Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 9781474465984

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Culture Wars the media and the british left

james curran, ivor gaber and julian petley

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

# James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley, 2005 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in Linotype Palatino by Iolair Typesetting, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7486 1917 8 (paperback) The right of James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.

The Griffin’s Eye cartoon is reproduced by kind permission of Charles Griffin; cartoon supplied by the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent. The swastika cartoon is reproduced by kind permission of Associated Newspapers.

Contents Part 1 Politics and Cultural Conflict 1 A New Political Generation James Curran Part 2 The Rise of the Sixties Generation 2 Goodbye to the Clowns James Curran 3 Defeat into Victory James Curran Part 3 Loony Tunes 4 Hit and Myth Julian Petley 5 ‘Hate on the Rates’ Julian Petley 6 Positive and Negative Images Julian Petley Part 4 Modern Times 7 Slaying the Dragon Ivor Gaber 8 Driven to Distraction Ivor Gaber Part 5 The Media and the British Left 9 The Political Impact of the Media James Curran 10 Influences on the British Media James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley Index

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39 56

85 108 158

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PART 1

Politics and Cultural Conflict

Chapter 1

A New Political Generation

P

erceptive contemporary observers sensed that Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 general election victory marked a sea-change in British politics, possibly even the start of a new era.1 The new right, they argued persuasively, connected to dynamic social currents in British society, while Labour seemed locked into a downward spiral of decline. Labour’s core constituency of manual workers was fragmenting, and shrinking fast. Growing individualism and market consumerism posed a threat to collectivist politics. Resentment against state bureaucracy was allegedly weakening support for the welfare state. Above all, it was argued, the liberal corporatist system of government – the way that Britain had been run for the last forty years – no longer worked. Governments experienced growing difficulty in delivering full employment and improved services, while business and labour were increasingly unwilling to participate in a social contract brokered by the state. The crisis-ridden record of the Wilson/Callaghan government (1974–9) – its IMF bale-out, public spending cuts, rising inflation and unemployment, and growing industrial conflict – seemed to indicate that social democracy delivered through corporatist networking and conciliation had run its course. Given the general consensus that Labour was in crisis, the central question for its supporters was what should – or could – be done about it. The response of many activists was to press for greater grassroots control on the grounds that they had been let down by their leaders.2 Influential Labour politicians countered by saying that the party should proclaim its true identity as a social democratic rather than socialist 3

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

organisation – a move, they predicted, that would win increased electoral support and facilitate greater political honesty. This group went on to form in 1981 the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which merged with the Liberal Party in 1988. These conflicts merely deepened Labour’s crisis. The activist revolt promoted a public image of Labour as divided and rancorous, while the breakaway SDP deepened the split of the anti-Conservative vote. Labour’s electoral position deteriorated still further, with its vote in the 1983 general election dropping to 28 per cent of the poll, its lowest share since 1918.3 Some groups on the left sought to identify a way of responding to Labour’s crisis that did not centre on mutual recrimination and internal power struggles. In particular a group of intellectuals, closely linked to the influential Euro-Communist journal, Marxism Today, argued that the basis of post-war reformism had been fatally undermined, and that Thatcherism represented a more serious – and popular – force than most of the left realised. Their contention was that this called for a fundamental departure from the traditional approach of ‘Labourism’. For some Marxism Today writers, the new urban left provided an inspirational model to be emulated;4 others called for a ‘counter-hegemonic’ leadership of the labour movement that connected political vision to cultural change and new social identities;5 others, still, argued that Labour needed to come to terms with, and adapt to its own purposes, the Thatcherite legacy – in effect, a left version of Blairism.6 But prominent among these views was the Marxism Today’s 1984 conclusion that ‘renewal is underway, and the GLC is very much part of it’7 and its 1986 requiem for the GLC as the embodiment of a new, popular, radical politics.8 A second, overlapping group of intellectuals, centred inside the Labour Party and linked to its magazine, New Socialist, tended to view Labour’s crisis as being rooted primarily in a policy failure that could be remedied through the development of new ideas. It debated how a social democratic government could function effectively in an increasingly deregulated global economy, and came up with the favoured solution of concerted action in the management of European economies (a position that evolved into radical Euro-federalism).9 The magazine also explored the rethinking of policy through feminist, green and syndicalist perspectives, and discussed the implications of the rise of international civil society (anticipating a key theme of the subsequent 4

A New Political Generation

‘anti-globalisation’ debate). While it was less starry-eyed about the urban left than some other radical publications, it took comfort in its rise and growing influence. ‘And Now for the Good News’ was how urban left councils were hailed in a New Socialist anthology.10 Leading representatives of the municipal left were also not backward in proposing themselves as saviours of the Labour Party. Local government, they argued, provided a base for resisting the ravages of Thatcherism – something that progressive local councils were doing more successfully than Labour’s ineffectual parliamentary leadership.11 The innovative policies of radical councils also offered a ‘pre-figurative’ model for the future. While Thatcherism enforced spending cuts and spurious market choice, and old Labour offered managerial paternalism, the urban left was pioneering, it was proclaimed, a new approach – giving power away to the people.12 Radical councils were funding community groups to formulate their own plans for community development, and incorporating their representatives into the structure of local state decision-making. This approach also had the merit of enabling radical authorities to reach out beyond the male, white worker – the bastion of old Labour – to connect to new social constituencies including progressive sections of the middle class.13 More generally, it offered a strategy for modernising the Labour Party, helping it to relate to the multiple social identities – including those of gender, race and sexuality – of a changing and more diverse society. In short, a significant section of radical opinion in the early 1980s believed – or at least hoped – that the urban left was charting a road map out of failed social democracy, developing a strategy for being both radical and popular, even advancing a new definition of socialism in keeping with new times. These arguments were part of the internal debate that took place within the Labour party about how the party could best withstand the whirlwind force of Thatcherism. What happened to the urban left – whether it succeeded or failed, whether it received positive or negative media coverage – would influence the way in which Labour defined itself in opposition. It would also affect the development of mainstream politics into the 1990s and 2000s.

Reinterpreting the Urban Left Who were the urban left, and what did they set out to do? The view of the specialist academic literature is, with minor variations, remarkably 5

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

consensual.14 Its conclusion is, broadly, that the urban left introduced policies that had an enduring influence on local government. However, the urban left is also criticised for being prone ‘in some instances to a degree of zealotry’,15 although this is an issue about which, according to some analysts,16 there is a certain amount of media mythology. More generally, it is argued, urban left councils sometimes attempted to do too much without adequate administrative experience or financial controls. At times, their stated objectives concealed ambiguities, rooted in their reluctance to acknowledge conflicts of interest between producer and consumer groups. By 1990, the urban left trailblazers were superseded largely by the ‘urban managerialist’ left distinguished from the former by ‘the more modest nature of their political agenda’.17 Thus, the academic verdict is that the urban left was innovative, flawed, influential and transitory. This olympian judgement – though broadly correct – is open to challenge on two counts. First, its generalities sometimes pay insufficient attention to important differences between left-wing councils in different parts of the country. Yet, as one pioneer analyst rightly notes, the new urban left is ‘best understood not in terms of a single coherent ideology but as a syndrome or a set of associated characteristics.’18 Greater clarity is achieved if urban left councils are differentiated in terms of their general political orientation. At one end of the spectrum were the ‘workerist’ councils that sought to advance the indivisible interests of a unified working class. These were typified by Liverpool council, which was strongly influenced by the Trotskyist Militant Tendency, and by Sheffield Council, which was embedded in a political culture of industrial trade unionism, both of which viewed ‘trendy left’, metropolitan politics with undisguised suspicion. For example, Liverpool council opposed ‘positive action’ race policies that, in its view, had the potential to divide the working class,19 while Sheffield council’s young leader poured cold water on feminist initiatives that made an unhelpful distinction between the interests of working men and women, and threatened to ‘sap the energy of the class struggle generally’.20 At the other end of the spectrum were radical pluralist councils that attempted to build an alliance between town hall socialists and trade union, ethnic, feminist, gay and other groups in the community in a bid to forge a new, progressive coalition. This approach was exemplified by the Greater London Council and leftwing borough councils in London. They provide the main focus of this study. 6

A New Political Generation

The second limitation of the relevant literature is more fundamental. Because this literature comes out of local government studies, it tends to view the urban left narrowly in terms of the theory and development of local government. In one sense, this can be viewed as a virtue since it has led to the extensive documentation of the urban left’s contribution to local public administration. However, this specialist approach has caused important aspects of the urban left – its wider significance, how it was represented and viewed at the time, its relationship to cultural conflict – to be ignored or marginalised. These neglected themes are explored further in this study. It will consider what the rise of the new left in London revealed about social change. It will examine in detail how radical town halls were reported – the central kernel of this book. It will also investigate the political impact of this coverage, and its wider implications in terms of generational conflict.

Product of Transition The urban left in London gained power partly in response to rapid economic and social change. Between 1964 and 1974, Greater London lost 40 per cent of its manufacturing jobs.21 In the subsequent period 1973–83, manufacturing jobs in the capital again almost halved.22 There was however a significant growth in its public and service sectors. This was the changing economic context which resulted in a rising proportion of left-leaning, middle-class members within the London Labour party. Their increasing influence was reinforced by a critical grassroots response to the rightward drift of the Wilson/Callaghan government (1974–9). In 1977, the left gained control of the London Labour Party Executive. This symbolised an historic shift in the balance of forces within the metropolitan Labour Party which had long been dominated by a centre-right coalition.23 The changing social composition of the London Labour Party also had a cumulative effect on the capital’s municipal politics. From the late 1960s onwards, a growing number of professional and other middle-class groups moved into poverty-stricken inner city areas, attracted by their central location and the availability of relatively cheap, good housing. In some cases, they joined inactive branches of local Labour parties, with small memberships, and rapidly acquired positions of influence.24 Some of these confident, new recruits (often with a 7

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

background in single-issue politics) set out to make councils more effective agencies of change by extending their role in the local community. In places like Lambeth, Camden and Lewisham, they found like-minded allies among existing party members; in other boroughs like Islington, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Southwark, they fought bitter internal battles; and in still others, they had little or no influence. For example, the council in Barking – a Labour stronghold relatively untouched by gentrification, and still retaining a traditional manufacturing base – stood aloof from local socialist experiment throughout the 1980s. If one key influence shaping the London Labour Party was a shift in its social composition, a second formative influence was the rise of the women’s movement. The shift from industrial production to the service sector resulted in a growing proportion of married women gaining fulltime paid employment, especially in the period after 1970. Increasing economic independence was reinforced by the ‘second wave’ of feminism. London became the forcing ground for change. It was where the historic Women’s Liberation Workshop was founded in 1968, followed by the launch in 1972 of the feminist magazine, Spare Rib, the Virago publishing house in 1973 and the National Women’s Aid Federation in 1975. While some feminists settled for creating women-only enclaves of mutual support, others sought to change society through a more interventionist approach. Their bible was Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, which ended with a celebrated last sentence: ‘What will you do?’25 Its clarion call was heeded by Labour women activists who transformed a number of almost moribund women’s sections, traditionally concerned with social events and fund-raising, into feminist caucuses.26 These maintained a steady broadside of criticism against the male domination of contemporary politics in which women accounted for only 28 out of 650 MPs in 1983,27 and only 22 per cent of London councillors in 1986.28 Labour feminists exerted strong pressure, in particular, on local councils to pay more attention to the needs of women. This was especially true in the capital, where Labour feminism was better established than in most other parts of the country. A third influence reshaping the London Labour Party in the 1980s was immigration. A large number of migrants, from the West Indies, India and Pakistan, arrived in London in the 1950s and early 1960s. Immigration declined in the next two decades, following the restrictive 1962 Commonwealth Act, and still more restrictive legislation in 1968, 1971 8

A New Political Generation

and 1981. Even so, enough immigrants settled in London to change significantly its ethnic mix. By 1981, one in five people living in inner London, and one in ten in outer London, were of Asian or AfroCaribbean descent.29 However, it took some time before immigration affected left politics. The first generation of Afro-Caribbean and Asian migrants (like their Irish and Jewish predecessors) tended to keep their heads down, partly in order to avoid trouble in a city where racism was both widespread and open. Their communities were still fragmented in the 1950s by allegiances to their places of origin (even extending to individual Caribbean islands), often reinforced by different religious affiliations. Many immigrant newspapers in Britain reported extensively during this period on what was happening in the countries where their readers came from.30 However, the second generation was more integrated into the wider community, and less willing to put up with racial prejudice. During the late 1960s and 1970s, Londoners of Afro-Caribbean descent developed in particular a more unified subculture, strongly influenced by the American civil rights movement and pride in being black, and also by the bruising contradictions of a complex, ‘refused’ British identity.31 Out of this grew a new mood of militancy, especially during the 1980s when rising unemployment affected disproportionately ethnic minority groups. Anger erupted into major riots in south London (Brixton) in 1981, and in north London (Broadwater Farm) in 1985. This increased militancy, combined with black lobbying inside the Labour party and the mushrooming of ethnic minority organisations, led to a belated political adjustment. Black representation in London town halls doubled in 1982, rising to 77 black councillors (4 per cent of the total).32 By 1987, three black councillors – Bernie Grant, Linda Bellos and Merle Amory – led London local authorities. The emergence of ethnic minority protest coincided with the rise of gay liberation. Successive generations of homosexuals had kept a low profile during the period when it was a criminal offence for gay men to make love in private. Even when gay sex was legalised in 1967, it was widely held that tolerance was conditional upon discretion. This attitude often concealed latent hostility, and sometimes found expression in casual, violent assaults on homosexuals who were judged to be flaunting their sexuality. This combination of prejudice and intimidation was directly confronted by a group of gays and lesbians in London who set up the Gay Liberation Front in 1970. Its three main objectives were 9

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

to assert the validity of homosexuality (‘Gay is Good’), to be open (‘Coming Out’) and to organise for reform and mutual support.33 London became the main centre of this more combative approach, and acquired a network of organised gay groups, telephone help-lines, community services, gay theatre, cinema, newspapers and journals. The gay liberation movement also set out to influence public attitudes, successfully cultivating the use of the word ‘gay’ in place of the oppressive label ‘queer’.34 In the more liberal climate of the 1970s, gays and lesbians came to be portrayed more sympathetically on television.35 With a new sense of confidence, gay campaigners demanded freedom from discrimination in employment, and called upon progressive councils to join them in openly fighting sexual prejudice. A section of the gay community thus engaged in a new kind of public politics very different from the discreet lobbying for reform of the pre-1967 era. The late 1970s and early 1980s thus marked a time when a number of groups that were discriminated against or marginalised entered politics with growing effectiveness. The Labour party in the capital was in process of transition, responding to economic change and the social recomposition of its membership. The coming together of these different influences produced a new kind of local politics. Something rather similar happened elsewhere – for example, in Manchester in the mid-1980s – in response to a broadly comparable conjunction of influences.36 But London was where the media gaze settled, and where consequently public attention was focused. Indeed, left-wing London councils were regularly in the national news throughout the period 1981–6. They were the cynosure for a new politics, the context where public reactions to anti-racist, feminist and ‘pro-gay’ policies would be put to the test.

Product of a Generation If the radical politics of the London left was partly a response to a change in the political environment, it also expressed the values and concerns of a new political generation. Many of the leading figures of the urban left in London during the early 1980s were in their thirties or, at most, early forties. This was most noticeably the case in relation to the left’s flagship authorities, the Greater London Council (GLC), and Inner London Education Committee (ILEA). Its leading figures such as Ken Livingstone, Frances Morrell, Tony Banks, John McDonnell, Michael 10

A New Political Generation

Ward and John Carr all gained their majority in the 1960s. Many of the people they appointed to influential policy and advisory positions – such as Reg Race, Hilary Wainwright and Sheila Rowbotham – belonged to the same age cohort. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (extending into the early 1970s) provided the formative political experience of this group. The great political causes of the left during the 1960s was peace (Vietnam War), anti-racism (US civil rights movement), personal liberty (outlawing of abortion, drugs and gay sex), and, to a lesser degree, feminism and environmentalism. Infusing this new politics were values that fitted uneasily within the left tradition: growing individualism and distrust of the state and bureaucratic power. This cultural legacy shaped, as we shall see, the politics of the urban left. It also predisposed the left to respond sympathetically to the rise of ethnic minority, gay and feminist lobbies. Out of the sixties’ revolt grew the urban radicalism of the eighties. Thus, one common thread linking the concerns of sixties’ protest and eighties’ municipal politics was antiracism. Growing concern about racism gave rise to pioneer antiracist legislation in 1965 and 1968. This was strongly supported by the young left in Britain some of whom not only identified with the civil rights marches in the United States, but also attacked their parents’ assumption of racial superiority inherited from the days of empire. This was followed by their even greater involvement in antiracist politics during the 1970s. They provided the backbone of the Anti-Nazi League, a broad left movement founded in 1977 that successfully campaigned against the advance of the National Front. By deploying a new style of campaigning that involved spectacle, pop music, celebrity and agitprop, people mostly in their twenties and thirties set about persuading teenagers that racism was uncool – with striking success. Some people involved in the Anti-Nazi League also turned their attention to municipal politics in the late 1970s. In particular, a group of Labour activists in Lambeth argued that antiracism should entail more than confronting the overt racism of the far right. There was a problem in Labour’s own backyard, they argued, which the standard left rhetoric of ‘we are committed to colour-blind socialism’ and ‘there is no race problem here’, failed to acknowledge. While about 30 per cent of the Lambeth population consisted of people from ethnic minorities (mostly Afro-Caribbean), there were no black Lambeth councillors, 11

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

no black senior officers, and only a small minority of black staff in the council workforce. Their vocal criticism resulted in Lambeth Council establishing in 1978 an ethnic minorities working party. This became the forerunner of the ethnic minorities unit established in the GLC in 1982, and similar bodies, in nine radical councils in London, created between 1978 and 1986.37 Their creation led to more members of ethnic minorities being employed in local government. A number of radical London councils initiated ethnic monitoring of their workforce as a way of legitimating the need for change. They established or strengthened equal opportunities procedures that made appointments open and fair, and took positive steps to increase ethnic minority employment by, for example, including advertisements in ethnic minority publications. Most new left councils also introduced race training to discourage subtle forms of racial discrimination (sometimes in a form that was confrontational and needlessly alienated potential allies among staff). The Greater London Council (GLC) also carried a ‘positive action’ approach one stage further by adopting the ‘contract compliance’ strategy used to combat antiCatholic employment practices in Northern Ireland. The GLC refused to buy any product or service from a private company that did not adhere to equal opportunities procedures. Left-wing councils in London, and elsewhere, adopted other measures to aid ethnic minorities. Some modified the rules governing council house allocations in response to growing awareness that, for a variety of reasons, ethnic minorities had by far the worst council accommodation. Information about council services was translated into the relevant foreign languages, in areas where there were a large number of Asian migrants with imperfect English. Pressure was also exerted on the police to take racial harassment more seriously in places where ‘Paki-bashing’ was a recurring problem. Ethnic minority organisations (including the black arts movement that flourished under GLC patronage) were funded partly in order to assist the expression of ethnic minority concerns. In addition, members of ethnic minorities were co-opted on to council bodies in order to increase their influence on council policy. A conscious policy was pursued of promoting multiculturalism in schools: through the recruitment of more ethnic minority teachers and governors, and through additions to the curriculum that connected pupils to ethnic minority culture and history. The GLC also sought to promote a 12

A New Political Generation

progressive view of London as a multicultural, multiethnic, cosmopolitan city. It projected this image in free concerts, festivals, and public events, where different types of ethnic music were played, different kinds of ethnic cuisine were often available, GLC sideshows conveyed appropriate messages, and above all the large crowds drawn from different ethnic and social groups in London embodied the plural, inclusive understanding of community that the council was seeking to foster.38 Thus, the urban left set out to offset the disadvantages of ethnic minorities in terms of jobs, housing, education and social esteem. They also attempted to promote the collective organisation and political inclusion of ethnic minorities, creating a dynamic that would change permanently their position in society. These policies were promoted in a context where racism was widespread. In 1983, nine out of ten people thought that British society was racially prejudiced against its black and Asian members.39 Two-thirds also believed that these minorities suffered discrimination in terms of getting jobs.40 Over a third of people admitted to being racially prejudiced themselves, in successive surveys conducted during the early 1980s.41 Yet, the underlying current of opinion was seemingly moving in a progressive direction. Whereas only an average of 45 per cent had supported national legislation against race discrimination in the period 1967–8, this had risen to 69 per cent by 1983.42 The involvement of the central state in the protection of ethnic minorities had become accepted by the majority as legitimate – a position that probably drew upon strong public support for state intervention in support of ‘fairness’.43 In effect, the urban left took this one step further by not only opposing discrimination but also actively advancing the interests of ethnic minority groups. While these policies were the natural culmination of radical sixties anti-racism, the municipal championship of women occurred in a more oblique way. The 1960s and early 1970s had modified gendered behaviour and attitudes among young people, in subtle ways that were reflected in contemporary films and magazines.44 By the 1980s, young men were more defensive than their fathers had been about work inequalities within the home (partly because more of their partners went out to work). Those on the left were especially inclined to think that arrangements between men and women were in general unfair and needed changing. This made young male, radical councillors uncomfortable when they were subjected to a barrage of questions from the 13

