Page 134 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 113

ADVERTISING
remained unsympathetic to its core message, and presentational errors on tax
and other issues were enough to maintain majority support for the Tories.
By the time of the 1997 campaign, however, with Tony Blair installed as
leader and Conservative sleaze and in-fighting dominating the news agenda,
electoral success and political power were within Labour’s reach for the first
time in eighteen years. With further improvement of the communications
machinery and wholesale adoption of Clinton-style political advertising and
marketing techniques, Labour’s advertising strategy in 1996–97 was simply
to hold on to the huge lead in the opinion polls which it had established.
Adapting the Clinton strategy of ‘triangulation’ to the British context, New
Labour set out to steal the best Tory clothes, while retaining left-of-centre
social democratic values, repositioning itself as the ‘radical centre’ in British
politics.
The results of the strategy were seen in such ads as those depicting a
British bulldog (a traditionally Tory symbol of a rather unpleasant and
aggressive British nationalism), remaking it as a symbol of Labour’s ease
with patriotism (albeit a humane, ethical patriotism compatible with socialist
philosophy). In this way, Labour developed a ‘brand’ capable of appealing
to the large number of ‘soft’ Tory, affluent working- and middle-class voters
who had kept the Conservatives in power for eighteen years, as well as their
traditional supporters.
That brand was still marketable in 2001, when Labour again won a
landslide majority over the opposition parties. On this occasion, as already
noted, Labour’s campaign advertisements sought to play up its domestic and
foreign policy achievements in office, while scaring voters with the prospect
of a Tory return to power. The strategy was successful, in so far as New
Labour’s vote held up, aided by the absence of a credible Conservative oppo-
sition. A broadly similar strategy worked again in 2005, although producing
a much smaller majority. Under the leadership of Michael Howard the Tories
were still in the doldrums, but the impact of the invasion and subsequent
occupation of Iraq was generally perceived to have reduced the Labour vote
significantly, despite the government’s record of economic success. Tony Blair
resigned as prime minister in June 2007, having completed a decade in office
as prime minister. Chancellor Gordon Brown succeeded him, and led Labour
through to the 2010 election. Brown started well, and his early poll ratings
were good, but he was engulfed by the 2007–9 global financial crisis, which
forced up government borrowing and allowed the opposition to accuse
Labour of economic mismanagement. It was also Brown’s misfortune to be
prime minister when the MPs’ expenses scandal blew up in 2009, attracting
a harshly critical gaze from the media and public alike to Britain’s elected
politicians. Exposure of MPs’ expense claims (legal but inappropriate, it was
generally agreed, as voters reeled under the impact of the credit crunch) by
the Telegraph newspaper forced all parties on to the defensive, and in this
case the incumbent took the greatest battering.

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