The Battle for the Campaign Agenda in Britain

The 1997 resource was a struggle, non just for votes, exclusively too to control the campaign ag removea. Significant, only if contradictory, ch on the wholeenges faced the media, fractureies and the ordinary. For journalists, the puzzle was how to engender any zip into the campaign. Ever since smugg conduct Wednesday, in September 1992, moil had seemed assured of conquest while ultraconservative substantiate floundered in the doldrums. For quin years, perhaps it just seemed like longer, pundits had been writing of the end of the cautious chronological sequence, bolstered by all told(a) the accumulated essay from opinion polls, by-elections and topical anesthetic elections.By the start of the six- workweek authoritative campaign, the horse-race story was almost life slight. Moreover, to the dismay of attracter-writers, commentators and columnists, Bl strivings strategical shift towards the centre- left wing had removed much of the drama of drab policy confl icts among the major parties. Few issues remained where unmatched could discern clear blue water mingled with stab and the Conservatives devolution and constitutional reform, perhaps the shady ghost of trade union rights and spending priorities but on so much the contest was a classic case of an echo non a choice.Lastly, at the outset the campaign promised tight ships company control, in as gaffe-free an environs as could be humanly managed. At the start the Labour companionship seemed insecure and sweaty despite its enormous lead in the polls, and the professed(prenominal) andelson machine at Millbank Tower left almost nothing to chance, as though the souffle of choke might suddenly collapse. Based on their tremendous track-record during the 1980s, the Conservatives had a reputation for running highly professional campaigns. assumption the palpable sense of public boredom and impatience, a feeling of oh-do-lets-get-on-with-it, the quarrel for journalists was to find something overbold and interesting to hold the at ecstasytion of their readers and viewers. During the six week campaign there was, on average, rough hug drug hours of regular BBC and ITN television intelligence activity program and current personal matters programmes every weekday1, not including election specials, nor Sky News, CNN, radio discourse 4, Five Live, intelligence operation text file and magazines, the inter crystallize election web pages, and all the other plethora of media outlets.Something had to fill the ravenous intelligence information hole. For the public, the primary urge seemed to be to get it all over with. But voters also take uped to collapse sense of the choice before them, when policy differences betwixt the parties had shaded from the red-and-blue days of Thatcher v. Foot to a middle of the street wishy-washy mauve. Many issues confronting voters were complex, technical and subtle, with no flourishing answers what will happen to the economy if Britain enters, or girdle out, of the ERM? How can the peace transit move in the lead in Northern Ireland, given the intractability of all sides?Can Britain afford an effective and comprehensive health service, given ever-increasing demands on the system and spending limits authorized by all parties? These, and related, issues facing Britain have detailed consequences for the lives of citizens, but they admit of no simple sound-bite panaceas. The require of the news media and the public were at odds with those of the parties. Given their lead, the primary challenge for Labour was to manage their media environment against unexpected c essays, in play-safe reactive mode.The watchword was control. Memories of the polling fiasco in 1992, and Neil Kinnocks false expectation of victory in that campaign (Were allright ), dominated strategy in 1997. The challenge for the Conservatives was to staunch grassroots morale, and even build momentum, by emphasising the positive economic performance of the establishment, by quiet voters to trust Prime Minister caper major against the inexperienced and unknown Tony Blair, and by attacking Labour on the old bugaboos of taxes and trade unions.To gain bobby pin the Conservatives had to take to a greater extent risks than Labour. The challenge facing all the minor parties, but particularly the Liberal Democrats, was to forefend being squeezed by Labours smothering slither centre-left. Who win? The aim of this chapter is to examine this employment and evaluate the outcome. The frontmost plane section sets out the long-term context by meditateing how campaigning has been transformed in the post-war era.The 1997 election represented another critical step, it can be argued, in the transition to the post-modern campaign in Britain, characterised by adherent dealignment in the consider, developing fragmentation in the electronic media, and strategic communications in parties. The second section goes on to ana lyse what was covered in the field of study urge on and television during the campaign, and whether this suggests Labour won the battle of the campaign agenda, as well as the election.Lastly, we consider how the public reacted to the coverage, whether they felt that journalists generated interesting, fair and informative coverage, and the implications of this digest for the struggle over campaign communications. The Evolution of the Post-Modern feat Modernisation theory suggests that during the post-war era the political communication dish up has been transformed by the decline of come in linkages between citizens and parties, and the rise of mediated relationships.Swanson and Mancini argue that similar, although not identical, developments argon recognisable across industrialised democracies2. In the earliest stage, the premodern campaign in Britain was characterised by the prepotency of the partisan press a loose organizational network of grassroots companionship volunteer s in local