Reviews

James Thomas (2005) Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics

London: Routledge, 222 pages. ISBN: 0-714-65337-3. £85.50 hardback.

This book, published as part of the British Politics and Society series, sought to answer a simple but fundamentally important question: 'to what extent has the Labour Party, and to what extent has the electorate, suffered a bad press over the last half-century?' (p.6). It specifically sought to examine the charge levelled by the Labour Party Leader after the 1992 General Election that the Conservative press had, yet again, brought about Labour's electoral defeat. Many shared Neil Kinnock's view, while others pointed to past Labour victories in the face of tabloid hostility. This book attempted to evaluate the impact of the popular press on Labour's electoral fortunes. In so doing it engaged with one of the long-standing debates within media and communication studies: the impact of the mass media on voter behaviour. On the one hand, proponents of the 'minimal effects' model, which was dominant for much of the twentieth century, argued that media messages, such as those concerning which party to vote for, were limited in their power as the media tended to reinforce opinions rather than change them. On the other hand, 'new effects research', which emanated from the disciplines of cultural studies, media and communication studies and political science in the 1990s, pointed to 'the very considerable power of the media at times to set the political agendas, construct rather than reflect socio-political meaning and affect attitudes, beliefs and behaviours' (p.5). This 'newspaper effect', scholars insisted, had the power to sway voters and, therefore, to determine the outcome of elections.

Where other books focused upon the Labour Party and the media during particular periods [Nicholas Jones (1999) Sultans of Spin: Media and the New Labour Government, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; Des Freedman (2003) Television Policies of the Labour Party, 1951-2001, London: Frank Cass; Sean Tunney (2006) Labour and the Press, 1972-2005: From New Left to New Labour, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press] and Labour's attempt to harness the media for its political project [Dominic Wring (2005) The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party, Basingstoke: Macmillan], Thomas was the first to present an historical analysis of this subject and the first to attempt to contextualise the subject within the aforementioned debate.

The book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter considers the period from 1906 to 1951. It discusses the anti-Labour stance of the popular press, specifically the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, during the inter-war years (the 'red scare' propaganda campaign); the Express-Mail propaganda campaign against the Conservative-Liberal Coalition Government in the early 1930s ('squandermania'); the Mail's flirtation with fascism in the mid-1930s; the emergence of a centre-left popular press during the 1930s (the Daily Citizen, the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle); and the leftward shift of the Daily Mirror during the Second World War. The last two factors helped to ensure that, by 1945, there was a new circulation balance between the Conservative and anti-Tory press. Furthermore, this new balance of forces helped to deliver Labour's historic 1945 General Election victory.

The second chapter focuses upon the period from 1951 to 1964. It details the decline of press partisanship during the 1950s; the scandals that rocked the Conservative Government during the early 1960s; the Express propaganda campaign against the Common Market during the early 1960s; the lukewarm support exhibited by the Conservative press towards the Conservative Government; and the Mirror propaganda campaign for a Labour victory. Once again, the balance of forces favoured Labour and helped it to win the 1964 General Election.

The third chapter concentrates on the period from 1964 to 1979. It describes the widespread disillusionment with Labour and the consequent rightward shift of the popular press during the late 1960s; the re-emergence of the 'red scare' agenda during the early 1970s (Tony Benn the 'extremist', 'fellow travellers', trade union power, etc.); the press smears against Harold Wilson and Marcia Williams (Wilson's press secretary); the rightward shift of The Sun from 1976 and its campaign against Benn and the 'Trotskyists' in the Labour Party; and the impact of the 'Winter of Discontent' in 1978-1979 when all of the popular press, save the Mirror, deserted Labour. The latter set the scene for the Conservatives' victory under Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 General Election.

The fourth chapter tells the story of the period from 1979 to 1992. It recalled the widespread support for Thatcherism from the popular press, save the Mirror, throughout the 1980s; the near defection of the Mirror to the newly formed Social Democratic Party in 1981; and the 'loony left' agenda which was used to demonise the Labour Party during the 1980s. With only the Mirror supporting Labour, and with much of the popular press pursuing its 'tax bombshell' propaganda on the eve of the vote, Labour was once again defeated in the 1992 General Election. As Thomas noted, 'in quantitative and qualitative terms, the press was more anti-Labour between 1979 and 1992 than at any other time in the post-war era. Roughly 70 per cent of the press opposed Labour and did so in a ferocious manner as emphasis was increasingly shifted from news to opinion and political guidance' (p.111). Thomas concluded that 'a strong case can be made that 1992 was the only occasion since 1945 when the popular press had decisively influenced the outcome of an election' (p.117) - this time in favour of the Conservatives.

