Page 18 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

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

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

The first edition of An Introduction to Political Communication appeared
just late enough in 1995 to be able to make reference to the emergence in
British politics of a young, fresh-faced Tony Blair. Blair was a new kind of
left politician, leading a new kind of left political party. A New Labour,
indeed, which under his leadership went on to win an unprecedented (for
Labour) three general election victories and hold power in Britain for
thirteen years. With the publication of this, fifth edition, Tony was gone, and
so were New Labour, replaced by the first UK coalition government since the
Second World War.
Testament to his influence is the fact that Conservative Party leader David
Cameron, prior to becoming prime minister in May 2010, was marketed as
the ‘real successor’ to Tony Blair, mainly because of his desire to ‘decon-
taminate’ the Conservative ‘brand’ and reach out to an aspirational, de-
ideologised British public for which old class politics were increasingly
irrelevant. Just as Blair embraced elements of Thatcher-era Conservatism
that appalled some in his party, Cameron acknowledged the achievement of
Tony Blair by attempting to emulate much of his policy substance and style.
New Labour revolutionised political communication in the UK, and in the
democratic world more widely. The party’s thirteen years in government
provided us with the concept of ‘spin’ and now widely used phrases such as
‘on message’ and ‘Mandelsonian’. By the time of the publication of this
edition, the key architects of New Labour had all produced their own
accounts of events and their part in them – Communication Director Alistair
Campbell in his diaries (2008, 2010); Peter Mandelson in The Third Man
(2010), and Blair himself in A Journey (2010). I draw on the first two of
these here (Blair’s book did not appear in print until after the revised
typescript had been completed), as well as recent scholarly and journalistic
literature on political communication, including work by Eric Louw, Aeron
Davis, Nick Davies and Brants and Voltmer.
In addition to the departure from the UK political stage of New Labour,
the timing of this fifth edition allows me to incorporate a number of signifi-
cant developments in the political cultures not just of Britain, but liberal

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