Chapter 3: New Labour 1. The 1992 general election

¶1.1 The Labour Party's media strategy going into the 1992 election campaign did not aim to win over hostile sections of the media and was positively averse to engaging with News International (NI) in particular. It included some manifesto pledges on media policies to which elements of the press were explicitly opposed, including on implementation of the recommendations in the Calcutt Report and the establishment of an urgent inquiry by the Monopolies and Mergers Commissions into the concentration of media ownership.1

¶1.2 There was, in the event, significant negative coverage of both the Labour Party in general and its Leader, now Lord Kinnock, in particular throughout the election campaign. Even the victor of that election, Sir John Major, described it as both "a pretty crude campaign" against Lord Kinnock and "over the top".2 The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP, a Labour candidate at the election, described the experience in his evidence in these terms:3

¶"Now, what the Sun was doing in the 1992 election was working over each senior member of the Labour front bench and this had an effect, and if you were on the receiving end of it, it felt like power. It had an effect in my constituency. I remember doing an open-air meeting that Wednesday and you could feel support falling away, and my majority scarcely moved, although it did not reflect the national swing".

¶1.3 At the climax of The Sun's election coverage were two particularly negative and personal headlines directed against Lord Kinnock. "Nightmare on Kinnock Street" was followed, on election day itself, by the headline: "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights".4 As is well known, Labour lost the 1992 election but tabloid coverage in the years running up to election, and in particular The Sun's coverage during the campaign, has remained the subject of controversy ever since.

¶1.4 Kelvin MacKenzie, then the editor of The Sun, famously proclaimed through a headline after the Conservative victory that: "It's the Sun Wot Won It".5 Rupert Murdoch distanced himself from that; in his own words, he gave Mr MacKenzie "a hell of a bollocking".6 Mr Murdoch said this:7

¶"I just thought it was tasteless and wrong for us. It was wrong in fact. We don't have I that sort of power. I think if you – well, you can't do it now, but if you go after an election and you see a newspaper that's taken a very strong line, particularly the

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¶Sun, and ask their readers how did they vote, there would be no unanimity. It may be 60/40 one way..."

¶1.5 Lord Kinnock, in his resignation speech delivered on 13 April 1992, blamed his defeat on the newspapers which had supported the Conservatives, quoting the former Conservative Treasurer who had said that: "The heroes of this campaign were Sir David English, Sir Nicholas Lloyd, Kelvin MacKenzie and the other editors of the grand Tory press". Lord Kinnock warned: "This was how the election was won and if the politicians, elated in their hour of victory, are tempted to believe otherwise, they are in very real trouble next time".

¶1.6 None of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Inquiry suggested that The Sun's support for the Conservatives had in fact been decisive, although many, especially in other parties, thought that it was very influential. Alastair Campbell put it this way:8

¶"I am not sure if it can be claimed, as the Sun did after the Tories won in 1992, that "it was the Sun wot won it," but there is no doubt in my mind that the systematic undermining of Labour and its leader and policies through these papers, actively encouraged and fed with lines of attack by Tory HQ, was a factor in Labour's inability properly to connect with the public, and ultimate defeat."

¶1.7 The Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP's analysis was similar: "The Labour Party went on to receive extremely hostile coverage from newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. We then lost the 1992 General Election".9 During the course of her oral evidence she made clear that she thought that there were also other factors at play: "... I'm sure there were many things which contributed to us not getting elected in 1992 over and above the bombardment that we'd received from the Murdoch press ..."10

¶1.8 Mr Straw observed: "Few of us who took part, for example, in the 1992 General Election are in any doubt that the Sun's approach lost us seats. That was their purpose, and it is disingenuous for any now to deny this".11 Even more succinctly: "It did contribute to our defeat. I took that as power".12

¶1.9 Sir John Major, whilst critical of the treatment of Lord Kinnock, did not think that it was actually so influential:13

¶"How much did that affect the election? Labour Party mythology has it that it made a huge difference. I don't actually think so. I think the news coverage in 1992 and 1997 accelerated a trend that existed. I do not think it changed the result of either of those General Elections. I think we would have won in 1992; we would have lost in 1997."

