Page 170 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 149

POLITICAL PUBLIC RELATIONS
nothing said in briefings could be attributed to her personally. John Biffen,
Leon Brittan, and Nigel Lawson were among those ministers who in the 1980s
found their credibility and positions threatened in this way. Nigel Lawson,
indeed, went so far as to accuse Number 10 and Ingham of ‘black propaganda’
in their dealings with him (Harris, 1991, p. 176).
In his memoirs and elsewhere, Ingham denies that he ever used the Lobby
system, or any of the communication channels available to him, in an
improper way. There can be no doubt, however, that the Thatcher–Ingham
era was accompanied by an unprecedented centralisation and politicisation
of the governmental communication apparatus, the potential for abuse of
which was of concern to many, Right and Left on the political spectrum, not
least as the previous section suggested, because the even more centralised,
even more ruthlessly politicised governmental information system of the
Blair government could and does claim a precedent for its approach in the
Thatcher years.
As for the development of prime ministerial public relations under the
Blair–Campbell regime, there were some important positive changes in the
direction of openness. After November 1997 Lobby briefings were no longer
entirely anonymous, but could be attributed to Campbell, as Blair’s official
spokesman. Lobby journalists and political commentators have generally
welcomed these changes and others such as the introduction of prime
ministerial press briefings. For example, on 4 September 2002 Tony Blair
used such an occasion to communicate to an international audience UK
policy on Iraq.
More worryingly for some, Campbell brought his aggressive style of news
management from opposition – where it was used to great effect to woo the
hitherto Tory press (see Chapter 4) – into government where, as in the
Thatcher–Ingham years, it was as likely to be used against Labour ministers
as opposition politicians or the BBC. Regarding his regular spats with the
latter organisation, Campbell wrote in a 1997 article that ‘the media is
aggressive and it often requires aggressive argument in return’. 13 In this
respect he proved a more than worthy successor to Sir Bernard in his rough
handling of the journalists, right up to his resignation in August 2003.
Thereafter the Labour government adopted a more restrained, lower profile
style of communications direction, as did Gordon Brown and David
Cameron, first in opposition and then in government from May 2010. As
Andy Coulson took up the post of the new government’s communications
director, Alistair Campbell was reborn as a media pundit on political com-
munication.

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