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

feminist ‘awkward squad’ in their constituency parties. Why did so many housing estates have no play areas for young children, and were without adequate lighting and security? Why did so many community halls have bars to drink in, but nowhere for women with young children to go? Why did most council facilities have no cre`che facilities, thus excluding single mothers? Why was daycare for children – especially important for the growing numbers of mothers going out to work – so inadequate throughout the capital? The answer, councillors were told, was because they were overwhelmingly men with little insight into the practical needs of women. In this, they were no different from the senior council officers and, indeed, leaders of community organisations they regularly dealt with. Women, the main consumers of council services, were not part of the decision-making process.45 Feminist pressure led Lewisham Council to pioneer in 1979 a women’s rights working party. This became the model for the women’s committee established at the GLC in 1982, and for similar committees or units introduced in eleven London councils between 1981 and 1987 (with many more in other parts of the country).46 These became channels through which women’s groups in the community exerted influence on local government policy. Their main effect was to redirect expenditure in support of a large expansion of daycare provision for the under-fives in London during the 1980s. They also helped to funnel money into a variety of women’s projects, facilities, groups and training schemes. More generally, they led to improved equal opportunity procedures, staff training (to assist women up the ladder), and provision for maternity and paternity leave within councils. Feminist criticism perhaps also contributed to the adoption of a more consumer-oriented approach, in which a number of left-wing authorities in London commissioned surveys into what people wanted during the mid- and later 1980s.47 The London left’s championing of lesbians and gays also had its roots in the 1960s’ cultural revolution. The sixties were a time when large numbers of young people were drawn towards youth subcultures that celebrated expressive freedom, rejected social conformism and emphasised human empathy (‘make love not war’). This shift was part of a more general process of liberalisation, registered in shifting attitudes towards sex, illegitimacy, divorce, marriage and homosexuality that gave rise to a series of landmark legal reforms during the 1960s.48 The urban left’s support for gays and lesbians was merely a 14

A New Political Generation

continuation of this trend, though in a form that was new to mainstream politics. When Ken Livingstone, in his third month as leader of the GLC, spoke at a Harrow Gay Unity meeting, and said that men had both male and female characteristics in their make-up, there was a collective raising of eyebrows in Fleet Street.49 Conventional politicians in those days (or indeed later) just did not attend gay liberation meetings, still less speak in this unguarded fashion. It signalled the advent of sixties’ cultural values in the staid world of local government. The GLC set up a gay working party, and took active steps to oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians at County Hall, a policy that was consistent with prevailing enlightened opinion in favour of equal opportunities. However, the GLC went one crucial step further, crossing the Rubicon that separated contemporary liberal from radical politics. It gave grants to gay liberation organisations, and became identified by association with a public campaign to normalise homosexuality. This went beyond the traditional liberal position by seeking to actively combat public prejudice. Where the GLC charged in, some other left-wing authorities held back. Local Labour politicians could not fail to be aware of the extent of antipathy to gay men, at a time when the AIDS panic was fanning fear and indignation. In 1987, three out of four people in Britain said that homosexual relationships were ‘always’ or ‘mostly’ wrong.50 This represented a significant increase in anti-gay prejudice in just three years, especially among women.51 Even old-style liberals, like Noel Annan (the first, full-time Vice-Chancellor of London University) , felt uneasy about the new phenomenon of gay liberation. ‘Who were these hard-left creatures’, he wondered, ‘in dungarees, trumpeting Time Out values, sporting pink triangles and glowering instead of camping?’52 The Inner London Education Authority stepped gingerly through this political minefield. It promoted supportive counselling of gay teenagers and acted against the victimisation of gay teachers, but stopped short of publicly campaigning against anti-gay prejudice in schools. Other councils moved discreetly, opposing discrimination against gays and lesbians in council jobs and housing, while being careful not to draw attention to their work through the setting up of gay and lesbian committees. The one major exception to this caution was Haringey Council, which initiated a ‘positive images’ campaign in schools that opposed homophobia by asserting the moral equivalence of gay and 15

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

straight lifestyles.53 The campaign was quickly abandoned in response to press and public protest. The 1960s influenced radical municipal politics in another way. It was a time when irreverence and distrust of authority found expression in ground-breaking television political satire, a youth-led fashion for long hair and casual clothes, and the ‘power to the people’ rhetoric of radical student politics. This tradition lived on in the town-hall politics of the 1980s. Young, left-wing councillors often came casually dressed to public meetings, in contrast to most contemporary Labour MPs, trade union officials and municipal worthies. They casually flouted collective decision-making in a way that was unprecedented. Radical councillors in the 1980s also developed a critique of bureaucratic power that echoed the arguments of 1960s radicalism. It had become the convention, they argued, for councils – whether under Labour or Conservative control – to be run by council leaders and their cronies in conjunction with the ‘officer corps’ of council officials. This concentration of power sidelined ordinary councillors, and excluded the public. It needed to be replaced with a new way of doing politics. The sixties generation had been great believers in do-it-yourself politics. There was in the 1960s and early 1970s a great mushrooming of self-organised radical groups – organisations like Amnesty International, Shelter, Child Poverty Action Group, Help the Aged, Disablement Action Group, and Women’s Liberation Workshop. This belief in the virtues of organised action outside the bureaucratic structures of the state lived on, and gave rise to the new urban left’s sponsorship of local participation. Left-wing councils introduced specialist committees, serviced by staff often recruited from the voluntary sector. These committees co-opted community activists, and instituted open processes of ongoing consultation with the public. Above all, left-wing councils gave grants to activist groups so that they would become more effective agencies of self-help and collective action. In the 1970s, the new radical administration in Wandsworth council published, with beguiling innocence, a pamphlet on what people needed to do in order to influence its decisions. This approach blossomed in the 1980s into the GLC’s patronage of the community sector. County Hall funded local groups so that they could formulate plans for urban development, and challenge those advanced by commercial developers. In the case of the widely reported Coin Street controversy, the GLC blocked the developer’s plans, bought the vacant land, and 16

A New Political Generation

involved the tenants’ organisation in supervising what became a successful, much-lauded residential development in a prime London site.54 The GLC also funded some workers’ groups to formulate plans for the restructuring of their companies, invested in their development, and placed worker representatives on the board of directors.55 Similarly, borough-wide groups were given the resources to monitor the police, as a way of exerting influence on the way it operated in the local community. The alternative arts movement was also funded by the GLC partly because the arts were viewed as an important way in which marginalised groups could express their concerns, and communicate these to a wider public. Promoting community groups laid the municipal left open to the charge of Tammany Hall, crony politics, while the incorporation of community activists into the structure of local authority decisionmaking proved to be much more difficult, and also rancorous, than the new urban left had anticipated. However, these experiments came out of the idealistic, anti-statist, radical populism of the 1960s. Other threads of radical sixties culture are also discernible in the fabric of 1980s local socialism. The defining issue of radical politics in the 1960s – opposition to the Vietnam War – seemed far removed from the concerns of local government. To some Londoners’ bemusement, this radical legacy inspired GLC councillors to assume the mantle of peace campaigners. They nominated 1983 as ‘peace year’, and publicised the devastation that would result from a nuclear attack on the capital. GLC representatives also engaged in a public dialogue with Sinn Fein during a period when IRA bombs were being detonated in London. Another concern of sixties’ radical culture was the environment. It found expression in a desire to lead a simple life, free of capitalist pressures and consumerist superficiality – a yearning that had a long history in British culture.56 It also took a politicised form of growing anxiety about the negative effects of noise, congestion, pollution, urbanisation, traffic congestion, the erosion of energy resources, and the destruction of wildlife, giving rise to the founding of Friends of the Earth in 1970 and Greenpeace in 1971. This radical inheritance was central to the GLC’s programme, which arrested the decline of public transport use in the capital by subsidising transport fares, and imposing greater restrictions on private motorists. This legacy was resurrected when the Greater London Authority, under Ken Livingstone’s leadership, introduced in 2003 controversial congestion 17

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

charges on private motorists driving into the centre of London (see Chapter 8 of the present volume). Thus, the politics of the new urban left – its antiracism, defence of gays, feminism, concern with peace and the environment, and antistatism – reflected the formative influences of the 1960s. The urban left’s rise also represented the emergence of a new political generation – the sixties generation – in the foothills of power. The alternative magazine, Frendz, had consoled itself in the dying days of ‘sixties’ culture (1972) with the thought that ‘if flower power has gone to seed then germination must soon begin. And what King Weeds they’ll be’.57 These ‘King Weeds’ first made their appearance in mainstream politics during the early 1980s, between the grand colonnades of London’s town halls. Yet, the youngish men and women who took control of County Hall, and elsewhere, were all ‘politicos’. This made them almost by definition aberrant products of 1960s, disconnected from its individualistic hedonism. They were also socialised by membership of the Labour Party. The ethos of the Labour Party in the 1980s was strongly influenced by trade unions (with special rights of representation) and by its reliance on manual workers and council estates for its core vote. Indeed, leading members of the urban left (including key figures like Ken Livingstone and Tony Banks) sometimes deployed rather traditional, left rhetoric in grassroots publications like London Labour Briefing and Labour Herald. They also made common cause for a time with older, traditionalist, soberly dressed socialists like Ted Knight, leader of Lambeth Council. The London left was always a coalition made up of different elements. That the GLC belonged, in some ways, to a traditional mould is demonstrated by its spending commitments. One of its top priorities became the growing number of Londoners who were made redundant as a consequence of de-industrialisation. It set up the Greater London Training Board (the word Manpower in the original title was hastily dropped) to enable workers to acquire new skills. In a major new departure, it also established the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB), and allocated to it no less than £60 million over three years,58 in a bid to regenerate the local economy. Originally, a major concern of GLEB was to promote innovative forms of ownership (in particular cooperatives); encourage worker representation in the companies that it backed; bring into being socially useful work; and foster through the provision of expertise and financial assistance the planned growth of specific sectors of the London economy. Increasingly, the exigencies of 18

A New Political Generation

saving desperately needed jobs in an economic downturn came to dominate the work of the organisation. GLEB became a lender of last resort to failing companies, sometimes in response to internal pressure from unions attempting to avert imminent redundancies. That it so often ‘fell captive to bad managements’,59 leading to a high failure rate, brought into sharp relief the ‘old Labour’ presence that lurked inside the urban left. Its commitment to job creation through direct investment in the local economy was a continuation of a social democratic tradition in national economic management. What was more innovative in what it sought to do – promoting economic democracy and creating socially useful work – came to be downgraded as priorities. It was often said of the urban left – especially by its critics within the Labour Party – that it was seeking to build a ‘rainbow coalition’ represented by ethnic minorities, gays, feminists and greens: a strategy that was doomed to failure because these minorities did not add up to a majority. However, this was generally a misleading caricature. Most leading members of the urban left were attempting to extend Labour’s core base of the organised, white working class by adding to it, not replacing it. In short, the urban left experiment came about as a consequence of the conjunction of new social movements and a new political generation socialised by sixties values. This took place inside a political party with a class-based constituency and a strong ideological tradition. What resulted was significantly different from the fragmentary identity politics that took shape in the United States, during roughly the same period in response to similar influences.60

Clash of Ideologies Urban left councils were big spenders. This put them on a collision course with the radical right Thatcher government, elected in 1979, one of whose principal objectives was to reverse the rise of public spending. The new government argued that public profligacy had fuelled inflation, ‘crowded out’ private investment and fostered a dependency culture that undermined self-reliance. It had also given rise to punitive rates of tax that discouraged enterprise and initiative. The combination of soaring public spending and punitive taxation was, in the official view, a major cause of Britain’s relative economic decline. It was something that the government was going to rectify. 19

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

However, the Thatcher government quickly discovered that this was easier said than done. Rising levels of unemployment in the early 1980s led to an unavoidable increase in social security expenditure. The central administration also found that it had very little control over the rising spending of local government, the main dispenser of public services. The worst culprits were left-wing authorities in London. In 1983 the GLC and IlEA accounted for 40 per cent of the local government ‘overspend’.61 In these circumstances, a confrontation between the government and urban left authorities was inevitable. Fuelling this conflict over the appropriate level of public spending was disagreement about what local councils should do. The urban left believed that local government should regenerate the local economy, improve the life chances of the disadvantaged, combat prejudice, foster a progressive sense of community, and improve public services in a form that transferred resources from rich to poor. It wanted, in other words, to expand what councils did and sought to achieve. By contrast, the government wanted to limit councils to identifying priorities, and managing the cost-efficient delivery of essential services. In particular, the radical right within the government favoured a minimalist model. This found its ultimate expression in the hope expressed by the Conservative Environment Minister, Nicholas Ridley, that eventually local councils would only meet once a year to allocate contracts for the delivery of services.62 Underlying this clash was a conflict of political philosophies. The new urban left was broadly collectivist, whereas the government was increasingly wedded to free-market individualism. Thus, the municipal left’s way of helping ethnic minorities was to overcome discrimination through changes in council procedures, and by supporting ethnic minority organisations. By contrast, the radical right’s instinct was to emphasise the importance of individual self-reliance and initiative. Its principal way of assisting ethnic communities was therefore to remove ‘red tape’ that inhibited the growth of business enterprise. Although this divergence was one of conflicting philosophies, it also reflected differences of economic interest. Labour drew its support disproportionately from the working class, the Conservatives disproportionately from the middle class (despite making inroads into Labour’s heartland support).63 The way this influenced differences of approach to local government became transparent in 1988 when the graduated council rate based on property values was replaced by a 20

A New Political Generation

flat-rate, community charge (popularly known as the poll tax) on each adult resident. A key argument advanced by ministers for this reform was that it would bring more low-income groups within the local tax net, who would have therefore a vested interest in voting for prudent council administrations. The days of profligate, redistributive councils voted in by rate-exempt, ‘dependent’ citizens would be over. Critics objected that the poll tax made the millionaire pay the same amount as a shop assistant. What this angry debate made explicit, in other words, was class-based differences about who should pay and who should benefit that often lurked behind philosophical differences. The poll tax was part of an unfolding programme of reform in which the Thatcher administration sought to introduce central government controls over local public spending in a more systematic and coercive way that had been attempted before. This meant repudiating the convention – more often invoked by the right than the left – that the autonomy of local councils should be preserved as a check on central government (and ‘elective dictatorship’). In effect, the government attempted to revise Britain’s unwritten constitution. It did this for a number of reasons, one of which was the need to curb the excesses of ‘loony left’ town halls. The urban left responded by seeking to mobilise public support in defence of local democracy and the maintenance of local services. Both sides appealed to the public through the media in an historic battle over how the governmental relationship between the centre and the locality should be structured. This was bound up with a broader debate about the reform of local government. In a curious way, the urban left and new right were bedfellows who both argued that the inherited system of local administration was flawed. The urban left’s critique of local council ‘paternalism’ led it to explore, as we have seen, new ways of involving and empowering the public. By contrast, the new right’s diagnosis of local government ills was more damning, and its prescription more farreaching. It argued that local councils were ‘monopolistic’ providers of services that put the interests of bureaucracy and staff unions before those of the public, and were consequently costly and inefficient. It also maintained that councils under left-wing control had become politicised, and in a non-venal sense ‘corrupt’.64 Therefore, their operation had to be restructured through streamlining, privatisation, competitive tendering, the transfer of council functions to appointed agencies, a new system of local taxation and other changes that would increase 21

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

efficiency and, where possible, increase personal choice through market provision. Both sides were trying in different ways to ‘improve’ local government. This led to a running battle over the level of public spending, the role and autonomy of local government, and the organisation and management of local public services. How this conflict was reported, and how the public responded, was to influence the development of municipal politics and local government not only in the 1980s but for the next two decades.

Generational War However, the battle between the urban left and new right was not simply an extension of the clash between collectivism and neo-liberalism, and of the class-based constituencies these two traditions represented, to the area of local government. What gave this clash an added bitterness was that it was caught up in a war between generations. In 1985 the elders in the government, such as the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher), Deputy Prime Minister (William Whitelaw) and Education Minister (Sir Keith Joseph), were in their sixties. The coming men of the radical right, like Norman Tebbit and Cecil Parkinson, were in their fifties. So, too, were all five Environment Ministers between 1979 and 1989 (Heseltine, King, Jenkin, Baker and Ridley) with the partial exception of Heseltine in the early part of his watch. The overwhelming majority of the 1983 cabinet reached their majority in the 1940s and 1950s.65 The leading personalities of the mid-1980s government had grown up at a time when Britain ruled an empire; young men were taught discipline through national service in the armed forces; patriarchal values were entrenched; gay sex was criminalised; and the media were subject to strict moral regulation. The new generation that came of age in the 1960s partly turned its back on this legacy – its shared values, cherished memories, sense of hierarchy and stifling conformism. This had provoked a cultural clash between generations. Many in the older generation resented what they saw as the rejection of their values, and the withholding of respect. They had deferred to their parents’ generation, and not been accorded the same deal by their children’s generation. Indeed, the youth culture of the 1960s very publicly and pointedly satirised the notion that age brought wisdom through accumulated experience.66 22

A New Political Generation

In the early 1980s, a section of the older generation struck back. It argued that the sixties cultural revolt had undermined authority, and promoted indiscipline, selfishness and anti-social behaviour. This attack was led not by disgruntled letter-writers from Cheltenham but by the democratically elected leadership of the country.67 Its assault was both explicit and eloquent. Thus, Rhodes Boyson, a 57-year-old Conservative politician (and former head teacher) proclaimed in 1982: ‘the permissive age, which blossomed in the late 1960s . . . has created a pathless desert for many of our young people’. Sixties permissiveness, he continued, had fostered debased morals and false values, encouraged the break-up of stable families, and given rise to growing crime. ‘Society’, he apostrophised, ‘has reaped dragons’ teeth’ sown in the sick decade.68 The same theme, and even the same imagery, was repeated by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, when she responded to a national debate about the causes of urban riots and the rise of ‘black crime’. ‘We are reaping what was sown in the 1960s’, she warned, when ‘the old virtues of discipline and self-restraint were denigrated’.69 Her prote´ge´, Norman Tebbit, then Trade and Industry Minister, reprised the same argument, again with the same imagery, in a well-received public lecture. In the sixties ‘was sown the wind: and we are reaping the whirlwind’. The ‘permissives’ of the 1960s, he warned, had laid the foundation for ‘today’s violent society’.70 These jeremiads, delivered by middle-aged, right-wing politicians, were supported by the outpourings of middle-aged, right-wing journalists.71 Thus, 55-year-old George Gale proclaimed that Britain’s riots in 1981 were caused by a ‘revulsion of authority and discipline’ that had taken place during the ‘permissive revolution’ of the 1960s.72 Colin Welch, in the Spectator, also thought that the broadly defined sixties generation had much to answer for. ‘The decade of the 1960s (or perhaps more precisely ’65-’75)’, warned Colin Welch, had ‘injected poisons’ into society that ‘course still through its veins’. Indiscipline was rife because ‘the revolting students of the 1960s’ had become ‘the revolting teachers of today’.73 Christopher Booker, an ambivalent figure in the culture war,74 reworked the same theme in a more apocalyptic mode for Daily Mail readers. ‘The demons of drugs, pornography, violence and permissiveness in all its forms, are now raging out of control’; unleashed, he argued, by the forces first set in motion during the 1960s.75 The sixties became a code word in this generational backlash. It symbolised for some all the negative changes that had taken place in 23

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the recent past: the country’s decline in the world, the rise of crime, the erosion of a sense of community, young people with more money than sense, the decline of courtesy and respect. Indeed, a growing legion of folk devils – black muggers, punk rockers, flying pickets, Irish terrorists, football hooligans, single parents, illiterate youngsters, and ‘race’ rioters – came to be viewed as facets of a common problem: the loss of authority and erosion of tradition that had begun in the 1960s.76 Some called for an all encompassing solution – a return to the values of Victorian Britain, its social discipline and sense of order. The indignation expressed by middle-aged ministers and journalists at the ‘antics’ of the urban left in the early 1980s should be understood in the context of this generational conflict. Young politicians like ‘Red Ken’ were the unrepentant representatives of sixties culture. They promoted its values, advanced its political agenda, and even lavished taxpayers’ money on organisations that perpetuated its transgressive legacy. These unreconstructed councillors were viewed as incorrigibles stuck in a time warp of the past, seemingly oblivious to the damage that they and their kind had wreaked, and apparently determined to thwart the will of parliament. If the cancer of the sixties was to be treated effectively, then chemotherapy had to be directed towards the infected cells of local government.

