Steve Richards: A courageous attack that will lead to reprisals

Tony Blair has made one of his more courageous speeches. Some of his speeches are aimed at wooing the media. In this one he dared to take on the media. In doing so he spoke for many politicians across the political spectrum who have reached a similar conclusion, that more than ever the British media fuels the current extreme and dangerous cynicism about those we elect.

Even in his near liberation from office Blair was restrained. Parts of the media attack him and other elected politicians relentlessly. Blair responded mildly by making some broad points about the pressures on the modern media to make an impact in a ruthlessly competitive market and accepted that he and others in New Labour were part of the problem too. It will be interesting to see whether parts of the media are as restrained in their response. Can they take the odd criticism too?

Over this thorny issue, the relationship between politics and the media, I write from no partisan perspective. In the mid- 1990s I wrote a detailed essay showing that the inadvertent collusion between newspapers and the BBC, reporting every minor incident afflicting John Major as a crisis, was a damaging distortion. More recently I have argued that the attempts to report inaccurate allegations about Iain Duncan Smith while Conservative leader were symptomatic of the over-excited media culture. Whatever his other faults, Duncan Smith was a figure of obvious integrity.

I did not support the war against Iraq and do not believe history will be any more benevolent in its judgement. But I do realise that Blair faced a series of nightmarish decisions in advance of the war and whichever way he moved presented intractable problems. These problems and dilemmas are rarely reported. Nor do parts of the media accept that in war candour is not possible. Churchill exaggerated the degree to which Britain was in a position to fight Germany on the beaches. Thatcher did not tell the truth about the lack of US support for the war over the Falklands. Blair exaggerated the significance of the intelligence on WMD. Are they liars? No, they were leaders trapped in multi-layered negotiations and seeking at the same time to win over their country's support.

But in the modern media advocacy becomes a lie and lack of candour becomes an issue of morality.

This Government's attempts to manage the media are wilfully misunderstood. The so-called spinning operation was defensive. Labour was slaughtered by the newspapers in the 1980s. They wanted to get a better press. Who could blame them? Most voters do not hear speeches in full or watch long interviews. Politicians are mediated by the media so they seek to get their points across in the most flattering light. David Cameron is doing the same now.

Prime Minister Blair tried new ways of conveying messages as openly as possible. He held monthly press conferences answering every question from journalists. He attended meetings of the parliamentary liaison committee in which he answered questions for hours. Previously secret lobby briefings were written up on the internet. In several ways he was far more openly engaged with his external critics than Margaret Thatcher. Yet still the clichés pour forth about "spin", a term that is so imprecise now as to be meaningless.

What has changed over the past 15 years is the way different parts of the media feed off each other. In the 1980s the BBC rightly expanded its outlets to reflect the extraordinary theatre of British politics at the time. Labour was split and some of its stars were setting up their own party. The Tories were divided into wets and dries. Much of the drama was played out on the BBC.

In this era of closer consensus there is much less immediately available theatre. To compensate the broadcasters and the newspapers dance together hyping up minor incidents, turning cock ups into deadly conspiracies. If ministers are united they are ruled by sinister "control freaks". If ministers disagree it means the government is falling apart. If a political leader seeks to present a policy in the best possible light it is "spin" (should he present a policy in the worst possible light?).

As a result voters are turning away from politics, an avoidable disaster. Politics is inherently exciting and would be more so if the media allowed politicians to breathe. Nor are politicians out of touch. They spend their working days agonising over green issues, poverty and other questions fashionable among young people who are alienated. The connections could be remade.

Of course politicians are partly to blame. But we know that. In their fearfulness they tell us so all the time. If you want to measure the might of the media consider this. No other senior politician would dare to make Blair's speech because they would fear reprisals from the mighty media. Blair only delivered it because he is going. Even he hesitated knowing the media would have the last word.

s.richards@independent.co.uk

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