¶1.10 Whether or not press coverage affected the outcome of the election, it is clear that the I experience had an impact on the perceptions of politicians as to the importance of political press coverage; and those perceptions have subsequently been a key factor in the media strategies of political parties. The Rt Hon Tony Blair put it this way:14

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¶"Q. I return to the issue of spin. I think we agreed that it was borne out of the unfair treatment, in your eyes, of Mr Kinnock's Labour Party, which required a disciplined and possibly a ruthless handling of the press. Is that right? "A. Yeah, but you see I draw a very clear distinction between what I would say is a very tough professional media operation and ruthless handling of the press in the sense of – when I read this stuff about how people felt bullied and harassed and intimidated and so on ..."

¶1.11 Mr Campbell recounted an active choice to change the Labour Party's approach to what he described as the Murdoch papers.15 He described Rupert Murdoch as the single most important media figure and said that "it would have been foolish on our part not to have sought to build some sort of relationship with him."16

¶1.12 Mr Straw said:17

¶"...once Mr Blair had come into office in 1994, we all shared the same view, that if humanly possible, without completely compromising ourselves, we should do our best to get the papers on side. It was better than the alternative. This was because I'd been through 18 years of opposition."

¶1.13 Ms Harman, questioned at the Inquiry, offered this perspective:18

¶"Q. May I sort of turn that around and say, well, those manifesto commitments which we saw in 1992 were singularly absent in 1997, and there was a reason for their being absent, which was not to estrange or inflame or otherwise discourage the Murdoch press. Is there force in that observation? "A. Well, I think it goes back to what Tony Blair said in what became known as his 2007 "feral beast" speech, is that we, after all those years in opposition and believing that we wanted to get into government to do things on the health service and on unemployment and on whole range of things, that it felt necessary to do more assuaging, neutralising, courting, that was the decision that was taken, and that did feel like it was necessary."

¶1.14 Mr Blair put it slightly differently:19

¶"Between 1994-1997, we did change Labour's policy on media ownership. However I it should be remembered that this policy was itself partly a product of the terrible relations between the Labour Party and the Murdoch press and the unions and that press. My view was and remains that there should be no presumption in favour of any media organisation or against it; that foreign ownership should not be regarded differently from ownership by British nationals; and that the best way of dealing with undue interference through size whether within one medium or across media, is through competition policy. So it would be fair to say that had we kept that policy, it would have been a problem with the Murdoch press. But there were sound objective reasons for changing it. I can't recall any conversations on it with anyone from the Murdoch media."

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¶1.15 Mr Blair rejected the suggestion, made by Lance Price, who worked first as Mr Campbell's deputy from 1998, and then as New Labour's Director of Communications between 2000 and 2001, that the old media policy was quietly dropped within six months of his (Mr Blair's) trip to Hayman Island in 1995, where he met Mr Murdoch, although he readily accepted that had he maintained the old policy then: "it would definitely have been a problem with the Murdoch media group in particular ...".20

¶1.16 He made very clear that he had not wanted media policy to distract him from his agenda of wider political reform:21

¶"...I mean, I'd taken the view I was not going to have the Labour Party coming back into power after 18 years with a programme of change for the country and having the centrepiece of the programme being issues to do with media ownership. I thought that would have been a distraction and wrong".

¶1.17 The scale of the distraction which Mr Blair believed would have resulted had he made media reform a central plank of his agenda was forcefully put:22

¶"My view, rightly or wrongly, was that if, in those circumstances, I had said, "Right, I've decided what I'm going to do is take on the media and change the law in relation to the media", my view is – and I think it's still my view, actually – that you would have had to clear the decks. This would have been an absolute confrontation. You would have had virtually every part of the media against you in doing it, and I felt the price you would pay for that would actually push out a lot of the things I cared about, and although, you know – I think I say towards the end of my statement: although I think this is an immensely important question , I mean, I don't, in the end – not for me at any rate, as the Prime Minister, was it more important than the health service or schools or law and order. "...If you take this on, do not think for a single moment you are not in a long, protracted battle that will shove everything else to one side whilst it's going on".

