AND ANOTHER THING
Faded splendours and current miseries of the media Left
PAUL JOHNSON
0 ne reason why the Labour Party is so chopfallen and failing to exploit the floun- derings of John Major's government is that the Left-wing media is in such an anaemic and demoralised mess too. Media support is needful to a party for two reasons: by shouting and by injecting ideas. Let us take shouting first. Between the late Thirties and the end of the Sixties, the Daily Mirror shouted for Labour as loudly as its power- ful lungs would allow. It never, in my view, shouted quite so convincingly after it lost faith in Harold Wilson Mark One, which occurred in the summer of 1966, and the absurdities of Wilson Mark Two, followed by Jim ('Winter of Discontent') Callaghan completed its unspoken apostasy. Since then it has been overwhelmed by its own gruesome problems.
In short the Mirror has not been Labour's media flagship, except in name, for a long time, and for backbench MPs to put down motions whining about the new regime under David Montgomery does not make much sense (as well as being an abuse of Parliament: what right have MPs collective- ly to instruct a newspaper in the line it should take?). There has been a diaspora of former Mirror staff and writers, mainly to Today. None of them is exactly a heavy- weight by the standards of Hugh Cudlipp, Cassandra, Phil Zec, Vicky, et al.
They say the Mirror does not stand for anything under Montgomery, but then what exactly did it stand for under Bob Maxwell, except for boosting his ego while he looted its pension fund? Those who cheerfully took the Captain's shilling are not in a posi- tion to take a high moral tone with anyone. Nor is it clear why Today is all of a sudden morally superior to the Mirror. After all, it is still owned by Rupert Murdoch, the man who, until recently, the Mirror exiles were abusing as beyond the pale. And, come to think of it, until the latest round it was edit- ed by none other than David Montgomery. Once you mount the journalistic carousel, it doesn't much matter which horse you ride, they are all heading in the same direc- tion: downmarket. Such a grim outlook is inevitable so long as we teach children so little in state schools. And who is responsi- ble for that? Why, the Labour Party and its fervent allies, the NUT and the educational 'experts'.
Montgomery, being a sour-faced Ulster- man, is not likable. But I have some respect for him. He is probably as effective a supre- mo as the Mirror is likely to get in present circumstances. He recognises that the Mir- ror's symbiosis with Labour had been hum- bug for a long time. Since Labour itself has now abandoned its principles, it would not make sense for the paper to back it except for commercial reasons. These may be quite strong for the time being. Labour is still a major party and it is not inconceiv- able that it could hold office again. But if, as many now believe, the old Conservative- Labour duopoly in politics is doomed, and we are moving towards a new party system which takes account of the European con- text and is divided on National-Federal lines, then there is no point in the Mirror tying its fortunes to a dying horse.
Under the old Cudlipp regime, of course, and still more so under Maxwell, the Mirror was pro-Europe and would now, I suppose, be federalist. But the Sun is now moving to a nationalist position, and in the event of a shouting-circulation match, with the Mirror trying to beat a federal drum and the Sun thumping out the nation's heartbeats, I would not put much money on the Mirror. These, I imagine, are the kind of problems which now concern the crafty Montgomery, not how many times a week the Mirror should hail John Smith as a genius.
Upmarket, where the ideas circulate and the classes chatter, the outlook for Labour is not much better. New Left Review is sub- merged in undignified internal squabbles. Spare Rib has sunk without trace. Tribune, if still afloat, is lost at sea. The New States- man is locked in interminable combat with John Major and his cook. A huge question- mark hangs over the Observer, which has lost its self-confidence and many of its best writers, is losing money hand over fist, and is owned by a conglomerate which is itself in financial difficulties, increasingly man- 'My client is claiming his right to remain silent.' aged by a German who is not interested in having a loss-making London paper to blow his trumpet. So the Observer is obviously for sale at the right price. Andreas Whittam Smith wants it badly and is said to have arranged a £28 million line of credit to buy it. He calculates that by merging the Observer and the Independent on Sunday he could not only reverse the latter's losses but achieve a circulation of around 750,000, which would push the Sunday Telegraph firmly into third place and make a chal- lenge to the Sunday Times feasible. I think that is wildly optimistic, and an eventual circulation of 500,000-plus more likely. In any case, what disinterested person wants the Observer to disappear? It is our oldest national paper and, well within living mem- ory, was one of our best.
The right solution is for the Observer to be bought and published by the Guardian as a separate paper. The Guardian has the financial resources and the commercial knowhow to keep the Observer in business. Whether it has the political nous and talent to restore the paper's influence is another matter. On the figures, it has recently done extremely well, pushing the Times and Inde- pendent well to its rear; its new daily insert- tabloid is a success and if, as I expect, it eventually goes wholly tabloid, like Le Monde, it could give even the Daily Tele- graph trouble. The Independent is strictly for chatterers and the Guardian has a near- monopoly as the Left's notice-board. But as a trumpet for Labour it certainly gives out an uncertain note.
Peter Preston, its editor, has been there too long and perhaps no longer knows what, if anything, he really believes. We need a change of guard there: a new editor, ideally a woman, experienced but not too old — someone like Polly Toynbee or Liz Forgan. If Labour and the Tory wets amal- gamate in a federalist movement, and the Independent and Guardian groups slug it out for the role of its media standard-bear- er, the under-35s will be the main target area and all these qualities will need youth — or at least the middle-aged — at the helm. But which, then, will be the National Party broadsheets? The Times for one; the Sunday Times for another. That will put irresistible pressure on the Daily Telegraph to join its Sunday sister in the British camp. Maastricht may be a bore, but in the end, I predict, it will plunge the media into an exhilarating metamorphosis.
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