Race, Sexuality and Feminism While this generational conflict drew upon manifold and sometimes unrelated discontents, it was in essence rooted in a genuine value conflict. This was especially the case in relation to the high-voltage issues of race/nation, homosexuality and gender. In the late 1970s, ageing traditionalists recalled a time when there was a strong sense of national unity based on ethnic oneness, a shared culture and common heritage. They attributed the erosion of that world, in part, to mass immigration. John Biffen (a member of Thatcher’s first cabinet) wrote bitterly in 1978 that ‘the scale of immigration that has transformed the heartland of many English cities . . . has not been willed by the British people’.77 His concerns were spelt out by Margaret Thatcher in a pre-election interview: If we went on as we are, then by the end of the century there would be 4 million people of the New Commonwealth or Pakistan here. 24

A New Political Generation

Now, that is an awful lot and I think it means people are really afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture. And, you know, the British character has done so much for democracy, for law, and done so much throughout the world, that if there is a fear that it might be swamped, people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in.78 Margaret Thatcher spoke up for traditionalists fearful that their culture would be ‘swamped’ because she instinctively understood their fears, and was seeking their electoral support. With equal empathy, she understood the denting of pride which traditionalists of her generation experienced when Britain so hurriedly discarded its empire between 1947 and 1964. It was this elegiac feeling of loss and uncertainty that Thatcher addressed in her historic speech to a euphoric crowd of some 5,000 people celebrating the Falklands War victory: There were those who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did. Those who believed that our decline was irreversible . . . those [who feared] that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well, they were wrong. The lesson of the Falklands is that Britain has not changed and that this nation still has those sterling qualities that shine through our history. This generation can match their fathers and grandfathers in ability, in courage and in resolution . . .’79 The Falklands War confirmed to conservative commentators that Britain was still a force to be reckoned with, its bulldog spirit undiminished. The victory had a powerful resonance because it entailed rescuing distant kith and kin from foreign despotism. ‘If the Falkland islanders’, wrote Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph, ‘were British citizens with black or brown skins, spoke with strange accents or worshipped different gods it is doubtful whether the Royal Navy and Marines would . . . be fighting for their liberation’.80 The Thatcherite sense of community was that of a nation, bonded by its ethnic unity, proud heritage, and resurgent confidence. It was an image of Britain as a recuperated country that had resumed its rightful place in the world. While this was only one part of a complex discourse,81 it was informed by nostalgia and a backward-looking desire to 25

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

restore what had been lost. It was thus at odds with the municipal left’s attempt to come to terms with the past in a different way – by building a new sense of community. Thatcher’s evocation of an organic nation, bounded by tradition, united by the Union Jack and secure in its ‘British character’, implicitly conflicted with the new urban left’s desire to celebrate London’s rich mixture of peoples and traditions, its cosmopolitanism, its identity as a global city. The radical right government, and the forces it represented, also became locked into a confrontation with the urban left over sexuality. The traditional right viewed homosexuality with visceral hostility. It entailed in their view unnatural acts, a view endorsed by conventional morality and Christian proscription. However, there was a liberal strand within traditional conservatism that favoured ‘live and let live’ tolerance, and had supported the decriminalisation of sex between consenting adult males. These two strands of conservatism came together in opposition to radical councils because both were affronted by the left’s active support for gay liberation. This was harmful and dangerous, in their view, because it ‘pretended’ that homosexuality was a valid alternative. This was liable to confuse the young and impressionable, and encourage basically ‘normal’ people to develop into homosexuals. This merging of hardline and liberal strands of conservatism is perhaps best illustrated by the views of Max Hastings, a leading, one-nation, Conservative journalist. In 1983, dining with his family at a Knightsbridge restaurant, he noticed that three men at a neighbouring table were wearing make-up. This galvanised him into putting his thoughts on paper in an impassioned article that had as its main target the urban left. ‘A powerful and influential section of opinion makers’, he warned, has gone beyond ‘seeking just sympathy for homosexuals in their misfortune, and now seeks to persuade us that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equally desirable states’. This is dangerous and misguided, he argued, because adolescents ‘should be given every encouragement to choose heterosexuality’ since ‘it is obvious to any but the most absurd militant that the lives of homosexuals are frustrated and tormented, not because of outside persecution, but because of the very nature of their predicament’. Hastings concluded with a rhetorical flourish: When we lack the courage to declare this, when we allow ourselves to be intimidated by the threat of denunciation as ‘reactionary’, 26

A New Political Generation

when we tolerate the granting of public money without protest to ‘gay’ groups in the sacred name of minority rights, then we shall have become not only a cowardly and hypocritical society, afraid to express the obvious, but also a truly decadent one.82 Battle lines over gender, by contrast, were not as clear cut as they were over sexuality. The urban left had chauvinist elements,83 while the radical right in Britain was less centrally involved in the backlash against women’s liberation than its counterpart in the United States.84 This was partly because the leader of the new right in Britain, Margaret Thatcher, was a woman who had surmounted patriarchal attitudes in the Conservative party to become the nation’s first female prime minister. Yet, as Stuart Hall convincingly argues, the discourse of the British new right in the 1980s had as ‘a continuous subterranean theme, the restoration of the family, the bulwark of respectable society and conventional sexualities with its fulcrum in the traditional roles for women’.85 This was conveyed through attacks on single mothers, and through nostalgic references to Victorian values when women’s place was recognised to be in the home. It was also mobilised through negative portrayals of feminism. Indeed, one of the ways in which the urban left was attacked was to portray it as the sponsor of ‘loony’ feminist follies such as ‘judo mats for lesbians’ in Islington. However, the portrayal of the conflict between the new right and urban left as a generational war needs to be qualified. The radical right included anti-statist libertarians whose outlook was influenced by sixties values, while the urban left included authoritarian traditionalists. Both groupings were coalitions containing different elements. Moreover while generations tended to differ in terms of their general orientation towards social issues, groups within each generation opposed the attitudes prevailing among their contemporaries. There were fogeyish young people, and ageing radical libertarians. This said, the clash between central and local government in the 1980s was in part a battle between middle-aged ministers whose world-view was formed before the 1960s, and young councillors who were products of the sixties’ cultural revolt. This cultural conflict was mainly over issues to do with race, gender, sexuality, tradition and authority. The bitterness it engendered stemmed from the fact that the two sides were set on a collision course. One side was seeking to turn the clock back, and undo the harm that it felt had been wrought by a misguided generation: the 27

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

other was intent on using town halls to promote a cultural transformation of their local communities.

Context This contest took place initially against the background of a sustained conservative ascendancy. Although the radical right’s project was inconsistent, sometimes ad hoc, and in some ways unfulfilled – a point repeatedly made in retrospective assessments86 – yet it remoulded the social order in Britain. It dismantled the corporatist system of power, and hobbled one of its principal agencies – trade unions. It extended the role of the market, and partly tamed the professions. It modified the structures of government, and changed the political weather. The initial unpopularity of the first Conservative administration proved to be short-lived. In 1980–1, race riots in Bristol, Liverpool and London sent shock waves of alarm in middle England. In 1982, the short-lived Falklands War ended in a British military triumph. In 1983, Labour lost the previously safe Labour seat of Bermondsey in a by-election that highlighted the disorganisation of the opposition.87 It was the prelude to a Conservative general election victory in 1983, the first of three re-election triumphs. A Conservative government ruled Britain from 1979 to 1997. A key cause of this longevity was the rapid growth of the economy and real incomes that took place between 1982 and 1989. This enabled the Conservative government to argue that its prescriptions were working. However, Margaret Thatcher was deposed as prime minister by her party in 1990. Her sacking was followed by growing economic problems, continuing Conservative division (especially over Europe), and the revival of the Labour Party. The political pendulum swung back, with Labour winning two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001. However, this did not signify a decisive repudiation of new right thought or policy. The Labour Party had shifted towards the centre under the leadership of Neil Kinnock (1983–92) and John Smith (1992–4), and in some respects to the centre-right when the party was re-launched as ‘New Labour’ under Tony Blair’s leadership. When elected to office, New Labour continued, and indeed extended, some aspects of the neoliberal programme it had inherited. But this neo-liberalism was combined with social liberalism, reflected in greater support for public services and constitutional reform. 28

A New Political Generation

Much of this study focuses on the urban left in London during the period 1981–7. It is thus concerned with a period when the Conservative government’s initial unpopularity (late 1979 to mid-1982) was converted into a triumphant ascendancy. This dominance was reflected in a large opinion poll lead for most of the period between 1982 and 1989 (save for a major trough in 1985–6). Understanding of the urban left, and what it represented, was thus filtered through a political environment that was strongly influenced by the right. This study also looks at the 1990s and early 2000s. Between 1993 and 2004, the Conservatives trailed behind Labour almost all the time. The shift in the political climate provides one clue to why our account should have a surprising denouement.

Media System Perceptions of the urban left were influenced by how it was reported in the media. Britain has a highly differentiated media system, made up of different sectors organised on different principles.88 It has a strong public service television and radio system – constituted not only by the publicly owned BBC and Channel 4 but also by extensively regulated commercial broadcasting organisations. This mixed economy, public service sector was overwhelmingly dominant in the 1980s, and still accounted for the major part of broadcasting consumption in the 1990s and early 2000s. It consisted of four or five national television channels, and between four and eight national radio channels, for most of this period. They were flanked by numerous satellite and cable TV channels, which proliferated after 1989. There was also a regional and local tier of broadcasting. The relevant regional tier consisted of London radio channels (of which there were only two significant, talk-based radio channels during the 1980s), and regional ‘opt-outs’ – BBC and ITV television programmes produced for a regional audience including London. Like broadcasting, the press is dominated by its national sector. This consisted of ten national dailies and ten national Sunday papers for most of the period 1980–2004. There is also a significant London evening paper, the Evening Standard, which was briefly and unsuccessfully challenged in 1987. The Standard’s parent company launched the Metro, a free distribution London morning paper, in order to protect its evening paper monopoly. The local weekly press has long been weaker in 29

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

London than in the regions. It was further weakened in editorial terms by the free distribution revolution of the 1980s.89 However, the appearance of media diversity is partly deceptive in the context of this study. National television and radio – bound by a legal obligation to be impartial in coverage of controversial issues – tended to ignore borough councils in London on the grounds that they were not national news. By contrast, the right-wing national press covered extensively the London urban left, especially in the period 1981–7. This right-wing press accounted for three out of four national dailies sold during this period.90 The monopoly evening paper in London also followed a right-wing agenda after its liberal regime ended in 1980. The section of the media system giving prominence to left-wing councils, and commanding large audiences, was thus predominantly rightwing. The only significant countervailing force – though an intermittent and fluctuating one – was regional television and radio, bound by rules of impartiality, and pro-Labour national papers. After 1996, a number of Conservative newspapers switched to New Labour. However, while their political allegiance changed, they remained largely right-wing in terms of the positions they actually took. A further complication was introduced when the leader of the London urban left, Ken Livingstone, left the Labour Party and challenged the might of the entire party system by standing as a radical independent for the new post of elected London Mayor. The urban left was never to have an easy media ride.

Conclusion The battle between the new right government and the urban left in the early 1980s was a confrontation between dynamic opposites. The new right was seeking to transform Britain, while the left was seeking to transform the Labour Party as a prelude to changing the country. A section of this left gained control of some town halls, and used them as a base to initiate radical change. The struggle that ensued between the Conservative government and radical town halls was one between opposing political philosophies and the different social constituencies these represented. It also became a contest about what local government should do, with both sides breaking with the past consensus but disagreeing fundamentally about the role and purpose of local public administration. Above all, what imbued this struggle with added bitterness – and 30

A New Political Generation

what also influenced its outcome – was that it was a confrontation in part between two generations. If the battle had been simply between central and local government, and between the ascendant right and a left minority (essentially, the interpretation offered by the relevant local government literature), its outcome would have been cut and dried. The urban left would have been a forgotten footnote in history, much like the evangelical Liberals who attempted to turn northern boroughs, such as Darwen, into citadels of Christian righteousness and civic virtue in late Victorian Britain. What renders this case study more complex and also significant is that the urban left represented something more than a minority group of a losing faction within the Labour Party. The urban left were the outriders of generational change, promoting values that gained subsequently greater public acceptance. In other words, the study of the urban left and its media reception provides an insight into how cultural conflict between generations is played out through politics. It also provides a vantage point from which to view the influences shaping the media and the wider political environment over a quarter of a century. Battles fought over policies initiated in radical town halls in the 1980s, and renewed in a less dramatic way in the 2000s, left – as we shall see – an enduring impression on British public life.

Notes 1. In a lecture delivered in 1978 (reprinted in M. Jacques and F. Mulherne (eds), The Forward March of Labour Halted? (London: Verso, 1981)), Hobsbawm pointed to the long-term economic and social changes that seemed set to halt Labour’s hundred-year rise. His warning was followed by Stuart Hall’s celebrated essay, ‘The great moving right show’, Marxism Today, January 1979, which highlighted both the failings of Labour’s leadership and the populist appeal of the radical right. These two essays implicitly anticipated Labour’s defeat in the 1979 general election, and strongly influenced the left’s post-mortem. A good collection arising from this extended inquest is S. Hall and M. Jacques (eds), The Politics of Thatcherism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1983). A second inquest followed Labour’s 1983 defeat, this time conducted with something like collective panic by Labour supporters. 2. This activist revolt is often mistakenly labelled Bennite, and identified with the left. But what made it so formidable at the time was that it gained the support of centrist trade unions and party activists. They broke with the Bennite left in 1983, effectively bringing the activist revolt to an end. 3. D. Butler and G. Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts, 8th edn (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 234–8.

31

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 4. A defining article expressing the hopes of the journal, co-authored by its editor, is B. Campbell and M. Jacques, ‘Goodbye to the GLC’, Marxism Today, April 1986. 5. The best exposition of this position is Stuart Hall’s collection of essays, many from Marxism Today: S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (London: Verso, 1988). 6. This became a more prominent (though not dominant) theme in Marxism Today, in the later 1980s, and is epitomised by the contributions of C. Leadbeater. See, for example, C. Leadbeater, ‘Thatcherism and progress’, in S. Hall and M. Jacques (eds), New Times (London: Lawrence and Wishart/Marxism Today, 1989); C. Leadbeater, ‘Back to the future’, Marxism Today, May 1989; and C. Leadbeater, ‘Pragmatism rules, OK’, Marxism Today, November 1990. 7. ‘Left alive: Labour and the people debate’, Marxism Today, December 1984, p. 19. 8. According to Campbell and Jacques, ‘the idea that Labour – in the shape of the GLC – would be popular in London by the mid-80s was a dream. It turned out to be one of those rare dreams that actually came true’, Campbell and Jacques, Marxism Today, April 1986, pp. 9–10. 9. For example, S. Holland, ‘Out of crisis – international economic recovery’ and N. Kinnock, ‘New deal for Europe’, both in J. Curran (ed.), The Future of the Left (Cambridge: Polity, 1984). 10. D. Massey, L. Segal and H. Wainwright, ‘And now for the good news’, in Curran (ed.), The Future of the Left (1984). 11. K. Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It (London: HarperCollins, 1987). 12. Massey, Segal and Wainwright, ‘And now for the good news’, in Curran (ed.), The Future of the Left (1984); M. Mackintosh and H. Wainwright, A Taste of Power (London: Verso, 1987). 13. M. Boddy and C. Fudge, ‘Labour councils and new left alternatives’, in M. Boddy and C. Fudge (eds), Local Socialism? (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984); S. Lansley, S. Goss and C. Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). 14. B. Pimlott and N. Rao, Governing London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); D. King, ‘From the urban left to the new right: normative theory and local government’, in J. Stewart and G. Stoker (eds), Local Government in the 1990s (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); A. Cochrane, Whatever Happened to Local Government? (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993); J. Kingdom, Local Government and Politics in Britain (Hemel Hempstead: Philip Allan, 1991); H. Butcher, I. Law, R. Leach and M. Mullard, Local Government and Thatcherism (London: Routledge, 1990); J. Gyford, S. Leech and C. Game, The Changing Politics of Local Government (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); S. Duncan and M. Goodwin, The Local State and Uneven Development (Cambridge: Polity, 1988); G. Stoker, The Politics of Local Government, 1st edn (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1988); and 2nd edn (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1991); S. Lansley, S. Goss and C. Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989); J. Gyford, The Politics of Local Socialism (London: Unwin and Hyman, London, 1985); M. Boddy and C. Fudge (eds), Local Socialism? (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984). To this academic literature can be added a key public report: Widdicombe Report, The Conduct of Local Authority Business (London: HMSO, 1986) and two insider assessments, D. Blunkett and K. Jackson, Democracy in Crisis (London: Hogarth Press, 1987) and Mackintosh

32

A New Political Generation

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

and Wainwright, A Taste of Power (1987), which deviate from the general tenor of this literature. Stoker, The Politics of Local Government, 1st edn (1988), p. 210. See Pimlott and Rao, Governing London (2002); Butcher, Law Leach and Mullard, Local Government and Thatcherism (1990); Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989); Stoker, The Politics of Local Government (1988); among others. Stoker, The Politics of Local Government, 2nd edn (1991), p. 48. Gyford, The Politics of Local Socialism (1985), p. 18. Butcher, Law, Leach and Mullard, Local Government and Thatcherism (1990), pp. 123–4; cf. D. Hatton, Inside Left (London: Bloomsbury, 1988), p. 89. ‘Interview with David Blunkett, Leader of Sheffield Council’, in Boddy and Fudge (eds), Local Socialism? (1984), pp. 254–5; cf. Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (1987). R. Porter, London: A Social History (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994), p. 346. Porter, London (1994), p. 347. There was a shift to the left in the grassroots of the Labour Party in other parts of Britain during this period, for reasons similar to those that applied in London. For a good analysis that takes account of changes in the social composition of national party membership, see Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (1987). One informant, then a journalist, describes how he found his local branch in the Vauxhall Lambeth Constituency Labour Party to be, as he put it sardonically, ‘closed to new members’ in the mid-1970s. After joining with some difficulty, he found that members were so few that they nominated each other for party posts. The politics of the branch changed from right to left when he recruited new members (though it selected a non-left, black council candidate, duly voted in 1992 on to Lambeth Council). He became in a very short time branch secretary and a leading figure in the constituency party. A similar experience of a moribund branch in Newham transformed, with radicalising results, by the arrival of a publishing executive and lecturer is recorded in H. Wainwright, Labour: A Tale of Two Parties (London: Hogarth Press, 1987), pp. 20–1. G. Greer, The Female Eunuch (London: Granada Publishing, 1971), p. 331 S. Goss, Local Labour and Local Government (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989). Butler and Butler, British Political Facts (2000), pp. 238, 261. Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989), p. 144. Porter, London (1994), p. 354. I. Benjamin, The Black Press in Britain (Stoke-on-Trent: Trenham Books, 1995); S. Quisrani, Urdu Press in Britain (Islamabad: Mashal, 1990); P. Martin, Black Press, Britons and Immigrants (Kingston, Jam.: Vintage Communications, 1998). P. Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (London: Routledge, 2002); P. Fryer, Staying Power (London: Pluto, 1984); S. Humphries and J. Taylor, The Making of Modern London, 1945–85 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1986). Butcher, Law, Leach and Mullard, Local Government and Thatcherism (1990), p. 121. J. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (Harlow: Longman, 2nd edn, 1989), p. 285. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (1989), p. 286. T. Sanderson, Mediawatch (London: Cassell, 1995).