The fifth chapter recounts the period from 1992 to 2003. It evaluates the breakdown of the alliance between much of the popular press and the Conservative Government under John Major during the early 1990s (the sleaze agenda and the battle over further European integration); the fear that Labour would lose the support of the Mirror following Robert Maxwell's death in 1991; the 'modernisation' (New labour) project initiated by Kinnock and consolidated by John Smith; and Tony Blair's wooing of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire. The latter helped secure the support of The Sun for New Labour, which went on to win the 1997 General Election. Thomas pointed out that, by 1997, the popular press had to respond to the changed sentiments of the electorate, which overwhelmingly wanted a change of government. The key question was whether 'newspapers were reflecting or shaping this change of opinion. The two most detailed studies suggested at most a marginal press effect, while two others more positively argued that the press, and especially The Sun, boosted the size of New Labour's majority in 1997' (p.133). Thomas concludes that there was no press 'shift to the left after 1992' (p.144). Rather, the Labour Party had shifted to the right after 1994. Indeed, whereas Labour had fought and won elections on a centre-left platform during the 1945 to 1964 period, from 1994 onwards New Labour had accepted much of the individualism, anti-welfare and anti-union agenda of the Thatcherite era to which much of the popular press remained loyal.

In the concluding chapter, Thomas questions the view, put forward by scholars such as James Curran, that the post-war period had witnessed the 'depoliticisation' and 'deradicalisation' of the press; studies utilising content analysis had found little and/or conflicting evidence of 'tabloidisation' and there was no indication of a reduction in the total amount of political news or election coverage. Nevertheless, Thomas conceded that the popular press had changed significantly over the post-war period. This transformation was reflected in falling sales as a consequence of television and the Internet (particularly among the young); low levels of trust in the popular press compared to other news sources; the polarisation of the press between quality broadsheets and the tabloids; the corporatisation of the press; the shift to a mediated style of political reporting by proactive journalists; the emergence of negative 'attack journalism'; the personalisation and sexualisation of political coverage; the greater focus on entertainment; and the relatively stable right-wing bias of the popular press throughout the post-war period. In terms of the fundamental question that Thomas set out to answer, whether the popular press can influence elections, he concluded that 'there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the popular press can sometimes have important effects on voting behaviour, particularly in evenly balanced political situations [and particularly amongst the undecided and uninformed], and can be even more important in shaping as well as reflecting the wider political and media agenda' (p.161). Furthermore, and equally importantly, the popular press can also impact upon politicians and can influence elite political agendas. In short, Thomas, with some qualifications, rejected the 'minimal effects' model.

The strengths of this book, which Thomas himself identified, included its breadth of coverage, with analysis from 1906 through to 2001, and the rich array of data sources that the study was based upon. These included declassified documents; the diaries, memoirs and private papers of leading newspaper proprietors; empirical data (public opinion polls, readership figures, etc.); interviews with Labour politicians and people from the media; plus the existing literature. These were weaved together into a narrative that was embedded within the changing political context of post-1906 Britain. Thomas also identified the book's many weaknesses. It neglected to analyze the 'quality' broadsheet newspapers; The Sunday newspapers; television; coverage of the Liberal Party and Liberal Democrats; journalism by Labour politicians; and the entertainment role of the tabloids. However, there are five more significant failings to which Thomas did not allude.

First, insufficient attention was paid to the changing ideology and policies of the Labour Party. The popular press was more hostile towards Labour when it adopted radical ideas and policies, particularly if it was in power. Second, and related to the first, it ignores the power struggles within the Labour Party over ideology and policy. The Labour Right often made common cause with the right-wing press to isolate and defeat the Labour Left and the broader British Left. Third, and related to the second, it disregards the role of the United States (US) in this story. The US utilised a number of conduits, including the mainstream media, in its long-standing campaign to neuter the Labour Party and the British Left. Including important events in the narrative over and above general elections - such as the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1975 Referendum on Europe, the 1976 International Monetary Fund Crisis, the dirty tricks campaign of the 1970s to destabilise the Labour Government, the 1984 -1985 Miners' Strike, etc. - would have assisted in drawing out the fundamental antagonism of the press towards progressive forces. Fourth, it passes over the changing political economy of the popular press, with only one sentence devoted to the corporatisation of the media. This, however, is critical to understanding how and why the Labour Party was treated as it was by the capitalist popular press. Fifth, it doesn't locate the study within the changing structure of the world order, specifically the Cold War and, following the collapse of communism and the neo-liberal counter-revolution, the New World Order. Such a framework would have enabled a much richer analysis. Nevertheless, despite these criticisms, this book is a valuable addition to a long-neglected area.

Andrew Mullen, Northumbria University, UK.