¶1.18 Speaking directly about the lessons and experience of 1992, Mr Blair said: "...I went through that 1992 election. I remember it. It was etched on my memory, and yes, I was absolutely I determined that we should not be subject to the same onslaught".23

¶1.19 Andrew Grice gave a similar sense of the impact which tabloid treatment of Lord Kinnock had and the Labour Party's strong wish to avoid it happening again:24

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¶"The Labour party was haunted by the treatment Neil Kinnock received as Labour leader and they were absolutely determined not to go through that again. They wanted a fair hearing. If they couldn't get the endorsement they wanted a more level playing field; as you know, in the end they got the endorsement".

¶1.20 Adam Boulton noted not only the Labour Party's close attention to the media after 1992 but also that the Conservatives later adopted a similar closeness to the press. Asked whether he agreed with the words of Mr Blair: "...We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour in courting, assuaging and persuading the media..." he said:25

¶"Yes, I would. As I also say, there was a reason for it, as has been cited elsewhere in the Inquiry. The soreness which Labour felt about the 1992 treatment of Neil Kinnock and the feeling that they needed to turn the media around if they were going to have a chance of getting their message across in 1997, but it struck me reading that again how remarkably close that is to some of the remarks that the current Prime Minister made last summer".

¶1.21 There was open hostility between sections of the press and the Labour Party during the 1980s, most acutely in the Labour Party's refusal to deal with NI as a result of the Wapping dispute. It was to a degree personal. Sections of the press used the power of personal attack and deployed both a sustained campaign of negative and aggressive personal coverage over a long period as well as a more concentrated burst during the 1992 General Election.

¶1.22 Labour's 1992 election manifesto contained policies which reflected (on Mr Blair's own analysis) the poor relationship between Labour and sections of the press, especially NI. The pledge to implement Sir David Calcutt's proposals if self-regulation failed put the party at odds with much of the press, and the promise to call for an urgent inquiry by the MMC into media ownership were, however principled, consciously oppositional.

¶1.23 It is worth repeating the real difficulty in determining precisely what impact the negative coverage of Labour politicians had on the outcome of the 1992 election. People do not necessarily agree with the opinions which they read in their newspapers, or they may already be of the same view and need no persuasion. However, it would be idle to suppose that sustained negative coverage had no effect. It is reasonable to conclude that political coverage can influence voting, although it is important not to overstate the degree to which it can or does do so.

¶1.24 Perhaps of even greater importance, and certainly easier to discern, is the impact of the 1992 election on perceptions about the power of the press to influence the fortunes of political parties. A belief that improved relations with the press were vital to future election prospects I is agreed to have been a cornerstone of New Labour's approach, a lesson learned from Lord Kinnock's treatment by sections of the press.

¶1.25 The impact of personally hostile media coverage is not exclusively a Labour Party issue. Conservative politicians also bear in mind the fate of Sir John Major's Government which, in time, came to attract coverage every bit as negative and personal as that which Lord Kinnock had endured.

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The 1997 general election

¶2.1 On 21 July 1994, Mr Blair was elected as Leader of the Labour Party, heralding a new era in the relationship between the Labour Party and the media.26 Mr Blair himself told the Inquiry:27

¶"... by the time I took over the leadership of the Labour Party, we'd lost four elections in a row, We'd actually never won two consecutive full elections in our history ... I went through that 1992 election. I remember it. It was etched on my memory and ... I was absolutely determined that we should not be subject to the same onslaught ... We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging and persuading the media".

¶2.2 He described this new era as one of "courting, assuaging and persuading the media".28 Mr Blair confirmed that he met Rupert Murdoch on at least one occasion before becoming leader; this was on 15 September 1994 at a private dinner at a restaurant.29 Although Mr Murdoch could not recall the dinner, he accepted in evidence that much of what was attributed to him by a number of sources sounded plausible.30 From this it may be possible to infer that Mr Blair took the opportunity to explain that the Labour Party would not undertake an inquiry into cross-media ownership, and also the state of policy on the statutory recognition of Trade Unions.31

¶2.3 The new strategy appears to have had almost immediate effect. Within just a few days of his election as Labour Party Leader, it was being reported that Rupert Murdoch had stated publicly that he 'could imagine' backing Blair32 (Mr Murdoch's evidence was that although he did not remember saying this, it was quite possible that he had).33

¶2.4 On 27 July 1994,34 Mr Blair appointed Mr Campbell (then assistant editor at Today, a NI newspaper)35 as part of his political and election strategy team. Mr Campbell played a prominent role in repositioning the relationship of the Labour Party with the press.36 He became in due course the Prime Minister's Chief Press Secretary in May 1997 and on 15 July 2000 was appointed Director of Communications and Strategy at No 10.