33

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 36. Wainwright, Labour (1987); Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989). 37. Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989), p. 124. 38. F. Bianchini, ‘Cultural Policy and Political Strategy: The British Labour Party’s Approach to Cultural Policy with Particular Reference to the 1981–6 GLC Experiment’, University of Manchester unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1995. 39. C. Airey, ‘Social and moral values’, in R. Jowell and C. Airey (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1984 Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1984), p. 123. 40. Ibid., p. 128. 41. C. Airey and L. Brook, ‘Interim report: social and moral issues’, in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1986 Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), pp. 149–50. 42. Airey, ‘Social and moral values’, in Jowell and Airey (eds), British Social Attitudes (1984), p. 129. 43. J. Davis, ‘British and American attitudes: similarities and contrasts’, in Jowell, Witherspoon and Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 1986 Report. 44. C. Geraghty, ‘Women and sixties British cinema: the development of the ‘‘Darling’’ girl’, in R. Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book (London: British Film Institute, 1997); G. Murphy, ‘Media influence on the socialization of teenage girls’, in J. Curran, A. Smith and P. Wingate (eds), Impacts and Influences (London: Methuen, 1987); J. Winship, Inside Women’s Magazines (London: Pandora, 1987), among others. 45. Well described in Goss, Local Labour and Local Government (1989); Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989). 46. Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989), pp. 144–5. 47. The principal organisation undertaking research for London borough councils during this period was MORI: copies of its reports are retained in its archives. Councils found it difficult to act on these reports because spending cuts became unavoidable in the later 1980s. 48. K. O. Morgan, The People’s Peace, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 49. London Evening Standard, 18 August 1981; Sun, 19 August 1981; Daily Express, 19 August 1981. 50. Airey and Brook, ‘Interim report: social and moral issues’, in Jowell, Witherspoon and Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes (1986), p.163. 51. L. Brooks, ‘The public’s response to AIDS’, in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 5th Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1988), p. 73. 52. N. Annan, Our Age (London: Fontana, 1991), p. 205. 53. See Chapter 6 in the present volume. 54. T. Brindley, Y. Rydin and G. Stoker, Re-Making Planning (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988). 55. Mackintosh and Wainwright, A Taste of Power (1987). 56. R. Williams, The Country and the City (London: Chatto and Windus, 1973); J. Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination (London: HarperCollins, 1997); J. Richards, Films and British National Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997).

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A New Political Generation 57. Frendz, 32, 1972, cited in E. Nelson, The British Counter-Culture 1966–73 (New York: St Martins Press, 1989), p. 120. 58. Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989), p. 84. 59. Mackintosh and Wainwright, A Taste of Power (1987), p. 430. 60. T. Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams (New York: Henry Holt, 1995). 61. Pimlott and Rao, Governing London (2002), p. 38. 62. Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (1989), p. 196. 63. A. Heath, R. Jowell, J. Curtice, G. Evans, J. Field and S. Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964–1987 (Oxford: Pergamon, 1991). 64. For a good critical exposition of Conservative arguments about local government that gathered momentum in the 1980s, see Gyford, Leech and Game, Changing Politics, 1989, especially Chapter 8. 65. Information about the composition of cabinets, and ages of ministers, have been derived from Butler and Butler (2000), pp. 38–47 and 84–133. 66. This was typified by 1960s films aimed at the youth market such as A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Help! (1965), and The Knack (1965). 67. This draws upon D. Edgar, The Second Time as Farce (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), an insightful, neglected book. 68. Cited in Edgar, The Second Time as Farce (1988), pp. 94–5. 69. The Guardian, 28 March 1982. 70. Daily Mail, 25 July 1985. 71. Journalists’ ages are derived from D. Griffiths (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the British Press (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). 72. Daily Express, 7 July 1981. 73. Spectator, 20 October 1983. 74. Booker had been involved in the development of political satire in the early 1960s, as a writer for the BBC television series That Was the Week That Was and the satirical magazine, Private Eye. But like many of these early 1960s pioneers, he became increasingly conservative. In 1983, he was aged forty-seven. 75. Daily Mail, 10 November 1983. 76. A. Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong State: Politics of Thatcherism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 197–8. Key contributions to this general argument are provided by S. Hall, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Roberts, Policing the Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1978); P. Golding and S. Middleton, Images of Welfare (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1982); G. Murdock, ‘Reporting the riots: images and impacts’, in J. Benyon (ed.), Scarman and After (Oxford: Pergamon); S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (London: Verso, 1998); and C. Critcher, Moral Panics and the Media (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003). 77. Cited in Edgar, The Second Time as Farce (1988), p. 112. 78. Cited in Butcher, Law, Leach and Mullard, Local Government and Thatcherism (1990), p. 117. 79. Cited in R.Weight, Patriots (London: Macmillan, 2002), p. 624. 80. Cited in P. Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (2002), p. 54. 81. It was linked to a modernising discourse centred around neo-liberal themes. For an insightful analysis of the way in which contradictory Thatcherite themes were

35

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82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88.

89. 90.

harnessed together in a compelling synthesis, see Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (1988). Daily Express, 25 February 1983. Goss, Local Labour and Local Government (1989). L. Segal, ‘The heat in the kitchen’, in Hall and Jacques (eds), The Politics of Thatcherism (1983). Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (1988), p. 90. Key contributions to this debate include J. Campbell, Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady (vol. 2) (London: Cape, 2004); H. Young, One of Us (London: Pan, 1990); and A. Gamble, ‘The Thatcher decade in perspective’, in P. Dunleavy, A. Gamble and G. Peele (eds), Developments in British Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990). P. Tatchell, The Battle for Bermondsey (London: Heretic Books, 1983). Books describing the British media include C. Seymour-Ure, The British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), B. McNair, News and Journalism in the UK (London: Routledge, 2003), and B. Franklin, Newszak and News Media (London: Arnold, 1997); J. Curran and J. Seaton, Power Without Responsibility, 6th edn (London: Routledge, 2003) and R. Greenslade, Press Gang (London: Macmillan, 2003). B. Franklin and D. Murphy, What News? The Market, Politics and Local Press (London: Routledge, 1991). See Butler and Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts (2000), p. 537.

36

Chapter 2

Goodbye to the Clowns

T

he claim that the left are mentally impaired is not new.1 This abuse was directed, for example, against radical MPs who questioned the prevailing political consensus during the 1970s, a time when there was a marked coarsening of public debate.2 Tony Benn was called ‘round-the-bend Benn’ and ‘Barmy Benn’ when he moved to the left.3 The first actual reference we can find to the phrase ‘looney left’ (then spelt with an e) was used in a Sun cartoon (4 October 1975) in relation to three prominent left-wing MPs: Barbara Castle, Tony Benn and Ian Mikardo. The cartoon featured them floundering in the sea after their boat, with a tattered sail on which was written ‘Ship-Wrecked Looney Left’, had foundered on a rock, represented by the smiling face of the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. A variant of the phrase ‘loony left’ – ‘The Loons’ – appeared in another cartoon a few years later (Daily Express, 10 April 1981). Again, it was applied to prominent left-wing MPs (Michael Foot, Eric Heffer and the ubiquitous Tony Benn). However, the phrase ‘loony left’ had not yet become firmly established as a standard part of the political vocabulary. Nor had it acquired its specific association with a new kind of left. All this was to change by the mid-1980s.

Genesis of a Political Crusade During the late 1970s, national tabloid newspapers seldom paid any attention to local government, save for fleeting references during local 39

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

election campaigns. Councils were viewed in Fleet Street as being part of a dull, fustian world where local worthies dealt with parochial, uncontroversial issues. ‘News’ did not happen in local town halls. However, some national papers reported in May 1981 that Ken Livingstone had been elected leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) shortly after the local election, ousting the right-wing Labour veteran, Andrew McIntosh. Livingstone’s supporters justified the switch on the grounds that newly elected councillors were entitled to choose a new leader, and that Labour’s GLC manifesto was the basis of their democratic mandate. This casuistry did not impress a number of national papers which questioned the legitimacy of Livingstone’s ‘coup’. However, the event that put the tabloid press on full ‘Red Ken’ alert was a fresh outbreak of disorder in Brixton in July 1981. The reason for this was partly to do with the wider political context. Pitched battles with the police, accompanied by arson and looting, had occurred in Brixton in April. During the preceding three months, there had also been ‘race’ riots in Bristol and Liverpool, and significant disturbances elsewhere. To some alarmed commentators, the latest trouble in Brixton seemed to be part of a general pattern in which law and order was beginning to break down in inner city areas where there was a large concentration of disaffected black and Asian youths.4 These disturbances coincided with major upheavals within the Labour Party. In January 1981, the left secured a change in the rules that gave union and party activists a major say for the first time in the election of party leader. In March, an influential group of right-wing Labour MPs broke away to form the SDP. In April Tony Benn, the left’s standard bearer, announced that he would contest the party’s deputy leadership in a move that was widely seen as his opening bid to lead the party. The popular press’s response to these developments was typified by the Daily Express’s (22 May 1981) standfirst: ‘Why Labour leaders tremble at the relentless advance of Benn’s army. Torn apart by the politics of fear’. What made the rise of the left still more dramatic was that Labour stayed ahead in the polls, while the Conservative Party slipped to third place throughout most of the summer of 1981.5 Fleet Street journalists began to contemplate the possibility that a leftdominated Labour Party could conceivably be elected to political office during a period of recession and mass unemployment. Ken Livingstone became an emblematic figure symbolising for 40

Goodbye to the Clowns

right-wing tabloids a dual nightmare: the breakdown of social order in the inner cities and the rise of the Labour left. He had already been marked down, in the words of one Fleet Street journalist, as ‘a platoon leader of the advanced party of Bennite shock troops’6 when he became leader of the GLC. What transformed him into a public enemy, following short bursts of bad publicity, were his outspoken public comments about the causes of the Brixton disturbances. These were the product, he claimed, of years of neglect, high unemployment, resentment against racial discrimination and, in particular, insensitive, racist policing.7 Although his analysis was later echoed – in more restrained language – by the official enquiry headed by Lord Scarman,8 it was judged at the time to be the height of irresponsibility for London’s first citizen to be offering ‘sympathy to rioters’ (Daily Express, 16 July 1981) and acting as ‘a cheer leader to trouble’ (News of the World, 12 July 1981) Underlying this outrage was the conviction that the riots were the work of hooligan and subversive elements, and that the best way to maintain order was to use whatever force was required. Livingstone stood accused of throwing a mantle of respectability around urban thugs, and of engaging, in the words of the Sunday Express (19 July 1981), ‘in a ruthless campaign . . . to destroy good race relations between the police and the local community’. It was even suggested that he was trying to exploit lawlessness to bring down the government. Livingstone and his friends on the left, according to Max Hastings in the Evening Standard (20 July 1981), wanted to ‘wreck the Tory government – and clearly the riots are useful stepping stones in this direction.’ The article was accompanied by a photograph of a policeman, carrying away a rioter, with the caption: ‘In charge – but for how long?’ Following the Brixton disturbances, Ken Livingstone and his GLC colleagues were subjected to a sustained tabloid assault. This mobilised the standard rhetoric against the Labour left, derived from the polemics of the Cold War. It depicted the GLC administration as Marxist, authoritarian and undemocratic, symbolically placing it outside the pale of legitmate politics. In actual fact, the GLC administration elected to office in 1981 was a political coalition. While it included marxist councillors, these were only a minority within a minority. They were part of the left faction led by Ken Livingstone, which depended in turn on a centrist group of Labour councillors (people like Kinnock-supporting John Carr) to win the vote within the Labour group. Livingstone himself was an intelligent, radical 41

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

populist – something that is clearly revealed in his political reminiscences,9 revealing interviews with left inquisitors,10 and a good, pioneering biography.11 His politics were the product both of his generation, and of the ethical radicalism of the British Labour Party, which was empirical rather than theoretical in orientation.12 This contrasted markedly with Communist and Trotskyist organisations whose members were instructed in Marxist theory as part of their political education as ‘cadres’ in the ‘class struggle’. The politics of the GLC administration was also hybrid. Its radical arm, the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB) sought to promote co-operatives and economic democracy, and was influenced by the far left. However, GLEB increasingly functioned in practice as a ‘state capitalist’ agency propping up ailing companies.13 More importantly, the main thrust of the GLC’s programme took it in a different direction, away from class politics and in the direction of personal politics: women’s emancipation, gay liberation, antiracism. The GLC also championed environmentalist and ‘anti-bureaucratic’ initiatives, which were not part of the traditional repertoire of the old left. The GLC represented something new: a radical council that owed more to the 1960s counterculture than to methodism or Marxism. However, the right-wing tabloid press initially foisted on Livingstone and his colleagues an identikit image of the left that was first constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. Livingstone was denounced as the ‘Trotsky of County Hall’ (Daily Express, 6 December 1982), ‘the Commissar of County Hall’ (Daily Mail, 30 July 1981) and in a bulging, portmanteau image as ‘Ken Livingstone and his coterie of Marxists, Communists and Trotskyists’ (Sun, 9 February 1983). The Marxist tag was often accompanied by adjectives underscoring its negative symbolisation, as in the GLC’s ‘hardline Marxist ideologues’ (Daily Mail, 5 June 1985) and ‘Ken Livingstone and his grubby pack of marxists’ (Sun, 9 February 1983). The implication was that they did not share the core values of democracy, something that was sometimes made explicit. Livingstone ‘wanted the street demonstration to replace the ballot box’, explained the Sun (10 June, 1984). In a similar vein, the Daily Mail (30 March 1984) warned: ‘the real assault on the democracy of this country is by the Fascist left, which has gained a menacing hold on the power structures at union and local level within Mr Livingstone’s Labour Party’. The Daily Express (30 April 1984) was more direct: ‘Citizen Ken Has No Time For Democracy’. 42

Goodbye to the Clowns

Political Subversion This image of the GLC administration as Marxist and undemocratic was reinforced by its depiction as being politically subversive. The Livingstone regime was repeatedly attacked in the tabloid press for undermining law and order, endorsing Irish terrorism and supporting Britain’s enemies abroad. The GLC’s stance on the police anticipated what was later to become part of a political consensus. The GLC argued that the Metropolitan Police should not answer only to the Home Office but, like other police forces in Britain, should be accountable to representatives of the local community. Local accountability fostered co-operation and mutual understanding essential, in the GLC’s view, to effective policing and the fight against crime. Since the government refused to relinquish sole control of the Metropolitan Police, the GLC-funded police monitoring groups represented the only available way of exerting community pressure. The stock complaints of these monitoring groups that violent attacks on women and ethnic minorities were not being taken seriously enough were, in the GLC’s view, legitimate concerns that the police should address. A Conservative Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, subsequently argued that the Metropolitan Police should be made locally accountable. This paved the way for the Blair government’s introduction, in 2000, of a Metropolitan Police Authority, with elected representatives. By then, a ‘community policing’ approach involving ethnic minorities had become a new orthodoxy. However, what became mainstream politics in the 2000s was viewed by right-wing tabloids twenty years earlier as political extremism. The GLC was portrayed as wanting to ‘handcuff’ the police (Evening Standard, 20 July 1981) or, worse, ‘destroy’ the police (Sun, 31 March 1982). The tenor of this tabloid coverage (markedly different from that of the broadsheet press) is best conveyed by the way in which the Sun (15 July 1981) reported the GLC’s funding of a police monitoring unit in Tower Hamlets. The decision was announced under the emotive headline ‘Council Gives Cash to Fight Bobbies’. This was accompanied by a photograph of a policeman standing in front of a blazing building with the caption, ‘Burning Britain’. The brief article was given over largely to an impassioned attack on the GLC by the Police Federation Chairman, Jim Jardine, who was quoted as saying: ‘I’m disgusted at public money 43

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

going to fanatics who pursue allegations against the police. We are constantly bedevilled by political agitators fighting against us.’ There was no attempt to clarify the composition of the monitoring group beyond the description given by Jardine. By contrast, the broadsheet Daily Telegraph’s report (14 July 1981), though critical in tone, explained that the monitoring group included representatives from the churches, Commission for Racial Equality and trades councils, and quoted a spokesman defending the unit’s work. Portrayed by right-wing tabloids as an enemy of the police, the GLC was also cast as a friend of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The GLC administration argued that it was right to engage in talks with the IRA. Although the council condemned the IRA’s bombing campaign, it claimed that dialogue represented the only way forward because the conflict in Northern Ireland – that had now come to London – could only be solved through a political rather than military solution. This position seems less controversial now than it did then. We now know that the Thatcher government did in fact have secret, mediated talks with the IRA. The idea of a political, as distinct from a military, solution to the banal hatreds in Northern Ireland also came to seem more realistic after the 1998 Good Friday agreement than it did before. But in the early 1980s, the GLC’s position was widely viewed in the popular press as irresponsible and subversive. The British government defined the conflict in Northern Ireland as a struggle between the forces of law and order and criminals. This interpretation reflected the allparty consensus in parliament, and was the dominant framework for reporting IRA terrorism in television news and current affairs programmes at the time (though it was contested in some television drama).14 The IRA bombing outside Chelsea barracks in October 1981 had raised the political temperature, prompting the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to describe the IRA bombers as ‘sub-human’.15 Livingstone and his colleagues were thus stepping outside the framework of understanding shared by government, the opposition leadership, and mainstream media that the only way to respond to terrorists was to crush them with all means at the government’s disposal. Livingstone’s punishment was to be pilloried, and – to a lesser or greater degree – misrepresented in a way that made him look callous and foolish. Some tabloid newspapers refused to accept that speaking officially to the IRA could mean anything other than covert approval. To engage in 44

Goodbye to the Clowns

dialogue meant, in their view, ‘backing’ terrorism. Thus when Livingstone met at County Hall the children of a woman murdered by the IRA, the Daily Mail (22 August 1981) reported the encounter as ‘Victims Face IRA Backer’. Similarly, the GLC’s invitation to two Sinn Fein members of the Northern Ireland Assembly for talks to discuss the end of bombing in London was hailed as ‘Backing for Terror’ (Sun, 6 December 1982). The full ferocity of tabloid disapproval was unleashed in reports of a meeting of the Cambridge Tory Reform Club in October 1981, when Livingstone was asked a question about Northern Ireland. He replied that the IRA were no ordinary criminals but militant nationalists; and that the only way to deal with the crisis in Northern Ireland was to work towards a political settlement. It is not possible to determine for certain whether Livingstone’s spontaneous answer used the phrase ‘not just criminals’ or ‘not criminals’ in relation to the IRA. Livingstone said that he used the conditional ‘not just’;16 the Daily Mail reporter, Richard Holliday, who was present at the meeting, backed him up;17 but an anonymous agency reporter, relied upon by most newspapers without attribution, took a different view. Whether or not Livingstone made a slip of tongue, it is clear from all reports of the meeting that he explicitly condemned IRA violence. He also rushed into television and radio studios the next day to ‘clarify’ what he had said: ‘I at no time said that people who set off a bomb aren’t criminals . . . Quite frankly, I wouldn’t agree with what I was quoted as ‘‘saying’’ ’.18 He then repeated his usual line that there could only be a political rather than military solution to the Northern Ireland crisis. The right-wing popular press used Livingstone’s alleged gaffe at the Cambridge meeting to attempt to bury him as a politician. On its front page, the Sun (13 October 1981) began its report: ‘This morning the Sun presents the most odious man in Britain’. It concluded with a demand that Livingstone be sacked ‘right this minute’ (original emphasis). This theme was taken up by the Daily Express (13 October) which declared oratorically ‘London has endured fire, plaque and the blitz. It should not have to endure Mr. Livingstone at the head of affairs for one more minute’. The strongest condemnation came, however, from the Daily Mail (13 October) which proclaimed that Livingstone was ‘a man who through Marxist dogma has become an alien in his own land’. It concluded by declaring that ‘he is certainly not fit to rule Britain’s capital city’. It was not only the right-wing press that set out to destroy 45

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Livingstone. The pro-Labour Sunday Mirror (18 October) also felt compelled to issue a public warning: ‘this man is dangerous’. The image of Livingstone as the ally of Fenian terror, apologist for black rioters and opponent of the police was rounded off by tabloid portrayals of him as unpatriotic or a Communist fellow traveller. His opposition to the dispatch of British troops to the Falklands was misrepresented as ‘Red Ken Backs Junta’ (Sun, 10 April 1982). The GLC’s refusal to implement the government’s civil defence plans as part of its anti-nuclear stance was interpreted by the Sun (9 September 1982) as revealing that Livingstone’s loyalties lay elsewhere. ‘Where will you be’, asked the paper, ‘should the Russian stormtroopers march through the streets of London . . . In the streets welcoming them with open arms?’ (original emphasis). The Daily Express (29 August 1983) suggested that Livingstone should emigrate to Communist Eastern Europe. The Sun (10 July 1985) extended the geographical range of this familiar taunt by accusing Livingstone of wanting to turn Britain into a ‘Cuba of the North Sea’ with ‘the likes of the IRA and Vietcong’ as a volunteer army.

