by @BevClack and @MagsNews May 2014 Posted on Labour Left
Terrible isn’t it?
Terrible isn’t it?
Seems Ed Miliband just can’t put a foot right.
Or that’s what the vast majority of the press would have you believe. Some of us absorb that info like a sponge and because it’s written in the papers, repeated on TV, mulled over on the radio, then it must be right.
Yeah?
Think again.
If, like us, you have more than a couple of decades under your belt, you will know from past experience that the British press has never been kind to the Labour party – with one exception – enter Mr Tony Blair. But we’ll come back to Tony later.
The first time we noticed this negative campaigning by the press was in ‘92 when Neil Kinnock led the Labour Party into the general election. The morning of the general election one newspaper (you know? the one that’s banned from being sold in Liverpool due to its despicable reporting of the Hillsborough tragedy) ran the headline ‘will the last person to leave Britain, please turn out the lights?’
Kinnock lost.
We’re certainly not giving the trophy to that paper or saying that Labour held no responsibility for defeat but it’s generally accepted that the headline fed into the minds of many.
Was this a significant moment when the press realised it might hold some power over the minds of the British people? Had we really come to the point when we couldn’t add things up and judge for ourselves?
Back in 1994, Tony Blair began to court the media, along with Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell: understandably so. Like us, they had seen the media ruin Neil Kinnock. And Tony became the press’ darling for some time. New Labour loved the positive news about itself. Rupert Murdoch decided his papers would support Tony Blair for the general election 1997. The Mail followed suit. Tony – and Labour – had it made! To those who asked about the wisdom of courting the press, Tony replied: “It is better to ride the tiger’s back than let it rip your throat out.”
But that was then. And a lot of water has gone under the bridge.
We saw how the media treated Gordon Brown. It got very personal and cruel. What wasall that about? Even after he left Number 10 it continued, with the press making untrue statements about his financial affairs in the face of the huge amounts he gives to charity. They say Gordon’s to blame for the crash. Take a moment here. Gordon was to blame for a GLOBAL crash: hardly likely. And note how this mirrors the Tories’ mantra. By way of contrast, note the real facts of the current economy: an economy that was growing when the coalition took over is now in such a bad state that George Osborne will have borrowed more in three years than Labour did in thirteen.
But you won’t hear about any of that on the airwaves or in the papers.
So much for the history. What’s happening now? And here we come to Ed Miliband and reports that he is on the slide. What’s the backdrop to this
Remember the personal attack by The Mail on Ed Miliband’s father? All the political parties felt uncomfortable with it. It was cruel. It was callous. It was personal. But the conscience of the nation was stirred! Over 70% of the population disagreed with it. It was timed after Labour’s conference; apparently to inflict maximum damage. Yet people saw through it. Didn’t stop the Mail though, with a reporter intruding at a private memorial service for Ed’s uncle.The Mail was forced to apologise: but note the personal nature of these attacks.
And now they are back ahead of the local elections this week, with both Newsnight and Channel 4 News ‘discussing’ Ed’s ‘image problem’
Is this really the BIG issue for Britain? We have people being forcibly moved out of their homes, or having to move as they are unable to pay for the bedroom tax. They are having to move away from family and their support networks. Families are being referred by professional health and social care agencies to collect food from foodbanks. Yesterday Ed launched his vision for tackling low pay. Hardly mentioned. Isn’t this an insult to all those people who work for a pittance, experiencing a daily struggle to pay their way? We have a government that is regularly castigated for providing false statistics. And all these issues go largely unreported.
One of those invited to pick over Ed’s image on Newsnight was Lorraine Candy, acting editor of Elle magazine. While she agreed that there is some importance in image, she went on to say that – surely – policies are more important. And it took a fashion editor to make the most important comment in the whole item:
‘I don’t want to go to the pub with the man who’s going to run the country, I want someone incredibly clever to run this country and to make me feel safe’.
We know that there are still people in the Labour Party who would prefer ‘the other Miliband’. They are like the Tories are still hark back to the halcyon days of Margaret Thatcher.
Well, here’s a message for those who seem to enjoy mulling over what could have been: times have changed. Lessons have been learnt. It’s time to move on, guys. It’s not 1997. We’ve moved on almost 20 years ! It’s fast approaching 2015 and a General Election. And the issues the country faces are not – surprisingly – about you and your wounded egos. We know what that’s like – we’ve felt it before too. But we are facing very different problems and we need policies for today not yesterday! Ed Miliband has led the political agenda since Conference last September. The Tories and the Lib Dems have been scurrying around playing ‘catch up’! And no, Ed is not courting the media. As with the banks, he recognised that the press needs a new form of regulation. Maybe this recognition is one reason for the hostility towards him by some parts of the media.
But sometimes one has to stand up for what is right.
So what have the press got against the direction in which Ed is taking the Labour Party?
Perhaps it’s his commitment to scrapping the bedroom tax, or providing extra funding for childcare, or offering an integrated health and social care programme. The latest policy to reach us is that he’s committed to tackling low pay. Perhaps these aren’t issues of interest to those who work for the Beeb or The Times?
Is it that simple or is there more to it? Is it that Ed didn’t go to the same school? That he isn’t a member of the Carlton Club? That he doesn’t offer the kind of privileged access available to an attendee at one of David Cameron’s £50,000 a go supper clubs? That he isn’t ‘one of them’? Tax breaks for millionaires will not be offered while others go without food, heat and – for some -even a roof over their heads.
But guess what? There is a world outside the London and Westminster bubbles; a world where the majority of British people didn’t go to public school, where they have never heard of the Carlton Club. Is our media so completely out of touch; out of touch in a way that mirrors the privileged outlook of the politicians who are currently running the country?
The discussion in recent weeks has become seriously silly. We need to get back to what really matters.
Image does not change people’s lives – policies do!
Politics is simply a game to many in the media. The focus is on selling papers or viewing figures. Whether the reporting is true or whether it’s cruel doesn’t appear to matter.
Remember Hackgate? Well, the phone hacking trial might not be in the press but it is still taking place.Take a look at the pressreform website – it’ll keep you updated on something that, strangely, the press don’t seem that interested in…
Of course,as Ed pointed out during his speech in the summer of 2011, there are many journalists who work within an ethical boundary, bringing us the information that they and we feel the public has a right to know. But when you are watching TV or reading the newspapers, it’s worth asking ‘who benefits’ from an agenda designed to distract us from the real debate about policies for the future that this country needs.
We need a government that speaks for the many not the few, that challenges vested interests and the power of the rich. And there is the possibility of that under the leadership of Ed Miliband who knows what the problem is in Britain and – crucially – what to do to fix it.
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