According to conventional wisdom, politicians need the media to get elected and the media need the politicians to satisfy an unrelenting public appetite for news.
What will the recommendations from the Leveson inquiry tell us that the expenses scandal and the drip feeding of revelations have not already?
A narrative that is currently playing out paints a picture of the origins of dark press practices being somehow invented in the nineties and then perfected in the fittingly naughty noughties.
To truly understand the context of today’s picture, we need to look way beyond the scope of the Leveson inquiry. To grasp an appreciation of how our media and political class have become so intrinsically linked requires us to look to the origins of them both.
The media had its part to play in forming the modern day political settlement in Britain, from the rise of Labour as the new opposition to replace the liberals to the unconventional assent of Winston Churchill to prime minister from 1940-1945.
The media’s backing for Churchill at the outbreak of war and his subsequent assent to power is a unique case in point. In Churchill’s support the Sunday Pictorial’s headline at the time read: ‘The man Hitler fears’, while in contrast The Times remained loyal to the last call of Chamberlain (1937-1940).
From CP Scott to Lord Beaverbrook the media proprietors of the day and their political party affiliations are laid bare in the historical records, showing that Rupert Murdoch is neither the first nor the last figure to be closely linked to our county’s leaders.
Churchill famously established the Ministry of Information in 1940 which saw in a new era of sophisticated government communication through centralised control, deemed necessary particularly in time of war.
Under Clement Attlee (1945-1951), the Royal Commission was set up to examine media reporting bias claims. The attorney-general at the time Sir Hartley Shawcross had publicly accused the ‘Tory stooge press’ of a ‘campaign of calumny and misrepresentation’.
To the distaste of many Labour MPs at the time, the report concluded that there was not a bias of injustice being served in the reporting of the left. These findings were contrary to both the thinking of those in the Labour party then as it is in parts of the party today.
The popular argument was that politics should be about policies and not personality, while sounding refreshing lacks the very human reluctance to wish to separate the two. Ultimately we judge our political leaders to a lesser or greater degree on both.
From David Lloyd George (1916-22) to Gordon Brown (2007-2010) the various occupants of No 10 Downing Street have had differing styles and relationships with the media over time.
Ultimately it is these differing personalities that have chosen to take or hand the media influence over their governments and parties. In many a case it is the perceived rather than actual power that drives politicians’ interactions.
The phonehacking scandal has in itself served up a rather ironic antidote. Parts of the media report what other parts of the media have been supposedly been up to, in the public interest.
The lesson for politicians is to be sure and steadfast about their own convictions as media supporters can just as easily become foes as the political wind changes direction.
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Marcus Hobley is a candidate in the members’ section in the Progress strategy board elections 2012. You can find out more about all the candidates at the dedicated Progress strategy board election microsite