Moral Subversion In fact, the new urban left differed from the old left in being anti-Soviet. The identification of Ken Livingstone as a fellow-travelling Communist sympathiser merely revealed how little the right-wing press understood the phenomenon that it was reporting. But even while it mobilised traditional Cold War rhetoric to describe the GLC, the popular press also betrayed signs of uneasiness that something different had surfaced in County Hall that it did not quite understand. Its first inkling that the GLC leadership represented something new occurred when Ken Livingstone addressed a meeting of the Gay Unity Group in Harrow in August 1981. In his speech, Livingstone attacked the bigotry of all the political parties, and promised to oppose discrimination against sexual minorities. This fuelled speculation about Livingstone’s own sexual preferences. The Sun (19 August 1981) reported ‘Red Ken Speaks up For The Gays – I’ll Get Them Jobs and Homes, He Says’, and published a photograph of the GLC leader with the nudge-nudge caption: ‘Red Ken . . . would not talk about his private life last night’. Subsequent journalistic enquiries revealed that Livingstone was straight. The Daily Express’s (19 August) reaction was more 46

Goodbye to the Clowns

forthright: ‘what is not so funny is his proposal to give ratepayers money to ‘‘gay’’ groups when the ‘‘applications come in’’ ’. The popular press’s first reaction was to attribute Livingstone’s support for gays and lesbians to his personal freakishness. He had been identified from the start as a newt-loving eccentric. This was transformed into a more demonic persona. Livingstone, snorted the Sunday Express (27 October 1981), was ‘the IRA-loving, poof-loving Marxist’. But it increasingly dawned on tabloid journalists that it was not just Livingstone who was different: so were the people around him. Personal attacks on Livingstone broadened to a sustained assault on the GLC as a morally subversive institution. The GLC, declared the Daily Express (29 May 1984), was ‘the Boy George of Local Authorities’, a reference to the androgynous, lipstick-wearing pop star. According to the Daily Telegraph (23 January 1985), the GLC was ‘out to confuse the many by perverting all normal feelings and turning all accepted ideas upside down’. It was against the natural order of things, even wanting, according to columnist Lynda Lee-Potter, to close down beauty salons and make ‘women strip down lorries instead’ (Daily Mail, 2 November 1985). Its credo of liberation was portrayed as a new form of oppression in which the young and vulnerable were being indoctrinated. ‘Children as young as five’, warned the Daily Mail (2 November 1984), ‘are being taught by lesbians and militant feminist teachers to question the traditional value of the sexes’. When the Inner London Education Authority (technically a branch of the GLC) endorsed the right of gay teachers to ‘come out’, its decision was attacked bitterly on the grounds that it would corrupt and confuse the young, and weaken classroom control. ‘Standards of education may fall relentlessly’, warned the Daily Express (28 June 1983), to the point where ‘codes of discipline and decent behaviour may hardly exist’. Where the Express anathematised, the Sun (28 June 1983) chuckled with the headline, ‘Gay Sirs’ Charter To Cuddle In Schools’. But its editorial that day called for the GLC to be closed down.

Patrons of Deviance The theme of political subversion thus acquired as a counterpoint the theme of moral subversion. These two themes were brought together, and given a dramatic focus, through the portrayal of the GLC as the patron of both political and moral deviance. The GLC administration 47

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

developed a policy of giving grants to minority and community groups as a way of promoting collective self-help and effective public participation. This reflected its belief that the council should facilitate and enable rather than be a ‘managerialist’ authority. The GLC’s grants became a major focus of tabloid attention. ‘Controversial’ organisations that obtained a grant were given prominence, often accompanied by references to contentious organisations that had been funded in the past. The same names appeared again and again: the English Collective of Prostitutes (a pressure group), London Lesbian and Gay Centre, Babies Against the Bomb (a child-minding group in north London), the Marx Memorial Library, Spare Rib (a feminist magazine) and the Rastafarian Advisory Centre. These favourites fell into four categories of undeserving ‘other’: ethnic, feminist, homosexual and radical organisations. Hostility was also engendered through the use of nuanced language: not ‘grants’ but ‘handouts’; not ‘monitoring group’ but ‘snoopers’; not ‘gay rights’ but ‘queers’ lib’.19 The undeserving ‘other’ were sometimes rolled into a generic category as in ‘loony lefties and fringe groups’ (Sun, 23 February 1984) or distilled in an ironic, knowing caricature, such as ‘black lesbians against the bomb’ (News of the World, 15 April 1984). Tabloid reporting also exaggerated greatly the financial burden that GLC grants represented. Two sources of resentment – towards outsider groups and towards paying rates – were thus brought together to produce a synergy of indignation. ‘Terroristic rates . . . have produced a rash of bankrupties and a flight of firms and offices’, thundered the Daily Mail (19 May 1983) because ‘the militant lesbians, babies for peace, Irish and black extremists, prostitutes’ collectives, left-wing theatre groups and revolutionary ‘creators’ of all kinds have soaked up millions of ratepayers money’. This dual message – the ratepayer burdened by undeserving outsiders – was succinctly conveyed through the description of the GLC as ‘a hand-out machine for the feckless and freaky’ (Star, 27 July 1984). It was also imparted in numerous headlines designed to cue a critical response: ‘The Livingstone Follies’ (Daily Express, 23 February 1983), ‘The Crazy Things They Do With Your Rates’ (Daily Mail, 16 February 1983), ‘£220,000 Hand-out For Prostitutes, Gays and Daft Plays’ (Sun, 23 November 1982), ‘Red Ken Livingstone Hands Out Cash With Gay Abandon’ (News of the World, 21 February 1982). Angry reactions were further solicited through the way in which news reports and features were written. ‘GLC leader Ken Livingstone was once again 48

Goodbye to the Clowns

yesterday doing what he does best – giving London’s ratepayers’ money away to bizarre minority groups’ was the typical lead-in to a Daily Mail feature article (16 February 1983). The indignation of the tabloid press was amplified by news reports and specially commissioned articles that gave seemingly spontaneous expression to wider public anger. The right and the left, it was implied, were united in a shared sense of outrage. Thus, the Conservative Party Chairman, John Selwyn Gummer, complained bitterly in the Sunday Express (11 August 1985) about the way in which GLC ‘extremists’ have ‘their hands in YOUR pockets’. This was echoed more graphically by the retired trade union leader (and ex-communist), Frank Chapell, in the Daily Mail (27 March 1986). ‘The GLC’, he wrote, ‘has made London the laughing stock of local government by opening its doors to every no-hoper, Marxist trouble-maker, political scrounger, foreign terrorist and sexual pervert who wanted a public handout’. In fact, GLC grants only accounted for a small proportion of the council’s total budget. And the grants that gained tabloid attention accounted in turn for only a small proportion of GLC grants. The Conservative Home Office Minister, David Waddington, estimated in 1984 that only 1.8 per cent of the GLC’s grants went to controversial organisations.20

Crystallisation The popular right-wing press never fully registered the fact, and explained to readers, that the GLC administration represented a new political generation. Instead, right-wing tabloids started by projecting a standard identikit of the left, derived from the past, on to the GLC. They subsequently superimposed a new layer of signification on this Cold War image. This resulted in old and new structures of representation being merged together in an uncertain and fluctuating synthesis. Out of this, there gradually emerged a pathological explanation of a new, unhinged left that was different from the old left. The first sustained attempt to develop a pathological explanation appeared in the Daily Mail (20 August 1981). It commissioned a clinical assessment of Livingstone’s mental condition from ‘three leading psychologists’, who suggested that Livingstone was an emotionally damaged publicity seeker. One unnamed ‘senior woman psychologist’ was quoted as saying that ‘it is most likely’ that his overworked parents were unable 49

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left

to give him enough attention. ‘Probably the only way in which he could get it was to be a naughty boy – which he still acts like’. Dr Dougal MacKay, principal clinical psychologist at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, was also reported as saying: ‘the desperate need for attention is the hallmark of the hysteric. Mr. Livingstone is in the same category as a punk rocker who wears outlandish clothes’. Dr Mackay subsequently protested that words had been put into his mouth. ‘When I was approached by the reporter concerned’, he said, ‘I made it clear that, although I was prepared to discuss a particular type of personality phenomenon with him, I was not willing to comment on any one individual’.21 According to Dr Mackay, he only spoke in hypothetical terms. He did not even know who Ken Livingstone was until he read the article quoting his comments. Mental instability was not at this early stage a central, organising theme. It was just one among a number of taunts derived from the school playground. Thus, Livingstone was attacked as ‘the pipsqueak leader of the GLC’ (Sun, 23 July 1981), ‘little twit’ (Sun, 19 August 1981), ‘this weird creature’ (Daily Mail, 20 August 1981), ‘a puffed-up crackpot’ (Sun, 27 July 1981), ‘this fathead’ (News of the World, 7 July 1983), ‘a doctrinaire clown’ (Daily Mail, 24 July 1983), ‘the Mickey Mouse of British politics’ (Daily Mirror, 29 August 1983). Moreover, the theme of mental instability was not new. It had been used, as we have seen, in relation to other left-wing politicians in the past. It did not designate, in 1981, a new kind of left because the explanatory ground-work of signification had not yet been done. But in the course of 1982–5, the GLC came to be identified repeatedly with ‘crackpot’, ‘loopy’, ‘barmy’, ‘potty’ and ‘fringe’ people. Jostling among these epithets were various workings of a single leitmotif: ‘Red Ken and the loony left of the GLC’ (Daily Star, 26 July 1983), ‘a haven for political loons and crackpots’ (Daily Star, 24 July 1984), ‘rate loonies’ (Daily Express, 7 September 1984), ‘loony lefties and fringe groups’ (Sun, 23 February 1984), ‘Greater Loonification Council’ (Keith Waterhouse in the Daily Mirror, 8 April 1985), ‘Labour Loony Left’ (Cummings cartoon, Daily Express, 26 June 1985); ‘the loony left’ (Daily Express, 25 April 1984). This was a time of trial and error when well paid columnists, cartoonists, sub-editors, feature writers and leader writers experimented with different lexical forms. They only collectively settled for one form in late 1986, after the GLC had been closed down. But the foundations for designating – and de-legitimating – a new kind of left had been laid. The 50

Goodbye to the Clowns

succinct, alliterative phrase, ‘loony left’, merely crystallised an understanding of a new political phenomenon – a ‘crackpot’ left more concerned with minorities than with class – that had evolved during the course of the anti-GLC crusade.

Political Retribution Not all papers joined this crusade. The broadsheet press (apart from the Daily Telegraph) largely held back. The pro-Labour, Mirror group of popular newspapers also tended to stay on the sidelines (although the Sunday Mirror was one of the first papers to call for the GLC’s abolition, and subsequently ran an editorial urging its abolition to be speeded up).22 It was primarily the right-wing tabloids which launched a jihad against the GLC. However, they accounted for 63 per cent of national daily circulation in 1983.23 Their firepower was sustained and relentless. Hardly a week went by between July 1981 and June 1983 when rightwing tabloids failed to draw attention to a fresh GLC outrage. Their efforts were reinforced by the capital’s monopoly daily paper, the Evening Standard, which initially campaigned against the GLC, and joined the chorus for it to be closed down. The first effect of this crusade was to open up splits within the GLC Labour administration, and generate a leadership crisis. Throughout the summer of 1981, there was growing grumbling among Labour councillors. Some complained that Livingstone’s controversial pronouncements on issues unrelated to London undermined support for the GLC and deflected attention from its achievements. Others (including some left-wing councillors) felt that the media focus on Livingstone detracted from the principle of collective leadership to which they were all committed. In October, this rumble of complaint grew into open rebellion, with twenty councillors circulating a round-robin letter attacking Livingstone. The GLC leader declared subsequently that the absence of an obvious successor helped him to survive. Even so, it was a close-run thing. ‘I might very well have been replaced as leader’, he acknowledged, ‘if the AGM, with its secret ballots, had been due in October 1981 rather than April 1982’.24 The second effect of the tabloid crusade was, seemingly, to turn Londoners against their council. An Audience Selection poll in August 1981 found that 51 per cent disapproved of Livingstone as GLC leader compared with only 11 per cent who approved. Still more devastatingly, 51

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the poll reported that 38 per cent of those who had voted Labour in the May GLC election now regretted doing so.25 The battering that the GLC received was so relentless, and the loss of public confidence so great, that Ken Livingstone privately concluded in the autumn of 1981 that he had ‘blown it’, and that the GLC administration was damaged beyond repair.26 A mid-term poll in April 1983 offered a glimmer of hope for the beleaguered administration. It indicated that the GLC had regained some lost support, but remained deeply unpopular. Only 30 per cent of Londoners said that they were satisfied with the GLC, compared with 49 per cent who were dissatisfied. More than twice as many people registered disapproval of Livingstone as leader of the GLC than expressed approval. Significantly, the poll revealed considerable opposition to those GLC policies which the press had savaged: 51 per cent disapproved of giving ‘financial aid to fringe and minority groups’, with only 24 per cent in favour; the GLC’s police accountability proposals were rejected by 50 per cent and supported only by 27 per cent; and 69 per cent also condemned the GLC’s invitation to Sinn Fein representatives to come to London.27 Meanwhile, a political campaign against the GLC had taken off. The right-wing popular press demanded in 1982–3 that the GLC be closed down. Its editorials were supplemented by commissioned articles and news reports all arguing for the same thing.28 A growing number of organisations publicly declared that the GLC should be abolished, including the London Boroughs Association, the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British Industry. The influential London Conservative Group of MPs joined this hue and cry in January 1983, arguing that the GLC’s abolition would be a vote-winner. Margaret Thatcher seems to have shared this opinion: she told the Commons on 5 May 1983, ‘there are many people who would find abolition attractive’. At the very last moment, after the Conservative General Election manifesto had already been drafted, a late addition was made committing the party to closing down the GLC and Metropolitan County Councils. In its hour of need, the GLC appeared to be without friends. Senior figures in the Labour Party had come to regard County Hall as a political liability. Michael Foot, the Labour leader, blamed Labour’s poor showing in the 1981 Croydon North-West by-election partly on the GLC.29 Neil Kinnock, who was later to succeed Foot as leader, 52

Goodbye to the Clowns

complained about the damage caused to Labour by the GLC’s high rates.30 A growing number of Labour MPs told lobby journalists in 1982 and 1983 that the GLC was alienating ‘ordinary voters’ by turning London ‘into an adventure playground’ for ‘a variety of zany left-wing causes’.31 Livingstone was even told not to visit the Labour Party’s national headquarters during the 1983 general election, as a mark of official displeasure.32 Indeed, the Labour Party commissioned a private survey during the general election campaign to see how much damage the GLC was doing to Labour’s chances in the capital (only to find out that it was having no discernible effect). However, the survey also revealed that more people were dissatisfied with the GLC than were dissatisfied, and that over twice as many people disapproved of Livingstone as GLC leader than approved.33 In short, the GLC had become a pariah among local authorities. Crucified by the press, a source of embarrassment to the Labour Party, seemingly unpopular with its electors, it could be removed – or so it seemed – with the minimum of difficulty.

Notes 1. Research for this chapter was supported by a small grant from Goldsmiths College. My thanks to Jane Fountain for her assistance. 2. This coarsening of public debate was partly a response to the breakdown of political consensus during the 1970s. It also owed something to changes in the character of the tabloid press, strongly influenced by the rise of Rupert Murdoch. However, not only right-wing tabloids were involved in this political namecalling. The Mirror group of newspapers ran a campaign against Sir Keith Joseph, the cerebral, courteous Conservative politician and pioneer of Thatcherism, as the ‘mad monk’ during the late 1970s. This echoed the slur of ‘irrationality’ directed aginst the left during the same period. 3. For a useful account of the tabloid pathologising of Tony Benn, see Mark Hollingsworth, The Press and Political Dissent (London: Pluto, 1986). 4. The anger and fear engendered by these disturbances is well anatomised in two studies of media coverage: Graham Murdock, ‘Reporting the riots: images and impact’, in John Benyon (ed.), Scarman and After (Oxford: Pergamon, 1984) and Stephen Cottle, TV News, Urban Conflicts and the Inner City (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993). Mainstream media gave serious credence to the claim that these disorders were politically organised by subversive elements. The imagery used to report disturbances drew upon the lexicon of outrage developed in response to a succession of moral panics in the preceding two decades. 5. The Gallup voting intention poll first put the Conservatives third in March 1981

53

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

(with the Liberals and Social Democrats added together). The Conservative Party stayed third for most of the ensuing twelve months. See David Butler and Gareth Butler, Twentieth–Century British Political Facts, 8th edn (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 274–5. John Carvel, Citizen Ken (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984), p. 13. Daily Mail, 11 July 1981; Daily Express, 11 July 1981; The Times, 11 July 1981. The Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981 (HMSO Cmnd 8427: London, 1981) [Scarman Report]. Ken Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It (London: HarperCollins, 1987). Ken Livingstone and Tariq Ali, Who’s Afraid of Margaret Thatcher? Tariq Ali in Conversation with Ken Livingstone (London: Verso, 1984); ‘Local socialism: the way ahead. Interview with Ken Livingstone’, in Martin Body and Colin Fudge, Local Socialism? (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984). Carvel, Citizen Ken (1984). Geoffrey Foote, The Labour Party’s Political Thought 2nd edn (London: Croom Helm, 1986) makes the valid point that the empirical tradition of the Labour Party subsumed different, and rival, theoretical perspectives. Even so, he overstates the degree of intellectualism that existed in Labour’s grassroots. Part of the intellectual parentage of GLEB was social democratic, reflecting an overtly state capitalist conception embodied in Stuart Holland (ed.), The State as Entrepreneur (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972). For a good account of the attempt to make it an agency of radical change, see Maureen Mackintosh and Hilary Wainwright (eds), A Taste of Power (London: Verso, 1987); and for a useful assessment of its ultimate Labourist evolution, drawing on a major internal review, see Stewart Lansley, Sue Goss and Christian Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). Philip Schlesinger, Graham Murdock and Philip Elliott, Televising Terrorism (London: Comedia, 1983). Cited in the Daily Mail, 13 October 1981. Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything (1987), p. 167. Richard Holliday’s report, in the Daily Mail of 13 October 13 1981, records Livingstone as saying that the IRA bombers were ‘not ‘‘just criminals, murderers and psychopaths’’ ’. BBC2 TV, Newsnight, 14 October 1981. Daily Mail, 19 May 1983; Daily Mail, 22 April 1983; Sun, 20 September 1984, et passim. Cited in John Gyford, The Politics of Local Socialism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985), p. 55. The Press and the People: 29th/30th Annual Report of the Press Council (London: Press Council), p. 178. Sunday Mirror, 18 October 1981; Sunday Mirror, 15 January 1984. Audit Bureau of Circulation, July–December 1983. Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything (1987), p. 174. Audience Selection Survey, August 1981. Conversation with the author (JC).

54

Goodbye to the Clowns 27. Market Opinion Research International [MORI], April 1983. 28. For example, Evening Standard, 23 September 1982; Daily Telegraph, 2 March 1983: Daily Mail, 10 May 1983; Daily Express, 27 December 1982; Evening Standard, 14 January 1983; Daily Express, 21 January 1983; The Times 26 January 1983, Evevning Standard, 27 January 1981; Daily Express, 6 May 1983; Evening Standard, 23 September 1982; Daily Telegraph, 3 January 1982. 29. Cited in Daily Mail, 9 November 1982. 30. Cited in Evening Standard, 23 October 1981. 31. Carvel, Citizen Ken (1984), p. 165. 32. New Socialist, 37, 1986, p. 31. 33. Bob Worcester and Lynette Gilbert, MORI, ‘Voters in Greater London’, Confidential Memorandum to the Labour Party (14), 26 May 1983.

