Page 153 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

attention was paid to the ‘look’ of a conference, involving everything
from the choice of logo to the cut of the speaker’s suit. The debates,
which at Labour conferences had always been genuine exchanges
of view (evidenced by their frequently rancorous, anarchic quality),
often leading to media coverage of ‘splits’ and ‘disunity’ became,
like those of the Tories, bland and artificial, with the real acrimony
taking place behind closed doors. The Labour Party, to be fair (even
in the era of Blair and Mandelson), has not travelled as far down
this road as the Conservatives (whose conferences were by the 1990s
organised as little more than expressions of adulation for the leader,
even when the leader was John Major, a man manifestly unpopular
with his party members), and in 1993 allowed the conference to
engage in a potentially damaging display of ideological disagreement
when it debated the party’s links with the unions. On this occasion
the leadership won the debate, and was thus able to present then-
leader John Smith to the media audience as a commanding figure.
After his election as Labour leader in 1994, Tony Blair had to face
some difficult moments at party conferences, over such issues as
the reform of Clause Four of the constitution, and other cherished
‘old Labour’ policies. Despite such moments of ‘reality intrusion’,
nevertheless, Labour, like the Conservatives and the Liberal
Democrats, had by the 1990s been persuaded of the need to apply
the principles of pseudo-eventing to its public gatherings and become
increasingly adept at applying them, with rare exceptions.
During the 1992 election campaign, such was the manufactured
quality of the major Labour rally that its construction became a
news story in itself, backfiring on the party’s efforts to present itself
as modern and media-literate. The Sheffield rally of April 4, 1992,
has passed into British political mythology as an example of the
point at which the construction of pseudo-events for media
consumption crosses the line from acceptable public relations
activity to cynical manipulation. Credited by some commentators
as contributing substantially to the ‘late swing’ which is said to
have deprived Labour of victory, the event is a further example of
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the politicians’ difficulty in controlling ‘free media’. Designed to
portray an image of the party a few days before the election as
supremely confident in itself and its leader, Neil Kinnock, the
Sheffield rally was instead interpreted by the (mostly Tory) media
as demonstrating arrogance. Kinnock’s evangelistic style at the rally
seemed stilted and embarrassing, the media suggested, rather than,
as had been intended, relaxed and youthful. The exact role of the
Sheffield rally in Labour’s 1992 defeat cannot be known with

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