The press
People's power
Paul Johnson
The claim that Labour's Bermondsey disaster was brought about by the media seems set to become a stock item in left- wing mythology. The accusation as it stands is nonsense. But it has just enough truth in it to be worth discussing. One of the most striking characteristics of the British ex- treme Left is its obsession with the media, to which it attributes quasi-magic powers. It cannot leave the subject alone. Its members think that the media are a gigantic con- spiracy to preserve capitalism, and that if only they could get control of ('democratise') the media, Britain could be turned overnight into an enthusiastic Socialist country. Their love-hate for the national press is particularly ambivalent. There was a telling example at last year's Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. A Gay Rights meeting was widely publicised and therefore attracted a strong press con- tingent. Before the meeting started, the presiding genius of thel platform. worthies ordered anyone from the Daily Mail, Sun.
and News of the World to leave, on grounds of general wickedness, and a posse of beefy lesbians was deputed to enforce com-
pliance. There was naturally a row, and a rumpus, which predictably ended with all the press leaving in a body, though one or two moles remained hidden. More publicity was thus secured than if the meeting had proceeded normally. Was it, then, deliberate? Lam not sure; and I doubt if the organisers knew quite what they were doing either. Their instinct (like Princess Anne's) is to row with the press, and in terms of
coverage it usually pays. They want notorie- ty, not least because, when they get it, it 'proves' their paranoia about the media.
Most media-created personalities both need and despise their Svengali. 'King' Ar- thur Scargill is a case in point; an even bet- ter one is Ken Livingstone. He has used the media, especially TV, with great skill; has upstaged even Scargill in recent months. As a result he has become the most famous/notorious London political boss since Herbert Morrison, achieving in two or three years what took Morrison a lifetime's hard grind. All this has been obtained at the expense of the Labour Party as a whole, which blames the media. Livingstone could stop it tomorrow if he chose. He does not.
Indeed, last Saturday he quickly stole the Bermondsey headlines, and took the spotlight away from the wretched Foot, by his publicity trip to Belfast. He evidently in- tends to exploit the media for all it's worth, until he becomes the leader of the Left. In this respect he makes Tony Benn look very old-fashioned.
Peter Tatchell is, or was, a Livingstone writ small. Until the Bermondsey campaign actually began he seems to have thought that the media were working to his advan- tage, in making him the most talked-about by-election candidate for many years. But this was not really the media's doing in the first place. It was Michael Foot's, in that angry House of Commons outburst when he said he would not wear a candidate like Tatchell. And Foot's fury, in turn, was pro- voked by Tatchell's own article in London Labour Briefing. The media merely gave ex- tensive, running coverage to an internal Labour vendetta. As a result the Bermond-
sey electors were able to focus, over a long period, on their new Labour candidate; and what they saw they did not like.
Even so, Tatchell might have held the seat, had it not been for the quality and energy of the local Liberal organisation, and the decision of many, Bermondsey voters to respond to it. This enabled Simon Hughes to establish a commanding lead over the two other main challengers to Labour in the first half of the campaign. The critical moment came on 18 February, when the Daily Mail NOP poll established that Hughes had 28 points, only six behind Tatchell. According to an investigation in the Mail on Sunday, the effect of the poll was to bring in nearly another 1,000 workers for the Liberals, and money to put out leaflets reproducing the Mail front page. But in any case the poll findings got enormous TV coverage the same day. From that point on, the astonishing result was almost inevitable, since Bermondsey voters now knew whom to vote for, a knowledge daily reinforced by further polls and media coverage. It was not a victory for the Liberals (except in a limited sense), still less for the media. It was a victory for democracy. It is clear in retrospect that the traditional Labour voters of Bermondsey were determined, from the start, to punish their party for its misbehaviour — if onlY they knew how. The polls and press showed them how, thus acting as a substitute for a PR system, which would equally have deprived Labour of the seat. The great discovery of Bermondsey is that press polls make accurate tactical voting possible. Thus the media, far from operating against democracy (as the far Left claim) actually enable it to work, in bringing about the result the voters desire.
This by-election also confirms one of ray most deeply-rooted convictions, that the media cannot create a trend: all that TV and press agitation can do is to reinforce and accelerate something which is alreadY stirring deep in the minds of the people. As history has shown time and again — and shows still — if there is no popular will to work on, all the thunder of Beaverbrook and Rothermere and Thomson and Mur- doch is in vain. The far Left, with its deep contempt for non-intellectuals, may think that ordinary people are easily manipu- lated. But there are entire cemeteries of• dead papers and magazines, failed advertis- ing agencies and sacked editors to prove otherwise. (Indeed, the only category humanity who can be media-manipulated, I suspect, are the intellectuals; or perhaps I should say the pseudo-intellectuals.) An in- teresting example of the limits of media power is Channel Four. Here the Left were given a chance to prove their conspiracy theory: an entire TV channel to play with. If, as they claim, the media can push people around politically, why aren't the eager proles glued to Jeremy's jeremiads? The truth is, ordinary viewers smelt a whiff of manipulation and instantly switched off. The same thing, come to think of it, hap- pened to the Daily Herald, RIP.
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