55

Chapter 3

Defeat into Victory

T

he proposal to abolish the GLC, announced in October 1983, was not greeted with the enthusiasm that the government had expected. Indeed, the immediate reaction of many Londoners was hostile. Fifty four per cent opposed the GLC’s closure, while only 23 per cent approved.1 Opposition strengthened in early 1984, with many former ‘don’t knows’ siding with the GLC. By April 1984 almost two-thirds of Londoners were against the GLC’s termination, while less than a quarter were in favour. This one-sided distribution of opinion persisted, with occasional fluctuations, until County Hall closed in April 1986.2 The abolition of the GLC was attacked not only by the opposition parties but also by senior Conservatives. The Thatcher administration had to overcome the biggest backbench revolt of its second term, quell cross-party rebellions in the House of Lords, and shrug off criticism from most broadsheet newspapers (including strongly Conservative ones). Its approach to ‘streamlining’ London administration never gained the consensual approval of the political class. This failure to gain popular and elite support had long-term consequences. While the government was able, with the help of three-line whips, to get the necessary legislation though parliament, its abolition of a London-wide council proved to be temporary because it lacked real consent. In due course, the Greater London Council was recreated in a new form as the Greater London Authority, and the role of GLC leader was replaced by that of directly elected mayor. The person first elected, and then re-elected, as mayor was none other than Ken Livingstone. The 56

Defeat into Victory

campaign on behalf of the GLC thus turned defeat into victory by winning enduring support outside Parliament. There was another unexpected outcome. Ken Livingstone, coldshouldered by the leadership of his own party and crucified in the popular press, was transformed in the eyes of many Londoners into a local hero. The council’s left-wing policies – many of which were unpopular when they were first introduced – won increasing approval. London became for a time a cockpit of popular radical politics.

Roots of Resilience How did all this happen? How did a politically isolated, reviled socialist council take on a popular right-wing government, re-elected in 1983 with a landslide majority, and win the propaganda battle? The answer advanced by numerous politicians, journalists and commentators at the time was that the GLC mounted a successful advertising campaign funded by a disgraceful misuse of taxpayers’ money. This much repeated argument encouraged the government to introduce new legislation that outlawed political advertising by local authorities. However, the claim that Londoners were only won over by a slick advertising campaign is a myth. The majority of Londoners opposed the abolition of the GLC before its advertising campaign had even begun. The true explanation for the GLC’s public relations ‘victory’ is more complex. One explanation is that the GLC, on the eve of its anti-abolition battle, was not the discredited, lame-duck authority that it was widely thought to be. Although it had been assailed by Fleet Street for two years, and its unpopularity had been recorded in successive opinion polls, it was damaged rather than fatally holed below the water line. This accounts for why the GLC was able to rally public support behind it. Cheap tracking polls can be misleading because they record instant, summary judgements without always shedding light on the ambivalences that can inform these judgements. This was true for example of the Labour Party’s private poll in May 19833 which reported that 49 per cent of Londoners were dissatisfied with the way the GLC was running London, compared with only 30 per cent who were satisfied. The dissatisfied outnumbered the satisfied in every sub-group apart from those aged between 18 and 24. The poll also reported widespread disapproval of Livingstone. This poll thus recorded, like other polls that preceded it, a seemingly clear-cut public indictment of the GLC. 57

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However, another survey – more detailed and costly, but conducted during the same month as the MORI poll – provided a more complicated picture of Londoners’ attitudes.4 Its first revelation was that much opinion was clouded by uncertainty: 78 per cent of respondents said that they knew very little or not very much about the GLC, and what it did. Its second revelation was that some people were in two minds. On the one hand, the majority had negative perceptions of the GLC as being ‘too political’ (72 per cent), too bureaucratic (55 per cent) and out of touch (52 per cent). On the other hand, more people thought well of the council than the opposite on a number of counts. The GLC was thought to act in the best interests of Londoners by 44 per cent, compared with a dissenting 37 per cent; to have a clear idea of what it was doing by 42 per cent, compared with a critical 37 per cent; and to be go-ahead and progressive by 41 per cent, with 31 per cent taking the opposite view. This survey thus indicated that opinion about the GLC was sometimes ‘soft’ because it was conflicted or uncertain, and therefore potentially susceptible to persuasion. Some Londoners had contradictory images of the GLC because they received contradictory information from the media. In 1981–3, the tabloid press portrayed the GLC in overwhelmingly negative terms, whereas television and radio was very much more inclined to report the GLC in terms of a positive or neutral news agenda. The quality press was situated between between these two polarities, while the Evening Standard tended to published an idiosyncratic combination of routine news reports that were often neutral or implicitly favourable to the GLC, and a smaller number of feature articles that were strongly critical of the council. However, perhaps the simplest way of conveying the divergent nature of media coverage is to take a single week, 20–6 November 1982. Television and radio ran eighteen items about the GLC during this week, of which ten featured the GLC embarking on new initiatives to benefit the community. Thus, national or regional television featured the GLC as trying to save Riverside Studios, staging the Spirit of London Exhibition, planning the opening of the Thames Barrier and campaigning for the low paid, while radio featured the GLC as battling to save a breast cancer clinic, seeking to conserve for posterity William Morris’s home, improve the capital’s sporting facilities, and protect wildlife in the capital. Only one out of eighteen broadcasting stories had an overtly anti-GLC theme. By contrast, all nine stories about the GLC published in 58

Defeat into Victory

the tabloid press during this week were negative. Indeed, the GLC news agenda of the tabloid press scarcely overlapped with that of broadcasting.5 The media thus sowed confusion by depicting the GLC in sharply contrasting ways. The contrast between regional television and the popular press was especially significant because both reached large audiences. Almost half of Londoners claimed in 1983 to watch regularly Thames News, and 29 per cent claimed to watch regularly its BBC rival. Seventeen and eighteen per cent said that they watched regularly the two weekly TV feature programmes, The London Programme and Reporting London (with much larger proportions saying that they watched occasionally). The tabloid press accounted for about three-quarters of national daily paper readership in London. By contrast, the monopoly evening paper, the Standard, was only read by an estimated 7 per cent of people in the GLC area in 1983.6 The media reported the GLC in divergent ways partly because they were subject to different regimes. The tabloids were unregulated and partisan, whereas broadcasting was subject to public service requirements to inform and display due impartiality. However, the more important but related cause of difference arose from different news values. The tabloids, selling nationwide, reported the GLC as an exemplification of a national story – the growing threat posed by the Labour left – and were interested primarily in stories about the council that fitted this framework. By contrast, local radio and regional television served a regional audience, and covered ‘London stories’ that were of no interest to the tabloids. ‘Local’ radio was in fact Londonwide, while regional television served a region that had London at its centre. The GLC deliberately exploited this difference. From July 1981 onwards, County Hall gave preferential access to television, radio and the broadsheets, in terms of interviews and briefings, as part of a conscious strategy of fighting back against hostile tabloids.7 This engendered a relationship of growing reciprocity between County Hall and local broadcasting. Understaffed local radio and regional television newsrooms were fed stories by a large GLC public relations department which made it a priority to identify stories that would appeal to them. This policy paid off in the sense that the Livingstone administration received very much more broadcasting coverage than the previous Cutler administration had done.8 Individual broadcasters who might 59

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easily have been hostile to the GLC were won over. For example, Roger Clarke, a Radio London reporter who described himself as a ‘liberal Conservative’, concluded that the GLC’s leadership was ‘highpowered’, and insisted that the GLC was in reality ‘not an extreme organisation’.9 Similarly, Anne Jones, who was later to report Brent Council in a highly critical way for BBC television, viewed Ken Livingstone as someone who was ‘head and shoulders above most people in local government’.10 Thus, the GLC had developed a shrewd public relations strategy of cultivating metropolitan media as a shield against national media attacks. The Livingstone administration had also connected by mid-1983 to new sources of support. Its ‘new politics’ of environmentalism, feminism, and support for ethnic minority and gay rights had won good will among a younger, affluent section of the local population who were then predisposed to be hostile to Labour. At the same time, the Livingstone administration also cultivated its traditional Labour base in the council estates and working class communities of London through policies like concessionary fares for pensioners and job creation through the Greater London Enterprise Board. This coalition was inherently unstable because the GLC’s workingclass base and new supporters had in important respects different politics.11 In a normal context, the council administration could easily have fallen between two stools: alienating some of its traditional, working-class supporters with policies they disliked (such as funding gay and lesbian groups) without fully winning over a new constituency. However, the government’s determination to close down the GLC changed the dynamics of this coalition. Its two wings came together and united, providing an extended base of support for the GLC. By 1983, the GLC had also gained a second wind after its initial, traumatic mauling by the tabloid press. The key issue that helped to partly rehabilitate the GLC, and win it grudging respect, was its battle over transport. In 1981, the GLC introduced a 25 per cent reduction in bus and tube fares funded out of the rates. The council argued that something had to be done to persuade people to return to public transport in order to ease traffic congestion in London. Cheaper fares would improve London’s environment, and also assist those on low incomes to travel more often and get more out of the city. This policy was challenged successfully in the courts by Conservativecontrolled Bromley council, one of the few boroughs in London not 60

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served by the tube. The Appeal Court and the House of Lords ruled that the fares cut and GLC’s supplementary rate were unlawful on the grounds that London Transport should be run ‘economically’. This produced a public outcry, including outspoken criticism from some papers usually strongly hostile to the GLC. Why should unelected judges, it was asked, be able to override a council administration elected by the people, especially when its cheap fares policy had been a prominent part of its election manifesto. The impolitic wording of some of the legal judgements that were handed down did little to enhance their public reception. Lord Denning (then aged eighty-two) argued that the GLC should set its election mandate to one side and ‘consider what it was best to do’, while Lord Justice Watkins referred to the council’s ‘abuse of power, which totally disregarded the interests of the ratepayers’.12 Their judgements were criticised subsequently with great eloquence by a senior judge, concerned about the erosion of local democracy.13 But while the GLC’s cheap fares policy was struck down in 1981, a more modest version of it was allowed to go ahead in 1983. The GLC’s policy did in fact lead to an increased use of public transport, reversing a downward – and some had argued an unalterable – trend that had begun in the 1950s. The evident success of this policy, and the obstacles that had been placed in its path, altered public attitudes. In 1981, 77 per cent of Londoners were opposed to public transport fare reductions funded from the rates.14 Yet, by 1985 78 per cent of Londoners (including 77 per cent of Alliance voters and 69 per cent of Conservative voters in the GLC area) were in favour.15 A once controversial initiative had become consensual. The GLC was also a centre of power in its own right. Its political leadership possessed the democratic legitimacy of being directly elected by Londoners. Its officials had more information and expertise about governing the capital than Whitehall – something that was important in the battle for elite opinion. Immediately after the 1983 general election, the GLC was placed on a war footing. Direct lines of control were established from the leader’s office over all areas of the GLC in order to extract the greatest possible political and public relations benefit from everything it did.16 The GLC also found itself with an overflowing warchest. Paying off the deficit incurred by its outlawed cheap fares policy had justified a sharp increase in the rates. This established a high rating level that enabled the council to fund new initiatives, and spend heavily 61

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on its own defence. Tony Wilson, the council’s public relations chief, estimated that the total cost of the ‘Save the GLC’ campaign, over two-and-a-half-years, was approaching £30 million (of which its antiabolition advertising campaign accounted for £12 million).17 In short, the GLC was not the broken-backed institution that it appeared to be in 1983. The council commanded considerable resources. Its adverse tabloid press had been partly offset by more positive broadcasting coverage. It had strong tap-roots of partisan Labour support, and a widening circle of goodwill outside Labour’s heartland constituency. While attitudes towards the council were often critical, they were more often soft than hard.

Local Patriotism and Suspicion However, it was not until the Conservative government decided to terminate the GLC that the council’s public standing was transformed. It was this more than anything else that converted the GLC into a symbol of popular resistance to Thatcherism. This was achieved partly through appeals to local patriotism. The Livingstone administration argued repeatedly that a city as big as London needed a council to oversee its affairs, and represent its interests. If the GLC was abolished, London would be the only major capital in Europe without a council. This was both a telling argument, and an emotive call on civic pride. Many people living in the capital thought of themselves as Londoners rather than as, say, Mertonians, Islingtonians or Lewishamites. They identified more strongly with the metropolis than with their local borough (though this was less true of people living in some outer suburbs). This pervasive London identity underpinned the belief that London should have its own local government, and led to widespread rejection of the government’s claim that the GLC was not needed. Thus, in April 1984, 68 per cent of Londoners disagreed with the view that ‘the GLC is an unnecessary level of local government’, while only 20 per cent agreed.18 The influence of a strong metropolitan identity is also apparent in later survey evidence. In 1985, the second most often given reason for opposing the GLC’s abolition in response to an open-ended question was that the council was ‘specially for Londoners/knows our needs’.19 The GLC also took advantage of mistrust of the Thatcher administration, and of central government more generally. It argued repeatedly 62

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that the plan to close down County Hall was intended to silence a political opponent, not to improve the management of London services. This argument had a wider resonance because it was echoed by growing criticism of the prime minister’s ‘dictatorial style’ that extended well beyond a Labour-voting minority. In 1984–5, subtantial majorities disapproved of the government’s rate-capping of local councils, its banning of trade unions at the communications centre GCHQ, and its attempt to suppress the BBC Real Lives programme about Northern Ireland, and prevent publication of Spycatcher.20 Between 1983 and 1985, there was also a significant increase in the number of people who predicted that the government’s term of office would result in less personal freedom.21 The GLC’s allegation that it was a victim of a political vendetta was also widely believed because it accorded with what people read in the Conservative press. Before the June 1983 general election, newspapers had attacked the politics of the Livingstone administation rather than discussed optimal strategies of service delivery. They continued in this vein. Abolishing the GLC, the Daily Express (29 September 1983) bluntly explained, was a way of ‘jettisoning the extremist rubbish’. ‘The government does not need to produce arguments for killing off the GLC’, declared the Sun (5 December 1984) since ‘Red Ken’s antics says it all’. ‘The abolition of the Greater London Council . . .’, the Daily Telegraph (18 January 1984) concluded approvingly, ‘is a sentence of execution for bad behaviour’. This rhetoric from the Conservative press undermined the government’s ostensible claim for reform, set out in its White Paper, that it was seeking to simplify local adminstration in the interests of better democracy and greater efficiency.22 Instead, Conservative press outbursts strengthened the impression – fostered by County Hall – that the government’s real agenda was to suppress political opposition Londoners’ responses seemingly confirmed that the Conservative press campaign ‘boomeranged’, and hit the government rather than its target. In January 1984, 54 per cent of Londoners agreed with the view that the GLC was being abolished ‘to silence a political opponent’, while only a quarter disagreed. By contrast, a mere 21 per cent thought that ‘the government was trying to abolish the GLC in the interests of Londoners’, whereas 59 per cent dissented from this view.23 Environment Minister Patrick Jenkin’s protest to the effect that the GLC’s abolition had nothing to do with black babies against the bomb was widely disbelieved. With extraordinary political ineptitude, the 63

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government then compounded its credibility problem by announcing that it intended to cancel the 1985 GLC elections. The government feared that a re-elected Livingstone administration would spend public money with reckless abandon in the last year of the GLC’s life. It therefore proposed that joint boards, made up of nominees from the London borough councils, should be installed to manage the council’s affairs in its last year. This meant, in effect, cancelling elections that might be lost, and imposing a Tory regime at County Hall since the majority of London borough councils were then Conservative-controlled. This proposal further reinforced the impression that the government’s policy towards the GLC was both partisan and undemocratic. It aroused widespread criticism not only from the government’s opponents but also from within the Conservative party. In the words of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, the government’s plan laid ‘the Conservative Party open to the charge of the greatest gerrymandering of the last 150 years of British history’.24 The Livingstone administration skilfully took advantage of this own goal. It commissioned a leading advertising agency, Boase, Massimi and Pollitt (BMP), to devise an advertising campaign. Most Labour councillors wanted this campaign to focus on how the GLC’s abolition would undermine the council’s valuable services to the capital.25 However, the agency persuaded them that there was another, more effective way of mobilising public support. BMP focus groups revealed that most people did not know about the government’s plans to cancel the GLC elections and install a Tory regime at County Hall, but that those who did tended to strongly disapprove, regardless of which party they supported. This suggested, the agency argued, that the advertising campaign should draw attention to the government’s plans to cancel the GLC elections with the slogan, ‘Say No to No Say’, with the implied message that the council’s abolition would permanently remove the people’s ‘say’.26 This was a masterstroke. To have focused on the loss of GLC services to the community – as GLC councillors proposed – would probably have renewed controversy about council policies, and elicited a polarised response. The merit of the BMP strategy was that it shifted attention away from the tabloid agenda of left-wing excess to local democracy. It communicated a message to which people were already predisposed to agree: people should have the right to vote. It was directed at people who did not know that the government was intent on cancelling the GLC elections, and sought to persuade through an 64

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increase of knowledge. And it invited a bipartisan response, enabling Conservative- and Alliance-supporting Londoners to side with the GLC without modifying their views. By thus seeking to convince through an appeal to what people were already predisposed to accept, through a shift of agenda, directed towards people with limited information, it was conforming in an almost textbook way to what communications research suggests would be effective. The campaign began in March 1984, and initially focused on the cancelling of elections. This first phase was typified by a large poster of Ken Livingstone, with the headline ‘If You Want Me Out You Should Have the Right to Vote Me Out’. It proved to be highly effective. Between January and April 1984, there was a sharp increase of unprompted awareness of the government’s plans for the GLC; a significant reduction in the number of people who were undecided on the issue; and a rise of 12 percentage points in the proportion of Londoners who opposed the GLC’s abolition.27 However, the campaign merely strengthened opposition to abolition rather than created it (see Table 3.1) Table 3.1 Londoners’ Attitudes Towards GLC Abolition % Approve b

Oct 1983 January 1984 c March 1984 b April 1984 b May 1984 b July 1984 b September 1984 a September 1984 a March 1985 b

% Disapprove

23 19 23 18 17 18 17 17 22

54 50 54 62 64 66 62 74 62

% Don’t Know 23 30 23 20 18 16 20 10 16

Data is from market research companies: aHarris Research Centre; bMORI; cAudience Selection.

The second phase of the GLC’s advertising campaign depicted the alternative to the GLC as more central government control, with the implication that it would be more bureaucratic and expensive, and less responsive to the needs of Londoners. It featured images like a 65

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bowler-hatted snail, a bowler-topped brick-wall, and poster boards bound with red tape, with the slogan ‘Imagine What London Would be Like Run by Whitehall’. Its centralisation message failed to convince the majority: in September 1984, only 40 per cent thought that abolition would result in the GLC’s functions coming under central government control.28 However, it may have weakened the government’s countermessage that the abolition of the GLC would promote better, more localised democracy. The third phase of the campaign dramatised its success. It was summed up in the poster slogan ‘74 per cent say No’. This was a reference to what was almost certainly a rogue result that was out of kilter with other polls (which indicated that around two-thirds rather than three-quarters of Londoners disapproved of the GLC’s abolition). Its purpose was not to shift opinion, but to strengthen opposition to abolition in Parliament.

