'investigative journalism', but of what I term creative journalism. That is, the newspaper itself set up the event which it then 'exclusively' reported. This is not the News of the World's first exercise in creative journalism at the ex- pense of a Tory government. It devised a similar entrapment, with the help of a prostitute, to bring about the downfall of Lord Lambton.
In commenting on the Archer affair I must be careful: the background is still obscure, the police are investigating and writs and summonses may yet fly. But it seems fair to say that, in both cases, the pseudo-event was made possible because the paper was hunting highly sophisticated asses — rich, experienced men of the world who nonetheless were capable of acts of folly amounting almost to a kind of genius. From a long acquaintance with politicians, I fear that the type is much more common than you would think, and Sunday tabloids trade on the fact. Is trapping a public man or official in this way legitimate journal- ism? It is not a form I would care to practise but I do not see how you can stop it. It was used by the Times, in the austere days of William Rees-Mogg, to corner a corrupt policeman. There, of course, the paper had a strong defence of public interest, which only marginally applied in the case of Tony Lambton and perhaps not at all in Archer's. Sexual entrapment is peculiarly repellent but some papers will use it so long as a sizable portion of the British public expect their politicians to lead ostensibly spotless lives.
The more interesting aspect of this epi- sode, to me, is the way it confirms the increasing tendency of the media to make news rather than simply report it — espe- cially in the field of politics. The trend is there on both sides of the Atlantic. The outstanding example was the Watergate Case, where a democratically elected presi- dent was overthrown by what, in effect, was a media putsch. In the United States there are high-minded journalistic caudil- los who see themselves as the ultimate custodian of constitutional legitimacy, just as the army does in some Latin-American states. My colleagues do not go so far over here but there is a lot of arrogance around: journalists at the BBC, for instance, in response to the disgraceful Maggie's Mili- tant Tendency programme, seem to be coming close to the proposition that the journalist can do no wrong, and that any attempt to discipline one for professional malfeasance is a form of lese-majeste and must be opposed on principle.
Certainly the media in Britain is now usually at the heart of any big political story: or, to be more accurate, it contrives to turn a small or even insignificant event into a big one, with the papers and the television operating in creative counter- point, The outstanding recent case was Westland, which the media and a few MPs are still flogging, though it has never aroused any real interest among the public. It is largely forgotten that this 'crisis' was originally created by Michael Heseltine's manipulation of the media to strengthen his cabinet arm. It only turned into a real one when Leon Brittan made a clumsy attempt to respond in kind. Without the media, it would have been a non-event, a minor inter-governmental argument, and although MPs huffed and puffed their way into the act, at all stages they have been, and still are, merely following where the media led.
In recent years, indeed, I have noticed that the political life of the nation is increasingly enacted in the media, and especially on the television screen, rather than in the traditional purlieus of West- minister. Britain has never been a demo- cratcy as such, in the way that the United States tries to be. Its unwritten constitution has always contained a strong element of elitist guidance. Constitutional experts have recognised this by referring to Britain as a 'parliamentary democracy'. Now I begin to wonder whether we shouldn't call it a 'media democracy'. The selection and presentation of events, and in some cases their creation, have become more impor- tant in the political process than the origin- al events themselves. A typical current product of media democracy is Edwina Currie, who has the same brash gift for self-publicity as the young Disraeli, and I suspect may go as far. She has made herself the second-best-known woman politician in the country not by virtue of any per- formance in the Commons but because she has been turned into a living media event. As with Westland, without the media no one would have heard of her.
The growth of media democracy, I has- ten to add, is not a purposeful process. It is not the work of a group of powerful newspaper proprietors and television ty- coons. Nor are they the beneficiaries. When Northcliffe in the years 1915-20, Rothermere and Beaverbrook in 1930, and Cecil King in 1968 sought to exercise direct political power, Parliament and the tradi- tional system proved too strong for them. Today the media is far more influential, relative to the Commons, but the power of the media tycoons has paradoxically de- clined. Most proprietors have not much more systematic control over what goes into their papers than Alasdair Milne has over BBC current affairs programmes. Even Rupert Murdoch has less say than the paranoid Left supposes and Robert Max- well has achieved little influence by his constant editorial interference.
Media power today, though growing, is essentially blind, negative, destructive and irresponsible. It is exercised not so much by ambitious individuals as by a volatile, undirected, collective journalist consensus as to what constitutes news and how to play it. It tends to be anti-authority and to cling to such left-liberal luggage as slops about in the bilgewater of the western ship of state, but the sense of purpose and intelligence which directs its efforts are no higher, as a rule, than those which animated the Gadarene swine. The media will eagerly rush over any cliff that is there. If the News of the World people who set up Archer were asked: what precisely do you think you are doing, I doubt if they could give a coherent answer, let alone a sensible one.
Nevertheless, the power of the media not merely to influence but to determine and even make events is growing. That is bound, in the end, to lead to a popular demand that it be subjected to more democratic control. In a way, the media is getting to the same position as the unions in the early 1970s. The anti-BBC fury of the Tory Party, which reflects a strong public impulse, is just the beginning. What we are witnessing are the early stages in an inevitable national response to an impor- tant shift in the way power is exercised in Britain.
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