Page 159 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 138

COMMUNICATING POLITICS
Gallagher brothers’ alleged fondness for cocaine and marijuana was in some
contradiction to the new government’s anti-drugs policy).
During election campaigns, rallies have become opportunities for parties
to display the stars of stage, screen and sports arena who support them. At
a rally in 1983 the Conservatives enlisted the aid of popular comedians like
the late Kenny Everett, as well as more well-known Conservative supporters
like Cilla Black and Jimmy Tarbuck. In 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005 Labour
employed ‘alternative’ comedians Ben Elton, Stephen Fry and others to
emphasise what its advisers hoped to present as a younger, more progressive
set of values. For the Labour Party, as for the Alliance and Leicester building
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society, endorsement from such sources was assumed to carry weight with
the target audience.

Internal political communication – Labour
The marketing techniques and promotional devices described in this chapter
and the previous one are not pursued in isolation but as part of a com-
munications strategy which will ideally be co-ordinated and synchronised.
Parties, like commercial organisations, must develop channels of internal
communication, so that members (and particularly those involved in a public
capacity) are aware of the ‘message’ to be delivered at any given time, and
to ensure that the different elements of the public relations operation are
working with each other effectively. Failure to put in place such channels can
result in public relations disasters and electoral failures, as the Labour Party
found to its cost in the 1983 campaign. Hughes and Wintour note that ‘the
party [in 1983] ran an inept and disorganised campaign, led by one of the
least appropriate figures ever to head either of the two dominant political
parties’ (1993, p. 6). We have already referred to some of the problems
associated with then Labour leader Michael Foot’s personal image. Equally
damaging, if not more so, to the party’s campaign in 1983 was the general
lack of co-ordination and planning in the public presentation of policy.
Heffernan and Marqusee agree that the 1983 campaign was ‘badly organised
and its media strategy non-existent’ (1992, p. 28), and that defence policy in
particular was mishandled: ‘A spreading cloud of political double talk
obscured the basic humanistic message about nuclear disarmament which,
opinion polls had shown, was capable of commanding substantial public
support’ (ibid., p. 32).
Elsewhere I have examined in some detail Labour’s handling of its defence
policy in 1983 (McNair, 1988, 1989). An analysis of television news
coverage of the campaign revealed that Labour’s leadership failed to make a
coherent statement of the policy, not least because Denis Healey, Michael
Foot, Roy Hattersley, and other senior figures appeared to disagree on
important aspects of it. While the Conservatives in 1983 fought an incisive
and aggressive campaign against Labour’s non-nuclear defence programme,

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