Consolidation of Support When the Livingstone administration turned to an advertising agency, celebrated for its promotion of Smash Instant Mashed Potato (Cadbury Schweppes) and John Smith’s Yorkshire Bitter (Courage), to mount a political advertising campaign against the government, it was breaking new ground. The GLC also innovated through funding and choreographing public events in order to promote its identity politics. It turned to professional impressarios – with experience in organising rock festivals and concerts, but in some cases drawing inspiration from royal jubilee celebrations and other royal pageants29 – to stage major public events for Londoners. These were dismissed by critics as concealed bribes – the equivalent of Roman ‘bread and circuses’ – designed to win approval for the GLC at public expense. In fact, they operated at a more sophisticated level than these critics grasped: they were more than just free entertainments. The GLC used festivals as a way of of promoting its political campaigns (Fares Fair in 1982, Peace Year 1983, London Against Racism 1984, Jobs Year 1985 and Farewell celebrations 1986). The council also mounted other events such as the family-oriented Thames Day Festival and London Horseshow, emphasising that the council was for everyone. A typical GLC festival took the form of an extended pop concert accompanied by political side-shows, street theatre and stalls of all 66

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kinds. They usually conveyed a political message through visual means. For example, the Jobs Festival had a maze in which doors displaying government policies led nowhere, while those featuring GLC policies provided the way out. However, the unifying meaning of all these major public events – and their prime significance in terms of the anti-abolition campaign – was that they affirmed a communal London identity. They were occasions of festivity when normal conventions of separateness and reserve were set aside in favour of a liminal sense of togetherness. They also expressed a sense of community in ways that celebrated the cultural diversity of the capital – through the eclecticism of the music (from advanced rock to black gospel, jazz to classical), through the different cuisines (from Chinese to Caribbean) on offer, and above all through the mass participation of people (several hundred thousand in some cases) drawn from different parts of London and from different ethnic groups. They were thus ‘social rituals’ that fostered a plural, multiethnic, multicultural understanding of what it was to be a Londoner, involving large numbers of people removed from the formal world of politics.30 Their implicit message was of course that the GLC was the institutional embodiment of London. However when the government attempted to play the local card against the GLC, County Hall moved swiftly to supplement these major events with smaller ones in local boroughs. GLC organisers fanned out from County Hall, offering financial backing and practical help to any local group willing to mount a public event that explicitly opposed the abolition of the GLC. Their reports back to County Hall read like those of nineteenth-century Christian missionaries: full of hope, frustration, under-rewarded energy and (one suspects) overstated success. However, the scale of their activity, when it was in full swing, can be gauged by what happened in March 1985: County Hall’s ‘link team’ organised or intervened in thirty four local meetings, events and festivals (as well as nine general, London-wide events).31 The GLC also broke new ground by becoming a major sponsor of the voluntary sector. Its funding of self-organised groups rose from around £6 million in 1980 to over £50 million in 1984.32 By the time the GLC was closed down, it was funding over 2,000 organisations. These included not only feminist, ethnic minority, gay and left-wing organisations – that generated so much tabloid hostitlity – but a much larger number of ‘mainstream’ organisations such as myriad local community 67

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associations, cre`ches, playgroups, nurseries, law centres, training centres, groups for the handicapped and disabled, pensioners’ groups, tenants’ groups, sports and recreational associations, organisations linked to the churches.33 Their ‘mainstream’ character is further underlined by the correspondence that took place between between GLCfunded organisations and County Hall in 1983–4. Numerous organisations refused to submit a formal objection to the GLC’s closure, as part of the government’s consultation exercise, on the grounds that they did not want to get involved in politics. Yet, many funded organisations were drawn into the GLC’s orbit and supplied helpers to organise local borough and other events. Though this was not the initial intention (since the GLC’s grants policy was pushed in particular by its anti-statist councillors and advisers), the council developed what amounted to a quasi-clientelist system of patronage. It was effective precisely because it extended beyond the left to take in a large swathe of the voluntary sector, and benefitted public spirited activists who were often significant sources of personal influence. The Livingstone administration also found other ways of expressing the political message that it had wanted to make initially the main theme of its advertising campaign. The range of services provided by the GLC for the community was advertised by ‘branding’ all buildings and vehicles with the GLC logo. Voluntary groups were asked to display ‘GLC-funded’ declarations as prominently as possible. Above all, the GLC’s press office sought to promote two key themes in its dealings with broadcasters: that the GLC offered important services to the community, and these were threatened by the GLC’s closure. This public relations strategy met with growing success partly because the more the GLC was in the news – vilified by the tabloids, championed in parliament – the easier it became to secure broadcasting coverage of routine GLC activities. This is borne out by media coverage of the GLC in a single week, 1–7 June 1985, during the height of the GLC battle.34 Although the GLC was still the target of tabloid attack (with six out of ten tabloid stories focusing negatively the GLC’s left-wing excess), the council was reported very differently by broadcasting. Eleven out of sixteen items on radio, and five out of seven on television, were about GLC services to the community, some with a subsidary theme that these services were threatened by the GLC’s closure. To a sceptical eye, some of these stories seem to bear the imprint of County Hall’s publicity department: for 68

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example, a ‘visual’ story about the GLC re-introducing owls into London as part of its policy of restocking the capital’s wildlife, or a report of the council’s visionary plan (in a context when the council was due to close in nine months time) to establish seaside homes for the elderly. Only one ‘loony’ story reported in the tabloids –about a plan said to be under consideration by the council for the twinning of London with Managua – was covered on broadcasting (BBC TV’s London Plus). The effectiveness of these different forms of communication – political advertising, music-based public events, sponsorship of the voluntary sector, and skilful public relations – contrasted with the poor results of more traditional methods of radical campaigning. The GLC organised a ‘Democracy Day’ of demonstrations, stoppages and meetings, which mobilised only a radical minority and generated predictably unfavourable media coverage. It attempted to stage a mini-referendum by causing a number of by-elections to occur at the same time. However, these were boycotted by the Conservative Party, were widely viewed as a meaningless stunt, and resulted in a ‘GLC’ victory on a low poll. The council also distributed a regular free publication, The Londoner, which was negatively perceived as too political.35 In addition, the GLC organised a mass pettition, which, according to one opinion poll, 36 per cent of Londoners were asked to sign.36 This last at least provided an opportunity for GLC activists to put the anti-abolition case to Londoners on a one-to-one basis, even if it had very little wider impact.

Government’s Failure The government was taken by surprise by the GLC offensive. Six months after publication of its White Paper, the government had the backing of only about one in five Londoners in wanting to close down the GLC. Nothing that the government attempted subsequently succeeded in reclaiming significant lost ground. Why, then, did the government fail so abysmally? The government’s justification for closing down the GLC was not as weak as it was widely thought to be at the time. In essence, the government argued that the GLC did not do very much, cost a lot for what it did, and its functions could be transferred in ways that made for better and cheaper local administration. The government had a point. London borough councils were responsible for social services and housing, while the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) managed 69

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education. The GLC was relieved of its main responsibility, control of London Transport, in 1984. Indeed the GLC was responsible, according to the government, for only 16 per cent of total expenditure on local services in London in 1983,37 and ‘less than 11 per cent of services’ in the capital by 1985.38 It small range of responsibilities did not seem to justify its large staff and overheads. Local government in London could be simplified, in the official view, by being concentrated in borough councils and their representatives. It would be wrong to dismiss this argument as merely a rationalisation of political sectarianism. A very similar case had been advanced in 1979 by an able, young councillor who declared: ‘I feel a great deal of regret that Marshall [1978 Inquiry] did not . . . say ‘‘Abolish the GLC’’ because I think that it would be a major saving and would have released massive resources for productive use’.39 He continued, ‘I do not believe you need two tiers of local government’.40 The young councillor’s name was Ken Livingstone. However, all the key elements of the government’s argument were rejected. Londoners were unconvinced, as we have seen, that the GLC was ‘unnecessary’. They were not persuaded that its closure would make for better local administration. In April 1984, 62 per cent said that services would get worse after abolition, while only 9 per cent thought they would improve.41 Similarly, 55 per cent thought that abolition would make for less efficiency, compared with 14 per cent who thought that it would result in more.42 Indeed, the government did not even communicate effectively its most basic argument – that GLC services would be transferred rather than abolished. In 1985, the most cited reason given for opposing abolition in a open-ended question – given by 34 per cent – was that London would lose GLC services.43 One reason why the government did not get its message across was that it was very seldom heard. The tabloid press judged the government’s case against the GLC to be boring. Tabloid disdain was typified by the Daily Mail which commissioned the Environment Minister, Patrick Jenkin, to write an article setting out the government’s case for closing down the GLC, only to refuse to publish the article on the grounds that it was too dull to print. The controllers of the tabloid press knew that their national readership had a limited appetite for the details of local government reform in London, and were convinced that their own populist campaign was more persuasive and also more entertaining. Consequently, they mounted their 70

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own independent prosecution of the GLC, and largely ignored the government’s managerial case. The government’s case was also hijacked by the tabloids, with one notable exception,44 in numerous television current affairs programmes about the GLC’s abolition. These tended to foreground the GLC’s argument that its planned abolition was an onslaught on local democracy. This argument was balanced by the tabloid claim that the GLC was too dangerous and damaging to be allowed to continue. Within this framework, the government’s case tended to be squeezed out or marginalised.45 This framing of the abolition debate is typified by London Weekend Television’s The GLC Abolition (4 November 1983). The presenter, Gavin Weightman, introduced the programme by saying: ‘Ken Livingstone’s GLC is perceived by Conservatives as a high-spending Marxist council, making free with ratepayers’ money to support strange causes like the IRA and lesbians . . .’. The central thrust of the programme focused on the way in which critics claimed that the council’s closure would weaken local democracy and promote centralisation. It was encapsulated by the closing words of the presenter: ‘The view that the long arm of Whitehall will be reaching into every recess of local government is gaining ground . . . It seems likely that many more people will raise the cry that the passing of the GLC has heralded the arrival of a Ministry for London’. Within this framework, the government’s case was presented briefly, without supporting evidence. For example, its key demystifying argument that the GLC did very little for Londoners, since most services were administered locally, surfaced only in an oblique, tightly edited sentence from Mrs Thatcher: ‘I do not consider that the GLC is effective in any way’. It required detailed knowledge not made available in the programme to understand what she was saying – and her elliptical claim was tacitly undermined by the framework of the programme. The marginalisation of the government’s case in these programmes arose partly from the government’s failure to win support in the wider political environment. This failure was mediated through news sources. Most of the people that television journalists talked to, and used, said that the government was closing down the GLC because of its politics, and argued that this posed a threat to local democracy. They included rebel Conservative MPs and peers (including a former Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Environment Minister), opposition politicians, cross-bench peers, Conservative GLC councillors, representatives of 71

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numerous London groups (of which the arts lobby was most vocal), and ‘experts’ (notably local government academics and quality paper journalists). By contrast, very few sources were available to back up the government’s claim that closure of the GLC would improve local government, and these were mostly low status: loyal backbench Conservative MPs, London Conservative borough council leaders, and the Thatcherite Institute of Directors (but not the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) which tacitly withdrew from the anti-GLC campaign, nor the London Chamber of Commerce which backed the GLC). This still does not explain why the government – a major accredited source – got such short shrift in these programmes. A further explanation is that the local democracy versus left-wing extremism framework for understanding the GLC abolition debate made for ‘good television’ in terms of widely shared criteria. It had drama, unlike complex discussion of local government service delivery. It made for clarity since the two opposing arguments dovetailed together. And it signified what the debate was really about, to judge from what numerous sources were telling television journalists (who lacked expert knowlwedge of the issues involved). In short, the Thatcher government found itself in a bizarre position. Supported by a strongly Conservative press, with access to a broadcasting system required to report controversy with due impartiality, it could not get its case adequately aired. Indeed, its problem developed into something far greater than just under-exposure. To reiterate, the government’s rationale for closing down the GLC was undermined by Conservative press allies in three important ways. It was made to look spurious: pretending one thing when the Conservative press was expressing the real – and sectarian – reason for shutting up ‘Red Ken’. The government’s argument that the GLC was a lightweight, almost functionless authority was implicitly contradicted by the tabloids representation of County Hall as the powerful, menacing Politburo-onthe-Thames. The tabloids’ symbolic inflation of County Hall also made it easier for the GLC to secure extensive, countervailing coverage from radio and television.

Losing Elite Debate The one part of the media which extensively reported the government’s case was the prestige press. Yet, the government failed to win over 72

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prestige press journalists, its readers and the wider political class. This suggests that the government’s problem went deeper than just being ignored. At the heart of the government’s failure to win elite support was its decision to dispense with the time honoured way of accumulating information, and building an informed consensus for change – setting up a committee of enquiry or Royal Commission. This was viewed as being part of the corporatist politics of the past, with its shabby compromises, from which the Thatcher government was seeking to break free. However, its style of executive decision-making meant that it moved against the GLC (and also metropolitan county authorities) without first winning the support of the knowledgeable public, and without having a fully developed brief. Its lack of adequate preparation weakened the authority of its case among an informed public. Thus, a key official justification for closing down the GLC was that it would reduce costs. The government was forced – when challenged – to withdraw publicly its estimate of the saving that would be achieved. This had been supplied reluctantly by a senior civil servant as a ‘ballpark figure’ to a previous Environment Minister, Tom King,46 and could not withstand informed, critical scrutiny. The final humiliation was to have the cost-cutting rationale of the government’s White Paper expertly quantified and demolished by leading city consultants, Coopers and Lybrand, in a report commissioned by the GLC. Similarly, the government failed to fully work out ahead of time where the different GLC functions would be transferred. The resulting confusion weakened its claim that the GLC was unnecessary, something that GLC publicists exploited with great effectiveness. The government also had an underlying communication problem that stemmed from the ambiguities of its argument. It stressed a costefficiency rationale, especially when Patrick Jenkin was Environment Minister, in order to avoid the charge that it was seeking to suppress a political opponent in an autocratic way. But in fact part of its objection to the cost of the GLC was the cost of the Livingstone administration, its policies and perceived ‘profligacy’. The managerialism of its argument was always intertwined with a political one – something that it was reluctant to acknowledge. The drive to simplify its case for public consumption also led to implicit contradictions. A plan justified as a way of ‘streamlining’ 73

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London local government actually proposed a greater fragmentation of its functions. A reform ostensibly introduced to foster the ‘local’ in local government was accompanied by the introduction of rate capping that imposed much tighter control from the centre. These contradictions were unsparingly exposed in public debate. There was also a principled objection to the government’s proposal that loomed large in expert discussion. The government justified its closure of the GLC partly on the grounds that confidence in the ‘fashion’ for strategic planning was misplaced.47 Local government academics, in particular, stressed the continuing need for strategic planning as the key to responding adequately to the capital’s deepening transport crisis, and argued more generally that a conurbation as large and complex as London needed a central co-ordinating agency to manage its affairs. Yet, all these vulnerabilities, ambiguities and tensions in the government’s case would not have mattered if they had not been exposed to such relentless public attack by County Hall, and its supporters, with a wealth of information and knowledge at their command. It was this, above all, that made the government’s position seem questionable.

Defections and Conversions After being badly wrong-footed, the government attempted belatedly to mount a counter-attack. In January 1984 the Chief Press Secretary, Sir Bernard Ingham, set up a central co-ordinating committee to better organise the government’s publicity effort against the GLC. This was followed in April 1984 by the launch of Efficiency in London, an antiGLC campaign group led by local borough Conservative politicians. In September 1984 Kenneth Baker, a more feline and populist politician than Patrick Jenkin, was drafted in as Local Government Minister. The following year Baker replaced Jenkin as Environment Secretary. Yet, nothing the government did seemed able to turn the tide. Even the press assault against the GLC partly faltered in the heat of battle. The Mirror group of newspapers backed the GLC in 1984, reversing the stand taken earlier by the Sunday Mirror in favour of abolition. The London Standard also reversed in effect its position by supporting the creation of a directly elected London council. The Mail on Sunday and Daily Express broke ranks and opposed the cancelling of the GLC elections. More ominous still, the prestige press came off the fence. Five out of seven quality papers either supported the GLC or the need 74

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for a directly elected London authority. Among the dailies, only the Sun and Daily Mail maintained their jihad with undiminished vigour until the very end, although they had back-up support from other tabloids. This partial shift was mainly in response to the evident success and popularity of the anti-abolition campaign. However, County Hall made this shift easier by consciously softening its radical image. By 1984, civil servants were weeding out grant applicants that might afford easy targets for press attacks, sometimes recommending informally that the organisations concerned might consider changing their names in order to improve their chances of securing a GLC grant. In 1981, Livingstone had boycotted the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer out of republican principle: three years later, he invited the Queen to open the Thames Barrier, spoke warmly of her ‘real sense of service to the people’, and claimed that she was on the GLC’s side. His press officer, Nita Clarke, arranged for Ken Livingstone’s royalist mother to meet the Queen, and set up heartwarming media interviews afterwards. When Livingstone opposed resistance to rate capping in 1985, the ever resourceful Nita Clarke used this to portray Livingstone to journalists as a member of the ‘cuddly left’.48 Livingstone’s pragmatic radicalism elicited a rueful compliment from the Deputy Prime Minister, William Whitelaw. ‘There is no doubt’, he commented, ‘that Red Ken who, for years I thought was an invention of Conservative Central Office, has, in fact, really won practically every trick so far in the game’.49 One consequence of the GLC’s flexibility was that it won growing approval for its politics. Two surveys conducted by the Harris Research Centre in 1983 and 1985 register a remarkable increase in the level of public support for what the GLC was doing, although part of this increase was probably a consequence of the way in which survey questions were rephrased.50 By 1985, the majority of Londoners backed all the council’s major policies, with the exception of its anti-racism policies about which it had reservations and its pro-gay policies which it still opposed. The majority also supported an activist interpretation of the role of the local state, going beyond the delivery of core services to include things like job creation, protecting the environment, holding the police to account, and promoting equal opportunities. What seems to have happened is that the GLC benefited from a ‘halo effect’. First, Londoners rallied to its cause, then they reassessed more favourably what the council was doing. This helped to cement an alliance of the socially radical middle class and the economically radical 75

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working class that underpinned the resurgent GLC.51 A new kind of politics was being brought into being built, seemingly sustained by the forging of a new social coalition.

Government under Pressure The unpopularity of the plan to abolish the GLC, and its lack of support among the informed public, led to a political revolt in Parliament. The GLC did everything it could to fan the embers of this revolt. It hired a professional lobbying firm with strong Conservative connections. It mobilised social and professional networks, and its contacts within the Labour movement, to exert influence on parliamentarians. It also sought to ‘cash in’ on its popular support, reassuring party rebels that they were representing the people. These different tactics yielded dividends. The centre-left closed ranks behind the GLC, despite the fact that the Social Democrats had been in favour of abolishing the GLC in 1983 and the leadership of all three centre-left parties had been strongly critical of the Livingstone administration. By contrast, cracks opened up in Conservative ranks, and then widened. The government’s first reverse was over its 1984 ‘Paving Bill’ to replace the GLC and ‘Mets’ with interim joint boards. A rebellion in the Commons, backed by senior Conservatives, was followed by a still larger revolt in the Lords, where a wrecking amendment was passed by an anti-government majority of forty-eight votes. The government bowed to pressure by reprieving the GLC and Mets for a further year. The government was forced to make a further tactical retreat in 1984–5. Finding itself fighting on too many fronts, it dropped its proposal to close down the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) along with the GLC. It proposed instead to retain ILEA as a directly elected education authority, with the right to close it down by administrative order any time it wanted after a period of five years. The government’s reserve power enabling it to terminate ILEA was removed in a Lords revolt on 15 May 1985.52 The final showdown was over a rebel amendment to the Local Government Bill (abolishing the GLC). The amendment specified that the GLC should be replaced by a directly elected London authority – immediately dubbed the ‘son of Frankenstein’ by government supporters. The amendment was defeated in the Commons by only twentythree votes on 14 December 1984 with over a hundred Tory MPs voting 76

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against their government or abstaining. This was followed by a fraught debate in the Lords where a similar amendment was defeated by only four votes on 30 April 1985. The government, with large majorities in both Houses of Parliament, only just scraped through.

Legacy of the GLC The most enduring legacy of the GLC abolition campaign was that it cemented a consensus in favour of an elected London council. In 1991, a MORI poll reported that 64 per cent approved of an elected authority for London53 – a figure very close to the 62 per cent that disapproved of the abolition of GLC in its last week in 1986.54 The Labour Party announced in 1991 its intention to resurrect the GLC in a new form. This led to the 1998 London Referendum in which the Labour government, elected in 1997, recommended the establishment of a directly elected London council and mayor – a proposal carried by 72 per cent of the popular vote. The GLC was reborn as the Greater London Authority in 2000. At the time, it looked as if the GLC battle would have other important consequences. It made the erosion of local democracy a major political issue, and brought into a being a new political alliance opposed to increased centralisation. This coalition was formidable because it drew support from across the political spectrum: from councillors in all parties alarmed by the extension of central government control; from critics of ‘new right’ authoritarianism, among the libertarian right as well as left; and above all from a constitutionalist tradition that viewed local democracy as a bedrock against elective dictatorship and Whitehall control. This tradition was actually more strongly embedded within the Conservative Party than in the Labour Party which had tended to defend centralisation as a way of securing uniformly high standards of public provision across the country. Indeed, it was Conservative critics like Sir Geoffrey Rippon – a former Environment Minister who called in 1984 for the introduction of constitutional curbs against excessive state centralisation55 – that were, in some ways, the most doughty defenders of local autonomy as a core principle during the GLC battle. It also seemed as if the GLC saga might influence the development of radical politics. The GLC was extolled in Labour and left-wing publications as a symbol of a radical ‘new politics’, more concerned with ethnicity, gender, and sexuality than class; committed to popular participation rather than state control; connected to new social currents 77

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outside Labour’s contracting heartland of support.56 This new strand of radicalism was still viewed with suspicion by many on the traditional left as well as Labour right. But its standing had been enhanced by the GLC’s success, and in particular by the perception that the council had been both left-wing and popular, at a time when ‘Labourism’ seemed to be in terminal decline. In the mid-1980s, even London itself seemed to have been radicalised. During the post-war period, it had usually been a reliable barometer of the political weather in the country. For example, in the June 1983 general election the Conservative lead over Labour in London was only 2 percentage points less than in the country as a whole. This relationship changed during the GLC battle when Labour ratings soared in the capital. Between June 1984 and March 1986, Labour’s lead over the Conservatives ranged between 13 and 22 percentage points more in London than in the country.57 Some believed that London – a city with a radical past extending back to the eighteenth century – was returning to the left-wing fold. In the event, all these developments – apart from the recreation of the GLC – were shortlived. The new urban left were subsequently defeated and discredited. London soon ceased to be a cradle of radical politics. And, perhaps most important of all, the cross-party alliance brought into being to oppose increased central government control fragmented. Indeed, the independence of local government became a tarnished cause that senior politicians of all parties became increasingly reluctant to champion. How all this happened is explored further in the chapters that follow.

