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the Mandelsonian Labour model that the Conservatives are now adopting? Is this a
model in which party bureaucrats are displaced? Is the Conservative Party learning
from its own past or from the Labour model? Will a new model be established?

These questions are easier to pose than answer but they highlight the complex
relationship between the parties and the advisers,many of whom play an on-going role
within their organisation. It may be that, as in other walks of life, it is no longer enough
to do things: one must make an effort to publicise the activity for public consumption
(and approval).Blair government’s efforts to modernise, dare one say to ‘professionalise’,
the government’s communications activities is one such example. ‘The task’ of the
Mountfield working group, which was set up in September 1997 after New Labour
came to power, ‘was to consider proposals to respond to concerns about how far the
GIS (Government Information Service) was equipped in all areas to meet the demands
of a fast-changing media world and to build on the skills and resources of the career
GIS.’ In addition to recommending better ‘co-ordination with and from the Centre, so as
to get across consistently the Government’s key policy themes and messages’, it
recommended that, in its own opaque language, ‘the practice and procedures of all
Government Press Offices (be brought) up to the standards of the best, geared to quick
response round the clock…’ (www.gics.gov.uk/handbook/context/0600.htm as at
30.12.03). In other words, there was an acceptance that there should be, what the Phillis
Review into government communications called, ‘a professional approach to
communications across government’ (www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/reports/commrev/
pdf/pmguidance.pdf ).

Reasons for change include a belief that the needs of government in the age of ‘24/7’
media are significantly different from those of governments in a less demanding media
environments, and that new communication technologies also lead to the generation
and use of new practices. And central government, like political parties, has to respond
to these. Unlike parties, though, central government can spend considerable sums on
such communication activities, and the extent of employment of advisers and spin-
doctors within government departments – and across other state agencies – testifies to
this (Davis, 2002, pp. 20–22). Suggestions that the Labour government has used outside
professional consultants and public relations advisers to bypass the traditional – and Professionalisation in the British Electoral and Political Context
politically ‘neutral’ – sources of government publicity and communication are now
common (Miller, 2003: White, 2002) and underline the point that in media centred
democracies communicating with voters is critical, as is using the latest methods and
the most skilled professionals to do so.

Equally significant are the sums of money spent by government in what one could call
‘propaganda’ activities in the period prior to an election to alert voters to how well it
was doing in government, as well as the sums spent by government on advertising
agencies and consultancies to promote its other activities. Figures released recently
show that the Labour Government ‘was second only to Proctor & Gamble in the 59