anaesthetic constituencies and a short, ad-hoc topic campaign run by the party leader with a few mingy advisers. This period of campaigning bit by bit evolved in the mid-nineteenth ascorbic acid passing the development of mass party organizations registering and mobilising the fresh enfranchised electorate.Despite the introduction of wireless beam in 1922, this physical body was maintained in more a great deal than not identifiable form until the late fifties3. The critical watershed came in 1959, with the outset television coverage of a British general election, symbolising the transition to the coterminous stage. The evolution of the modern campaign was marked by a shift in the commutation spot of election communications, from news document towards television, from the constituency grassroots to the party leaders, and from amateurs towards professionals.The press entered an era of long-term decline circulation of national newspapers peaked in the late fi fties and sales have afterwards dropped by one-third (see go through 1). The fall was sharpest among tabloids, move these further downmarket in the search for readers4. This pugnacious competition transformed the nature of the British press, producing growing sensationalism, and more news media with attitude, while changes in willpower ratcheted the partisan balance further in the Conservative direction.One major factor contributing towards declining circulation was the rise of television. The political effects of this new technology were powerfully mediated by the regulations governing broadcasting in each country. In Britain the legal framework for the BBC/ITV duopoly was suffused by a strong public service ethos which required broadcasters to maintain party balance and impartiality in news coverage, to inform, educate and entertain according to high standards, and to provide an concord allocation of unpaid airtime to arty political broadcasts5. deep down this familiar con text, television centralised the campaign, and thereby increase the influence of the party leaders what appe atomic number 18d on BBC1s flagship 9 Oclock News and ITNs News at Ten, and related news and current affairs studios, was the principle means by which politicians reached the vast majority of voters. To work effectively within this environment parties developed a coordinated national campaign with professional communications by specialists ball-hawking in advertising, marketing, and polling.The long campaign in the year or so before polling day became as of import strategically as the short official campaign. These changes did not take place overnight, nor did they displace grassroots constituency activity, as the timeless religious rite of canvassing and leafletting proceed. A few trusted experts in polling and political marketing became influential during the campaign in each party, such as Maurice Saatchi, Tim Bell and Gordon Reece in Conservative Central Office, but this role remained as part-time outside advisors, not integral to the process of authorities, nor even to campaigning which was still run by politicians.Unlike in the United States, no political marketing industry developed, in large part because the only major clients were the Labour and Conservative party leaderships the minor parties had limited resources, while parliamentary candidates ran sell campaigns based on shoe-leather and grassroots helpers.But the net effect of television during the era of modernisation was to shift the primary focus of the campaign from the ad-hoccery of unpaid volunteers and local candidates towards the central party leadership flanked by paid, although not necessarily full-time, professionals6. Lastly in the late 20th century Britain seems to have been experiencing the rise of the post-modern campaign, although there corpse room for dispute in the interpretation of the central features of this development and its consequences.The most identifiable characteristics, evident in the 1997 campaign, include the emergence of a more autonomous, and less partisan, press following its own media logic the growing fragmentation and diversification of electronic media outlets, programmes and audiences and, in reaction to these developments, the tone-beginning by parties to reassert control th cutthroat strategic communications and media management during the permanent campaign. Partisan Dealignment in the Press In the post-war period parties have had long-standing and durable links with the press.In 1945 there was a rough partisan balance with about 6. 7 one thousand thousand readers of pro-Conservative papers and 4. 4 million readers of pro-Labour papers. This balance shifted decisively in the early 1970s, with the transformation of the left-leaning routine tell into the pro-Conservative Sun, and the more aggressively right-wing tone of The Times, twain under Rupert Murdochs ownership. By 1992 the cards had become overpoweringly s tacked against the left, since the circulation of the Conservative-leaning press had risen to about 8. 7 million compared with only 3. million for Labour-leaning papers (see Figure 1).Throughout the 1980s Mrs Thatcher could campaign assured of a largely sympathetic press, which provided a loyal course of study to get her message across7. One of the most salient(ip) developments of recent years has been the crumbling of these traditional press-party loyalties. The evidence comes partly from editorial policy. The Conservative press had started to turn against Mrs Thatcher in 1989-90, when the economy was in recession and her leadership became profoundly unpopular, and this constant barrage of criticism probably contributed towards her eventual(prenominal) demise8.During the 1992 election, while the Sun and the cursory Express go along to beat the Tory drum, comment from some of the other pro-Conservative press like the Mail and The sunlight Times was more muted, and four out of eleven daily papers failed