Page 160 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

POLITICAL PUBLIC RELATIONS

British politics in the 1980s. On the other hand, Major’s ‘lack’ of
image may in itself be read as a careful construction, calculated to
position him, brand-like, in the political marketplace. While Neil
Kinnock displayed a slick and glossy self, John Major would be seen
as the ‘real thing’, unadorned and transparent.
In Brendan Bruce’s view, Major’s image comprised the following
elements: comparative youth; good looks; modest social background;
courteousness; ‘ordinariness’ and the common touch (considered to
be an advantage after eleven years of Thatcher). In short, Major was
all the things which Mrs Thatcher was not. Major’s image-managers
also stressed his love of cricket (Bruce, 1992, p.93). Under the
chairmanship of Chris Patten, the Tories’ public relations strategy
was to portray Major as representing ‘Thatcherism with a human
face’. As Patten put it, ‘we are trying to achieve incremental change
to fit a change of Prime Minister. In supermarket terms we want to
sell an updated product, not a new brand’ (quoted in Butler and
Kavanagh, 1992, p.39).
The success of John Major in the election of 1992 (if not
subsequently) indicates that in political image-management, as in
other branches of the style industry, fashions change. The subsequent
rise of Tony Blair, however, and the ‘making over’ of his party into
New Labour (and all that has gone with that in terms of party
organisation and media relations) confirm that the image managers
remain, at the heart of the political process.

Political marketing
The individual politician in a liberal democracy is, in theory at
least, the representative of a political party. Even leaders as powerful
and charismatic as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair became are
ultimately subordinated to the party machine. While Thatcher came
to embody the Conservative Party in a way that few politicians
have ever done, when in the end she was perceived as having become
an electoral liability she was removed from office. The party, then,
has its own identity and character which, like the personal images
of its leaders, can be shaped and moulded. As Bruce notes, ‘all
effective communications strategies contain what is called a
positioning statement, a clear analysis of what the brand (or
company, person, political party, etc.) is for: who it is for, and why
anyone should be interested in choosing it’ (1992, p.87) [his
emphasis].

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