What Blair must do

Regular readers will know my quirks by now.  One of them is to put myself into the Prime Minister’s position and to ask the question “What would I do now?  What would I do to dispel the legacy of spin and mistrust in which Blair’s Administration is now enmeshed?”   This is my answer. 

In one sense, the remedy is straightforward - because it consists of injunctions merely to desist from present practices.  There is nothing Blair can do about the Tory press, it will always be malicious and mischievous.  There is nothing he can do about the declining quality of BBC news coverage and commentary, the descent of Today and Newsnight into second-rate investigative journalism (“This Programme can now reveal…”).  There is nothing he can do about the cynicism that has spread through BBC newsrooms like a virus. The language and skill of the BBC World Service is now of a far higher order than the mainstream “home” Service. 

Blair must accept these as part of the unalterable public environment, although he may legitimately hope (as I do) that the BBC will eventually return to its former standards of seriousness and objectivity. 

• Stop early releases of Ministerial statements and speeches - my concern is with the “widely-rumoured” Statement which starts to command the airwaves several days before the statement is actually made – scripts are circulated with the tell-tale caveat “Check against delivery” (because by then, one imagines, the Minister may have changed his mind…)  This practice encourages spinning, and deprives a Statement of all sense of occasion and impact.  Interviews even occur at 7.00 am on the Today programme, relating to a speech that will not be given until 11.00 am.  That is absurd.  It would be better to create a sense of genuine interest and surprise, and let the media do their worst.  
• Stop all “paving publicity” – this is the practice of manipulating public anticipation of a statement, either raising hopes or depressing them, in order to secure a desired reception for the Statement when it is made – this is at the heart of all “spin”, and it is a very common practice indeed.  But Government media aides should not be allowed to use it - by way of self-denying ordinance.
• Stop using unelected spokespeople to address the media on behalf of the Government, even in private – it goes without saying that you should sack Alistair Campbell.  Incidentally, you should not even think of bringing Peter Mandelson back into Government: he bears much of the blame for your present predicament.  And you should place a complete embargo on public statements by unelected Ministers (of whom you have far too many – I have just counted seventeen, on the Downing Street website).  Every time the Government is represented on radio or TV by a Lord or Lady (even on Any Questions) your personal credibility takes a nose-dive.  The relentless promotion of your old Bar colleagues still constitutes the most damning indictment, which you can hardly deflect – the desiccated autocrat Lord Goldsmith QC as Attorney-General, the pompous ass Derry Irvine and the buffoon Charlie Falconer.   
• I recognise that, while the Gilbertian absurdities of the House of Lords are still retained you must have a small number of Government spokespeople in the Lords – but it is grotesque that 17 members of your present Government have never faced an electorate of any kind in their lives, and merely luxuriate in your personal favour.  This is deeply corrosive of public trust, a profound issue of substance rather than form.  It also saps the morale of your own MPs and Party workers, and makes the voters wonder why they should bother to vote anyone into elective office – the patronage path to preferment would seem the more attractive option.  That may not be true, but it seems like that, to many loyal Labour supporters.  And as you well know, appearances matter, in politics. 
• Stop “burying bad news” – the Jo Moore affair, by revealing to public view practices which are woefully common throughout both public and corporate life, has nevertheless further eroded trust in your Government, and in you personally (after all, everybody believes that you intervened personally, to save her from instant dismissal) – a cruel and unfair conclusion, no doubt, given all your good intentions, but who ever said that politics was fair? 
• Stop attacking your own people – you will have to work hard to eliminate these impressions, because they reflect very badly upon you personally – the attacks on Gordon Brown, Ken Livingstone, Rhodri Morgan, Mo Mowlam, Clare Short, John Prescott, Bill Morris, David Clark, Gavin Strang.  The list is too long to be explained by coincidence, or misunderstanding.  This cannot have happened without your approval or connivance. This nasty practice is of long-standing, and you must take radical steps to put a stop to it.
• Stop attacking the media – this is one of the oldest ground-rules of the media game, and its rigour must be re-established - it was wrong of Charles Clark to hit back as he did, over the Funeral affair – I favour the maintenance of EXCALIBUR, the Party’s rapid response computer system, but it is vital that its power is used carefully and selectively, to tackle real attacks – don’t get mad, get even.  
• Stop cultivating Press barons – you have not yet lived-down that awful error of judgement in ’97, when you went all the way to Australia just to address a Murdoch Management Conference – your evident personal admiration for business success leaves you wide open to errors of this kind and will make it doubly difficult for you to do anything about these impressions – I suggest you appoint a “BaronWatch” press aide, with instructions to throw grit between these well-oiled wheels, and advise you on the pitfalls. 
• Stop enforcing ministerial straitjackets – I have already asked you to reduce your gruesome clutch of seventeen unelected Ministers – in a democracy, the people are entitled to have elected Ministers, even if they are MPs kicked upstairs to the Lords.  And elected Ministers must be given greater leeway for personal expression.  I urge you must abandon the strict discipline of regimented statements – tell your people to go easy on the blue pencil when all those Drafts come into Downing Street.  It is a PR disaster when listeners and viewers hear precisely the same phrases being parroted by different Ministers – you must find a way of celebrating diversity, risking allegations of dissent, and facing down the media, if important differences should indeed emerge.  That would now be far better for your credibility than the mediocre unanimity to which the public is routinely subjected.