to endorse a single party9. The new government enjoyed a brief respite on go to office but press criticism of John Majors leadership deepened following the ERM debacle on sixteenth September 1992, with only the Daily Express staying loyal.Journalists continued to highlight the governments difficulties over europium, and internal splits over the study on the Maastricht Treaty. By the winter of 1993, a succession of scandals involving Conservative politicians created headline news while editorials on a regular basis denunciated the government, and particularly the Prime Minister. By the time of the July 1995 leadership challenge only the Daily Express back John Major solidly, while the Sun, the Mail, The Times and the electrify all argued that it was time for him to be replaced10, an embarrassment for their leader writers given the outcome.The question, in the long run-up to the election, was whether the Tory press would return home, once the future of the Conservative government was under real threat. In the event, the 1997 election represents a historic watershed. In a major slip with tradition, six out of ten national dailies, and five out of nine sunlights, endorsed the Labour party in their final editorials (see Table 1). This was twice the highest number previously, and it change the long-standing pro-Conservative leanings in the national press.With impeccable timing, the Sun led the way on the first day of the campaign, (THE temperateness BACKS BLAIR), with a frontpage claiming Blair is a breath of fresh air while the Conservatives were tired, divided and rudderless, and its defection take the headlines and discredited Tory morale. This change of heart came after diligent efforts by Labour to court press support, including meetings between Blair and Rupert Murdoch, especially Blairs visit to Australia in 1995. roughout the campaign the Sun, with ten million readers a day, provided largely unswerving support for Blair , although opposing Labour policy on Europe and the unions, and many commentators predicted that the switch, based on Murdochs commercial considerations or else than political affinities, would not last long11. Labours traditional tabloid, the Daily Mirror, with six million readers, continued its brand of centre-left journalism (the paper for Labours TRUE supporters). On the last Sunday of the campaign, influenced by Murdoch, The News of the World decided to follow the lead of its sister paper, the Sun, and backed Labour.Among the broadsheets The Guardian called for tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats in seats where it do sense, but broadly endorsed Labour. The Independent was more subdued in its backing, casting its editorial vote for Labour with a degree of optimism that is not entirely confirm by the evidence. The paper was clearly more anti-Tory than pro-anything. The Times advised their readers to back Eurosceptic candidates from whatever party, although, in practice, nearly all were Conservatives.Only leads in the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail (Labour bully boys are back Labours broken promises) remained strongly in the Tory camp. point the Daily Express was more neutral than in the past a double-page spread was divided between passe-partout Hollick, its chief executive, arguing for Labour and its chairman, Lord Stevens, arguing for the Conservatives. The front-page of the election-eve Mail carried a colourful nitty-gritty Jack border and the apocalyptic warning that a Labour victory could undo 1,000 years of our nations memorial.Yet any comparison of editorial policy probably under-estimates the balance of partisanship in news coverage during the overall campaign. For example, the Mail ostensibly endorsed the Conservatives during the campaign, but in practice it probably deeply damaged the government by headlining informal scandals in the party, and reinforcing images of disunity with tether articles highlighting the number of Tory Eurosceptics. With friends like this, the Conservatives did not need opponents. To understand this we need to go beyond the leaders, which are rarely read, and even less heeded, to examine the broader pattern of front-page stories.The most plausible evidence for dealignment is that certain papers like the Sun, traditionally pro-Conservative, switched camps, but also that front-page stories were often so similar across all the press, control by news values irrespective of the papers ostensible partisanship. Since the early 1970s fierce competition for readers has back up far more sensational coverage in the popular press, fuelling an endless sustenance of stories about scandals, (mostly sexual but also financial), infotainment, and the Royals, preferably all three. This process started when Rupert Murdoch bought the News of the World in 1968, and the Sun a year later.It accelerated in the cut-throat competition produced by the launch of the Daily Star in 1978, which desire to o ut-do the Sun in its relentless search for sex, inquiring exclusives about celebrities, violent crime, and graphic coverage of the bizzare. Those who plan British newspapers had reached their nadir at this point had under-estimated the soft-porn Sunday Sport, launched in 198612. The tackiness of the popular press, such as their exhaustive gossip about the goings-on of the younger Royals, gradually infected and corroded the news culture of the broadsheets as well.By the mid-1990s, the journalism of scandal trumped party loyalties, workforce down. This fuelled the series of sleaze stories about senior Conservative politicians hroughout John Majors years in government, and there was no let-up during the campaign. As documented in detail later, the first two weeks of the election were dominated by a succession of stories about corruption in public life and sexual scandals, providing a steady diet of negative news for the government which swamped their message about the economy.