¶2.5 Mr Campbell himself stated in evidence that, as soon as he was appointed in 1994, he set himself the objective of ensuring that Mr Blair did not suffer the same fate as Lord Kinnock.

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¶That this meant taking a more strategic and proactive approach to communication and relationships with the media.37 He said this about it:38

¶"In addition to the historic bias against Labour, the Wapping dispute had given rise to real bitterness between parts of the media and the Labour Party, to the extent that the Party did not communicate with, for example, some of the Murdoch titles. Also other titles like the Mail and the Express were so supportive of the Tories, and hostile to Labour, that our people tended to avoid them. We changed that approach very deliberately. Part of our message was that there was no part of public opinion we were afraid of and where we would not take the basic arguments of Labour".

¶2.6 Mr Blair appointed Lord Mandelson (then MP for Hartlepool) to manage the Labour Party's general election campaign. Lord Mandelson described his role as follows:39

¶"Now, part of that was to reassure the media that we weren't the same Labour Party, and that, in a sense, trying to persuade them that we were no longer the toxic brand of the 1980s you could describe as an attempt to sort of neutralise, to sort of take the roughest edges off their hostility to us".

¶2.7 On 17 July 1995, Mr Blair accepted the invitation of Mr Murdoch and News Corp to attend their conference at Hayman Island and to deliver a speech. In evidence to the Inquiry, Mr Blair said:40

¶"... I would strongly defend that decision. It is important to understand that the Murdoch press (a) represented a large part of the media with large numbers of readers i.e. voters and (b) had been viscerally hostile to the Labour Party. The fact is I was changing the Labour Party to become New Labour ... The continued hostilities between the Murdoch Group and Labour had no rationale to it given our changes and the fact that the Conservative Government was running out of steam. Actually, my speech held closely to all the policies I believed in".

¶2.8 He added:41

¶"I had a minimum and maximum objective. The minimum objective was to stop them tearing us to pieces and the maximum objective was, if possible, to open the way to support. Now, actually, the speech I gave – yes, of course you had to balance it very carefully. There's no policy I changed, and actually in the speech I went out of my way – and we were very careful about this – to make sure I emphasised support for minimum wage, union recognition, pro-European position, increases in public investment, all of which may not have been what they wanted to hear. On the other I hand, what I felt perfectly comfortable in doing was saying – and this I was perfectly comfortable with saying – "This Labour Party is going to be a party of aspiration, not merely redistribution. It's going to be a party that's going to appeal to the emerging aspirant working class. It's going to be a party that is essentially about creating a meritocratic society and expanding opportunity and it's not going to go back to the old ways". But that was a message I was determined to give to the country.

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¶... But what is important, I think, to emphasise ... I actually did have in all the things that we were committed to they wouldn't like. I was also – because I was having to watch my other audience as well".

¶2.9 Mr Murdoch put it this way:42

¶"I distinctly recall Mr Blair's address at our conference on Hayman Island. He spoke convincingly of the ability of a new Labour Party to energise Britain. I do recall believing that Mr Blair and the policies he advocated could help revitalise Britain, and sharing that view with newspaper editors at the conference, who were also impressed by Mr Blair's speech".

¶2.10 He also confirmed that he may well have said the following when thanking Mr Blair for his speech:43

¶"If our flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, then I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very carefully".

