DRAWING THE VOTERS' ATTENTION
The media: Paul Johnson
looks at the first moves in the coming election
THE media battle for the next election started in earnest last week. Labour pro- duced its programme. Mrs Thatcher appointed John Wakeham as policy-co- ordinator. Both moves reveal characteris- tic weaknesses which are worth examining. Labour must have been delighted with the coverage its plans received. Because of a comparative dearth of other matters, they topped the bill on television and radio news and were splashed in most nationals. What nobody in the party stopped to consider is whether such a reception is desirable. For Labour, if it is nothing else, is a programme-formulating organisation, and believes that if only its programme is sufficiently well known, it is bound to win. Everything, from ward meetings to consti- tuencies to union congresses to National Executive meetings to Party Conferences, is essentially geared to drafting, debating, compositing and voting on 'policies'. I was struck by a remark of the late Professor Richard Titmuss, whose mind archetypi- fied Labour's. He said that the object of acquiring knowledge was to formulate policy. If, he instanced, we were able to control the weather, then we would have a Policy on it. The whole history and mythol- ogy of Labour revolves around the recur- rent cycle of how 'the Movement' lays down policies and 'the Leadership', in office, betrays them. Policies are what Labour is about.
The question is: do policies help or hinder the election of Labour govern- ments? Almost certainly the latter. Policies have a disconcerting habit of reminding People of things best forgotten. I like the story of the nice, rather harassed lady, who said: 'Things are going so well at present my husband is being faithful, children all behaving themselves, no terrible bills. I'd offer thanks to God only I'm afraid of drawing His attention to me.' The lady had a sound instinct. Labour was doing very well in the polls until it published its programme. Now it has drawn attention to itself. Policy programmes are supposed to answer unspoken questions from the electorate about what a party intends to do in office. In fact there is no evidence that voters ask these questions, until provoked into doing so by the publication of policies. As a result of Labour's big show in the media, questions are certainly being asked now. For the time being at least, voters have been diverted from the iniquities of the poll tax to the problem: will my income tax go up under Labour, and by how much? When they say it won't go up, can I believe them? And what was the standard rate when they were last in office? Oh, was it really? Funny how one forgets. Or again, worries about inflation have been sus- pended while people ponder: is it true they'll bring back flying pickets? What were they, dad? Can't exactly explain, son, but they were 'orrible. The trouble with Labour policy statements, even when they are watered down to the point of making poor Eric Heffer's 'blood boil', as he told the Independent, is that they transform Mrs Thatcher from a bossy into a comforting figure, reminding one of Hilaire Belloc's injunction, 'And always keep a-hold of Nurse/For fear of finding something worse.'
Such programmes, moreover, are a par- ticular risk for Labour while Neil Kinnock is leading it. They seem to be getting longer and more detailed, while his capac- ity to absorb, digest and briefly regurgitate them does not improve with the years. Last week he talked himself into a mess by getting his proposed government's tax- spending plans wrong by a little matter of $2 billion. If he can't master these long, involved policy briefs, why doesn't he insist they be shorter? I already detect a certain confident glee on the part of the Tories' media merchants at the prospect of turning Kinnock, yet again, into a Labour liability. They are putting it about that Kinnock is afraid to take on any tough television interviewer in a one-to-one session. There is just sufficient truth in this to make it damaging. It surprises me that, in seven years as leader, Kinnock has not yet developed the skill of answering difficult questions — all of them totally foreseeable — briefly and safely. Instead he launches into long and increasingly irrelevant speeches which strike the viewer as evasive and infuriate even well-disposed interview- ers. As Kinnock's one political virtue is his supposed gift of the gab, why is he so defective in this particular respect? He does not seem to have improved since the 1987 election, when his unwillingness to face sharp and persistent questioning at Labour's daily press and television brief- ings — he preferred to charge around the country haranguing the party faithful was in sharp contrast to Mrs Thatcher, who relished the morning combats. The 1991 or 1992 election, far more than any of its predecessors, is going to be a test of leader-personality by media exposure. Un- less Kinnock is concealing something total- ly new and unexpected in his personal armoury, he looks like handing it to Mrs T. again.
She, for her part, is doing her Virgin Queen act. In a way this fits in well with the Tory spirit, which is obsessed with personalities, in the way Labour agonises over policies. Mrs Thatcher is good at keeping her courtiers on their toes by awarding or withdrawing favours. The co-ordinating job, which has been in effect vacant since Willie Whitelaw's retirement, has gone to a favourite creature of hers, John Wakeham. This is a severe snub to Geoffrey Howe, who has nothing to do, and who has responded by putting out a woefully inept personal statement, suggest- ing he is closer to Mrs T. than ever. It is also a snub to Kenneth Baker, who as Party Chairman and a Cabinet Minister ought in logic to be in charge of presenting govern- ment policy. He had a rough introduction to his chairman's job, but he is now playing his cards much more confidently and has reason to feel aggrieved. From Mrs Thatcher's viewpoint the appointment makes sense, for she knows that, win or lose, the competition for her succession will begin after the next election and she wants some people around her, like Wake- ham, who are not active contenders. However, it is not exactly a move calcu- lated to smooth the Conservatives' cam- paigning arrangements, threatening as it does a repeat of the trench warfare be- tween Lord Young and Norman Tebbit which got the 1987 effort off to such a bad start. The Tories were able to afford such luxuries in the palmy days of 1987. This time the going will be much tougher. Mrs Thatcher can, I believe, rely on Kinnock shooting himself in the foot when the time comes. But that is no reason to encourage hair-trigger behaviour among her own cowboys.
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