MEDIA STUDIES
Forget the Mail. Here's a paper which really knows how to hurt New Labour
STEPHEN GLOVER
Here is a little game. Who can guess in which national newspaper the following quotations were published during the past three months? 'Labour's muddle in Scot- land has been risible.' Blair does not have a project for this country.' There is an urgent need to recreate the mood of hope and confidence which existed when Blair became leader. Without that, I fear serious- ly for the future.' The Labour Party in 1996 is a surprisingly troubled culture.'
The Daily Telegraph? No. The Times? No again. Perhaps the Daily Mail? No. The answer is the Guardian. The first and last quotes come from leaders published in that newspaper on 7 September and 30 Septem- ber, the latter being on the eve of the Labour Party conference. The belief that Labour has no project was that of Martin Jacques, also on the eve of the party con- ference. A couple of days later Martin Ket- tle, one of the Guardian's four leader writ- ers, expressed his fears for the future in a signed piece. The newspaper was plainly trying to give Labour a special boost before its conference.
These quotations are, of course, selec- tive. We could find some in the Guardian more sympathetic to Labour. But there are many others that aren't. The truth is that the paper is very much less friendly to the new brothers than one might expect. 1 say this because, like the Labour Party, the Guardian over the past few years has finally signed up to the bourgeois order. Its Satur- day magazine now bulges with advertise- ments for BMW cars and Gucci watches. Its madder Trot journalists have been exiled or suborned, and its loopy-left letters column cleaned up. You would expect New Labour and New Guardian to march hand in hand towards the future, but they don't.
Expectations should be greater still given the extraordinary similarities between Tony Blair and Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian since February 1995. Born within months of each other in 1953, both men are fresh-faced, almost boyish in appearance, though I don't believe that Mr Rusbridger is yet losing his hair. They both went to middling public schools and Oxbridge. Nei- ther man undervalues the finer things of life: Mr Rusbridger is a member of the Garrick, an indulgence that could not be permitted to Mr Blair even under New Labour. Above all, neither man is ideologi- cal or remotely left-wing, although the institutions which they both serve used to be. They are brilliant at managing those institutions to get their own way.
They should love each other. They could almost be twins. But people who should get on because they are so much alike often don't. Mr Blair and Mr Rusbridger have never hit it off. A little more than a year ago, Mr Rusbridger was summoned to meet Mr Blair after the Guardian had pub- lished pieces which Labour had deemed unhelpful. The meeting was not a success. As Mr Rusbridger rose to leave, Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's abrasive press secre- tary, muttered the words 'pompous public- school prat' in the direction of the Guardian editor. In different circumstances Mr Dennis Skinner might have been tempt- ed to use the same words to describe Mr Blair.
There may be a further antipathy between Michael White, the Guardian's witty political editor, and the aforemen- tioned Mr Campbell. It was Mr Campbell who, when political editor of the Daily Mir- ror, socked Mr White on the jaw after he had made some uncharitable remarks about the recently deceased Robert Maxwell. No doubt Mr Campbell and Mr White would now say they are the best of friends, as Mr Blair and Mr Rusbridger might possibly do. Indeed, the Labour lead- er and Guardian editor dined together sev- eral weeks ago. Both sides need each other too much to maintain a public feud, but there are old enmities which go deep. These have influenced the Guardian's cov- erage of Labour, and will again.
Personal animosities are only part of the story. Mr Rusbridger, as I say, is not ideo- logical, but he senses that many of his read- ers are, and that some of them disapprove of Mr Blair. The Guardian does not, in fact, champion left-wing policies. It and New Labour have a lot in common: for example, the paper agrees with Mr Blair that trade unions should play a smaller role in Labour's affairs. But, in deference to its readers' presumed views about New Labour, the paper's 'mood music' is often anti-Blairite, even if it does not advocate different policies. When the Labour leader wrote an article in the paper on 19 Septem- ber, this was what the `standfirse said. `Tony Blair responds to his critics, notably in the Guardian, who he thinks have unfair- ly accused him of "dumping" the historic principles and aspirations of the Labour Party.' New Labour does not like being cold- shouldered. The more supinely loyal Daily Mirror may sell six times as many copies as the Guardian, but Mr Blair and his boys want intellectual support where it counts. They want to be appreciated, ideally to be loved, by their peers. At the moment they are likely to get more sympathetic treat- ment in the Independent, but that is seen as an ailing vessel. They yearn for the Guardian's full-throated endorsement. As the election approaches, there are signs that the paper is coming more into line. Mr Blair's speech during the party confer- ence was judged the 'most satisfying account of the New Labour project for government that the party leader has yet delivered'.
But before Mr Blair's spirits are lifted, he should study the Guardian's reporting of the US elections. Bob Dole was represent- ed, particularly by Martin Walker, an arte- fact of the paper's more left-wing days, as a pragmatic, decent man, in many ways preferable to the renegade ex-leftie, Bill Clinton. The President came across as tricky and unreliable; once he was even compared with the Beelzebub of modern American politics, Richard Nixon. When Mr Clinton went to Alamo, Mr Walker mused that 'there could have been no more symbolic spot for the gallant last effort of the Republican campaigner' (i.e. Mr Dole), whereas Mr Clinton's 'plundering of the Alamo metaphor was as relentless as it was unscrupulous.'
Mr Walker is not the Guardian, but he was given a very good spread by Mr Rus- bridger, who for his part was unable to work up any enthusiasm for Mr Clinton in the leader columns. Though Mr Blair is unlikely ever to attract the moral oppro- brium heaped on Mr Clinton, the Guardian will one day hurl down some of the epithets on this British renegade. In some ways it already has. For the moment, until the election, there is some- thing of a truce, but in its heart the Guardian does not like New Labour. Vicious anti-Blair leaders are waiting to be written. Hugo Young, the paper's lead- ing commentator and one of its tutelary gods, has already warned that 'one day, quite certainly, the country will be disap- pointed in what results' from a Labour victory. If Mr Blair wins, still more if he loses, the Guardian will not be his friend for long.
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