¶2.11 The different perceptions and perspectives on the dynamics of this interaction interested the Inquiry. Mr Murdoch was keen to impress on the Inquiry a view that all the power and influence lay with politicians, but Mr Blair's evidence and autobiography were very different.44 He spoke of feeling 'this pretty intense power' in the relationship (although Mr Murdoch was not mentioned by name in this context).45

¶2.12 This contrast was particularly striking. Mr Murdoch:46

¶"As for the 'value' to me of these meetings, my view is that if an editor or publisher is invited or otherwise has an opportunity to meet with a head of government or political leader, you go..."

¶Mr Blair:47

¶"Again, now, it seems obvious: the country's most powerful newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion's den. You go, don't you?"

¶2.13 Shortly after the Hayman Island speech, on 17 and 21 July 1995, editorials were published in The Sun which were broadly supportive; Mr Blair, it was said, "has vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life".48 But Mr Murdoch's evidence recalled that the editorials also noted that a number of questions about Mr Blair's policies remained unanswered at that stage.

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¶2.14 Shortly before the 1997 election, Mr Blair wrote two articles in The Sun about the Labour Party's commitment to a referendum on the Euro: "I'm a British Patriot" on 17 March 1997 and "My Love for the Pound" on 17 April 1997. Mr Campbell recalled that it had been made clear to him by the editor of The Sun that, if Mr Blair were to emphasise the point in these articles that there would be no entry into the Euro without a specific referendum on the issue, and that he understood people's fears about a so-called European super-state, this was likely to be the final piece of the jigsaw before Mr Murdoch agreed that the paper would back the Labour Party at the election.49

¶2.15 Mr Campbell and Mr Blair both emphasised to the Inquiry that they did not tailor their policies to seek favour from the proprietor of The Sun. Instead, they sought to highlight those parts of Labour Party policies which might appeal to Sun readers.50 Mr Campbell noted, as an example, that holding a referendum on the Euro was already official policy long before The Sun made the request it did.51 In other words, there was alignment. There were also 'concessions in rhetoric'.52

¶2.16 The landslide victory of New Labour in 1997, and the decisive defeat of Sir John Major, have been widely analysed. Policies, personalities and the public mood on the one hand, and the press on the other, were all in the same place. The press no doubt both reflected and affected public opinion, in immeasurable proportions. Mr Murdoch generally backed the winning side (although he also stated that he sought to judge the candidates on the issues, not on whether they were likely to win).53 Mr Campbell put it this way:54

¶"Again, I do not believe that the papers swung the result, though they may have helped increase the majority because of the sense of momentum we were able to gather. I believe the Sun backed us because they knew we were going to win: we did not win because they backed us. But it is certainly the case that we very deliberately set out to get our voice and our arguments heard in papers normally hostile to us, and that this had the positive political impact we sought."

¶2.17 Mr Blair was asked to comment on a passage from Chris Mullin's diaries dealing with the dinner between him and Mr Murdoch on 15 September 1994:55

¶Q. "If he thinks we're going to win, he'll go easy on us, but if he thought we could lose, he would turn on us." He [Mr Blair] added: "If the press misbehave badly during the election campaign, I will stop everything for two days and we'll have a debate about what they're up to, who owns them, the lot." Then Mr Mullin: "Did you say that to Murdoch?" And your answer: "Not in so many words." Is that an accurate gist then of your conversation with Mr Mullin? A. I think it is. I mean, as I say, this is going back 18 years or 17½ years now, but certainly that was my attitude. I think now, by the way, I would have a slightly different view. In other words, I think – there was a view of Rupert Murdoch, which I think Paul Keating speaks to the same effect, which is that he just backs the winner. My view now is it's not as simple as that actually. There are very strong political views and those actually do come first, I think, or put it like this: they're equal first, let's say, with whatever interests he feels in being on the winning side or the losing side, and – you know, so I'm not – my view of this now is if he'd been persuaded – I mean, it looked as if we were going to win, so you didn't have to be a genius to think we had a good chance of winning, although when you've lost four a row, by the way, you never think it's that clear. So I'm not sure I would have the same view now about that, but that may well have been what I said to Chris and to – and yes, look, if I'd ended up in a situation where they turned on me, I would have had to fight back. You know, there's no – that would have been the only recourse. And we weren't – in 1992, we weren't really in a position where we were able to fight back, but this time we would have".

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