Notes 1. Market and Opinion Poll Research Centre (MORI), Attitudes of Londoners to the Abolition of the GLC (London: MORI, October 1983). 2. See Table 3.1 on p. 65. 3. B. Worcester and L. Gilbert, MORI, ‘Voters in Greater London’, Confidential Memorandum to the Labour Party (14), 26 May 1983. 4. Harris Research Centre (HRC), Survey of Public Opinion in London (Richmond: HRC, June 1983). 5. This analysis is derived from articles archived each day by the GLC Public Relations Department, and ‘Telex Monitors Radio and TV Log’ undertaken for the GLC by Radio and Television News Service for Record and Research (RTNS), London. The latter data set provides only a brief note about each programme

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

item, making coding difficult, and, to judge from our own research, omitted some programme items. But despite these deficiencies, it provides a valuable insight into the GLC’s relative broadcasting success. HRC, Survey of Public Opinion (1983). Interview with the late Veronica Crichton, formerly press officer to the Majority Party, County Hall, by the author (JC). However, the available broadcasting logs relate only to the last phase of the Cutler administration. Interview by the author (JC). Interview by the author (JC). The difference between economic and social radicals during this period is a central theme of R. Waller, Moulding Political Opinion (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1988). It was a long-term problem of the left which the International Publishing Group grappled with unsuccessfully when they tried to launch the pre-Murdoch Sun in the 1960s. (See J. Curran and J. Seaton, Power Without Responsibility, 6th edn (London: Routledge, 2003).) Cited in J. Carvel, Citizen Ken (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984), pp. 132–3. The Hon. Sir Robert Carnwath, ‘The reasonable limits of local authority powers’, Public Law, Summer 1996. Audience Selection, August 1981. Opponents of rate-funded transport fare reductions had shrunk to 43 per cent by 1983, but still outnumbered those in favour (25 per cent), according to MORI, April 1983. The surge in support for cheap fares thus took place later but was preceded by a significant reappraisal in 1981–3. Harris Research Centre (HRC), London Attitude Survey (Richmond: HRC, 1985). Interview with Bill Bush, formerly head of the Leader’s Office, County Hall, by the author (JC). Interview by the author (JC). Tony Wilson emphasised that this was an approximate estimate that took account of all forms of promotion, broadly defined. MORI, Attitudes of Londoners to the Abolition of the GLC (London: MORI, April 1984). HRC, London Attitude Survey (1985). Ivor Crewe, ‘Has the electorate become Thatcherite?’, in R. Skidelsky (ed.), Thatcherism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1988). Cited in Anthony King, ‘Rumours of a revolt in a land that’s not so free’, The Guardian, 8 November 1985. Department of the Environment, Streamlining the Cities (London: HMSO, Cmnd 9063, 1983). Cited in MORI, Attitudes of Londoners April (1984), p. 6. Cited in A. Forrester, S. Lansley and R. Pauley, Beyond Our Ken (London: Fourth Estate, 1985), p. 67. Interview with Tony Wilson, former Director of Publicity, GLC, by the author (JC). Interview with Chris Powell, Senior Partner of Boase, Massim and Pollitt, by the author (JC).

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Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 27. MORI, Attitudes of Londoners (April 1984). 28. MORI, Attitudes of Londoners to the Abolition of the GLC (London: MORI, September 1984). 29. Interview with Ken Hume, former GLC Festival organiser, by the author (JC). 30. This draws on the interview with Ken Hume, and Franco Bianchini, ‘Cultural Policy and Political Strategy’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester 1995. 31. GLC Events Diary (34), Campaign Link Team, 25 February 1985 (summarising the following month’s events). 32. B. Pimlott and N. Rao, Governing London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 35. 33. Computer printout of all organisations funded by the GLC on 28 February 1986, supplied to the author (JC). 34. Same sources as cited in note 5 above. 35. HRC, Survey of Public Opinion (1983). 36. MORI, Attitudes of Londoners to the Abolition of the GLC (London: MORI, June 1984). 37. Department of the Environment, Streamlining (1983), p. 4. 38. Kenneth Baker, Reporting London, Thames Television, 26 February 1985. 39. Cited in Forrester, Lansley and Pauley, Beyond Our Ken (1985), p. 43. 40. Cited in ibid., p. 103. 41. MORI, Attitudes of Londoners, April 1984. 42. Ibid. 43. HRC, London Attiude Survey (1985). 44. Reporting London, 26 February 1985. 45. The GLC Abolition (The London Programme), London Weekend Television, 4 November 1983; The House of Lords and the GLC (The London Programme), London Weekend Television, 26 April 1985; A Week in Politics, Channel 4, 13 April 1984; A Week in Politics, Channel 4, 21 March 1986. The left-wing extremism versus local democracy framework was modified in the final stage of the GLC’s life, most notably in news reports on both BBC1 and ITV, to left-wing extremism versus the council’s struggle to preserve services after its closure. This latter signification of the GLC issue did not have the rhetorical weighting of the previous framework, and showed what a trump card the GLC’s capture of the local democracy argument had been. 46. Interview with former Environment Secretary, Lord Jenkin (Patrick Jenkin), by the author (JC). 47. Department of the Environment, Streamlining (1983), p. 2. 48. Interview with Nita Clarke, former press officer of the GLC Labour Group by the author (JC). 49. Interviewed on Reporting London, Thames Television, 25 October 1984. 50. The wording of the lead-in to a key set of questions in the 1985 Harris survey (London Attitude Survey) encouraged a positive response (‘I am going to read out some specific propositions which some people think might improve things in London. Could you tell me how strongly you approve or disapprove of each bearing in mind that any money necessary would have to come from rates and

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51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

taxes.’) There was no equivalent of this lead-in in the 1983 Harris survey, Survey of Public Opinion in London. Waller, Moulding Public Opinion (1988). ILEA was eventually closed down in 1990. MORI London poll (June) reported in the Sunday Times, 27 July 1991. Harris Research Centre, Final Day Poll (Richmond: HRC, March 1996). Interviewed in A Week in Politics, Channel 4, 13 April 1984. ‘Goodbye GLC’, New Socialist, 37, April 1986; Beatrice Campbell and Martin Jacques, ‘Goodbye to the GLC’, Marxism Today, April 1986; ‘The big yin versus carry on up the Khyber’, Tribune, 11 April 1986. Waller, Moulding Public Opinion (1988), Table 12.4, p. 86.

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Chapter 4 1

Hit and Myth

A

ttempts by British newspapers to demonise sections of the Left are as old as the Left itself. Long before Mrs Thatcher so egregiously labelled the striking miners of 1984–5 as the ‘enemy within’, the majority of Britain’s press had perfected a way of representing the ideas and personalities associated with socialism as so deranged and psychotic that they represented a danger to society. Thus placed outside the parameters of what most papers and, of course, politicians were prepared to accept as ‘proper’ political debate, they were rendered effectively illegitimate, and fair game for what can only be considered as sustained editorial hate campaigns. Thus within weeks of Labour winning control of the Greater London Council on 7 May 1981, its leader, Ken Livingstone, was regularly being described by newspapers as ‘barmy’ and ‘loony’ and GLC policies were being stigmatised as ‘crazy’. This line of attack was gradually extended to include various Labour-controlled local councils in London; for example, Islington earned the sobriquet ‘Bananas republic’ (Sunday People, 13 March 1983) and was featured as ‘The mad mad mad mad world of Islington’ (Mail on Sunday, 13 February 1983). But this kind of rhetoric did not really gain momentum and crystallise around the alliterative phrase ‘loony left’ until after the Tories’ vindictive abolition of the GLC in 1984. Significant moments in what was, in effect, a prolongation and intensification of the campaign against Ken Livingstone and the GLC were the London local council elections of May 1986, the Greenwich by-election of February 1987, in which Rosie Barnes won Greenwich for the Alliance from Labour, and, of course, the run-up to 85

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the general election later that year. After that the torrent of stories gradually slowed, though the phrase has since become firmly embedded in press (and by no means simply tabloid) parlance and still surfaces on occasion. Its decline from the heady days of 1986–7 can at least partly be explained by changes in Labour policy and image after its 1987 defeat (changes not unconnected, of course, with the party’s desire to lose the ‘loony left’ tag), though the stories may also simply have lost their novelty value, or run up against the limits of journalists’ powers of fabrication and embroidery. ’Loony left’ stories in the press have two prominent themes: Labour councils are irrationally obsessed with minority and fringe issues, and are paranoid about racial and sexual ‘problems’ which do not actually exist outside their own fevered imaginings. This characterisation enables their policies, and especially their anti-racist and equal opportunities ones, to be dismissed as ‘loony’, it strips councillors of their legitimacy as elected representatives by reducing them to the status of unrepresentative freaks and, by thus denying their democratic status, it facilitates their portrayal as authoritarian ideologues attempting to impose their crazed views on the public. Significantly, many of the ‘loony left’ stories are about children – that section of society least able to defend itself from indoctrination and most vulnerable to unscrupulous manipulation. This demonisation of Labour councils contained a powerful, though initially implicit, call for retribution: the government should ‘do something’ – curb their spending, curtail their antics, or transfer their powers to more responsible and rational bodies. Both implicitly and explicitly, singly and together, these various stories represented calls for the clipping of the powers of local government, and thus largely echoed Tory policy at the time. Thus, for example, and as described in the following chapters, the controversies over Maureen McGoldrick in Brent and over so-called ‘positive images’ of gay men and lesbian women in Haringey were exploited as evidence that local education authorities had far too much power over what went on in individual schools, and were utilised to back up the argument that those powers should be largely redistributed among a combination of parents, school governors and, of course, central government. In this chapter, however, we are concerned not with these ‘grand narratives’ but with a number of smaller stories published in 1986–7. These are typical of a vast number of similar stories published in the press during the period in question; we have simply chosen some of the more 86

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prominent. We investigated each of these stories in detail, examining the background to the reports, talking to the sources quoted in them and, wherever possible, to the journalists concerned. It has to be admitted, however, that as far as this last task was concerned, we were not markedly successful. Often stories were not by-lined, and nobody wished to take responsibility for them – hardly surprising, perhaps, since so many were straight ‘lifts’ from other papers. But even when we did manage to track down the authors of stories, they usually refused to answer our questions. Thus while in their ‘loony left’ stories (and indeed elsewhere too) journalists endlessly harped on about the importance of democracy, openness, accountability and so on in local government, they seemed utterly unwilling or unable, when challenged, to subscribe to these values in their own profession. The most frequent excuse we encountered was: ‘I’m not allowed to discuss stories’ or: ‘I’d like to talk to you but . . .’. Haringey, and especially its leader Bernie Grant, were favourite targets of the press, as we shall see in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6, and they feature prominently in several of our selected stories. The first of these concerns an allegedly ‘racist’ bin liner. Under the headline ‘The racist bin liner is blacked’, Chester Stern claimed in the Mail on Sunday (2 March 1986) that ‘black bin liners have been banned at Bernie Grant’s left-wing Haringey Council because they are ‘‘racially offensive’’ ’. This was supported by a statement from an anonymous ‘storeman at the North London council’s central depot’ and by a quote from a councillor who said ‘there was no written ban on the use of black sacks’ – but added that the council had ‘a strong anti-racist policy’. Stern ended his piece thus: ‘the council has now changed over to grey sacks – to avoid offending West Indian workers in the cleaning department’. The report, notwithstanding the citation of a source, albeit an anonymous one, is quite without substance. In short, the council had not decided to ban black bin liners. Indeed, days after the article appeared, and as a council minute confirms, the Civic Services Committee had accepted a tender from a local supplier of black liners, since these were the cheapest on offer. Of course, Stern could not have known about this decision, since it was taken after he wrote the report, and he did in fact discuss the story with us, accepting that he was in error to claim that the banning of black bin liners was Haringey policy; however, he added that his story was ‘not wholly false’. It was based, he said, on a one-off incident when a storeman at the council’s central depot in Hornsey High Street refused to accept an order for bin liners from two parks 87

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department staff because the order contained the word ‘black’. The storeman claimed the black bin liner ‘ban’ was council policy. The park staff complained to their local (Labour) councillor, Brian Bullard, who recounted the incident at a subsequent council meeting. When we spoke to Brian Bullard he stated that the story had come to him from a park attendant, who had been informed by another staff member of the remark allegedly made by the storeman. Bullard’s own retrospective opinion was that the story had originated in a joke which had been misunderstood, and that the whole affair was without foundation. The story about the storeman was originally relayed to Stern by a local freelance journalist, and he accepted this testimony as sufficient evidence for the existence of a ban. The council were not contacted for verification. The Mail on Sunday claimed that this was because the story was supplied to them on a Saturday when there are no council spokespeople available for comment. In turn, the council denied this and said that its spokespeople could be contacted on a Saturday via the council switchboard. The bin liners story did not excite much concern in the other tabloids. Only Today (5 March 1986) expressed some interest, including ‘the ban on black bin liners in favour of less radical grey’ among a list of other ‘lunacies’ committed that week by Labour councillors, a story unified by the headline ‘Equal madness’. The story also featured in the letters column of the local Haringey Advertiser. Under the headline ‘Sacks change is an insult to grey’ (6 March 1986) the correspondent claimed with galumphing sarcasm that ‘grey is a common and recognised euphemism for the older members of our community . . . The reference to the elderly so callously linked with disposal of intimate remains brings painful intimations of mortality to our more yeared brethren’. Three weeks later the Advertiser’s letters column ran a denial of the whole story by the borough’s chief executive, under the headline ‘We’re not changing our sacks’ (27 March 1986). On 9 March 1986 the Mail on Sunday published a small and misleading update on the bin liners story. Under the headline ‘Race peace in the bag’, we learn that ‘black dustbin liners at the centre of a council race storm are not to be banned after all’. Thus what had previously been erroneously presented as fact was now, rather conveniently, represented as a proposal which had been subsequently withdrawn! However, the paper continued to publish indignant letters by readers who had apparently not read of this new twist to the story. Bernie Grant himself crops up in another story concerning alleged anti-racist measures, only here the subject is language. On 25 May 1986 88

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the Mail on Sunday’s Liz Lightfoot ran a piece under the headline ‘Bernie’s banter is baffling’, with the strapline ‘Parents’ fury at Caribbean dialect lessons’. The article claimed that: Bernie Grant, controversial leader of Haringey council, has caused uproar over a scheme to teach West Indian dialect in the borough’s schools. Black parents have told him they want their children taught English and maths instead of the dialect known as Creole. Condemnations by the West Indian Leadership Alliance and the local Conservative opposition leader were also reported, and Lightfoot’s piece concluded with various examples of creole: An angry bus conductor might say ‘Gwan girl, yo too jerky pickmount. Me doing dis work for me eyes deh a me knees’ or: ‘Stop being such a fussy old woman. I’ve been doing this job since I was knee-high to a grasshopper’. The story was picked up by a number of other papers. For example, the Sun ran a leader entitled ‘Barmy party’ (27 May 1986), which introduced the latest wheeze from Barmy Bernie Grant. The leader of London’s Haringey Council wants children to be taught the West Indian dialect Creole and they will be understood in the backstreets of Kingston, Jamaica, and probably nowhere else in the world . . . But don’t imagine that Bernie’s antics will afflict only one suffering part of London. Remember he is a parliamentary candidate for Labour at the next Election . . . Labour is now the Official Barmy Party! The story also appeared in provincial newspapers, including the Shropshire Star (30 May 1986) under the headline ‘Now time he was agoing’. ‘What I want to know’, the writer asked, ‘is when Bernie Grant and his friends are going? The sooner and the farther the better. That may be Double Dutch. But do you get my drift?’ This story appears to have been based on reports in local newspapers about a conference held in Haringey on the subject of Caribbean languages in schools. Originally, the Weekly Herald had reported the conference under the headline ‘Creole for kids?’ (15 May 1986). This correctly reported that the conference was organised by Haringey 89

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Community Relations Council, and not by the London Borough of Haringey as Lightfoot asserts. Moreover, the conference had the support of some black parents’ groups, and was not universally opposed as the Mail on Sunday’s report insisted. This aspect had come out quite clearly in the Times Educational Supplement’s 23 May report on the conference, headed ‘Black parents in Creole campaign’. Haringey went to considerable lengths to counter the allegations, even calling Liz Lightfoot into the press office and going through the copy line by line with her. In her defence, Lightfoot claimed that her report had been cut, and so may not have been ‘too clear’ in its final form. The Sun managed to couple Bernie Grant to one of English society’s most routinely demonised groups, namely travellers (vide the hate-filled newspaper campaign against the ‘New Age Travellers’ and their annual attempts to visit Stonehenge). In an article on 4 November 1986 entitled ‘Bernie spends £½m on toilets for gypsies’, Phil Dampier reported that: Barmy council leader Bernie Grant is planning to spend nearly £½m of ratepayers’ money on 24 super-loos for gypsies. The loony leftie is splashing out on behalf of roving Irish tinkers, even though many of his long-term council tenants have no INSIDE toilet. Local Conservative councillors were quoted as denouncing such moves as ‘outrageous and extravagant’. Readers were also informed that, at one site, ‘12 families will each be treated to private bathrooms at a cost of £395,000’. The story is highly inaccurate and misleading. Far from buying bathrooms at a cost of some £33,000 each, as suggested, the council had moved to spend a total of £395,000 over the next twelve-month period on all facilities for all travellers’ sites. Of this sum, £333,000 was to be spent on the construction of twelve permanent pitches on Wood Green Common in accordance with the council’s statutory obligations under the Caravan Sites Act 1968. The remaining £60,000 was to be spent on improving the existing temporary sites. Phil Dampier declined to comment on his article. A more extensively reported story attempted to link Bernie Grant with another favourite target of the Tory tabloids, namely the democratically elected government of Nicaragua. Under the headline ‘Barmy Bernie is going coffee-potty’, with the strapline ‘Staff must drink Marxist brew’, the Sun, 5 December 1986, reported that: ‘the left-wing council led by ‘‘Barmy’’ Bernie Grant has ordered its workers to show 90

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‘‘solidarity’’ with Nicaragua . . . by drinking the Marxist country’s grotty coffee’. ‘Only beans from the red Central American state will be bought by the council’, it claimed, and ‘a spokesman for ‘‘Barmy’’ Bernie said, ‘‘We have decided to purchase this type of coffee as a gesture of solidarity’’ ’. The Sun reporter assessed the merits of this decision by asking the opinion of a ‘top Mayfair coffee-seller’, and reported that the Nicaraguan blend, while costing the council ‘an extra £820 a year’, was of inferior quality. However, the article did contain an official denial from ‘ a spokesman for ‘‘Barmy’’ Bernie’. In fact, all the central claims of the report are false. Neither the council nor Bernie Grant had issued an instruction for only Nicaraguan coffee to be drunk. However, the story won credence and wide coverage in other tabloids. The Mail ran the story on the same day as the Sun under the banner ‘Marxist beans Bernie’s cup of coffee’. The Mirror also ran a nearly identical story on the same day under the familiar-sounding headline ‘Barmy Bernie goes coffee potty’, with the strap ‘Council’s cuppa must be Marxist’. The article carried the by-line of John McShane. The same fictitious ‘order’ was cited and the same Mayfair coffee merchant sought out, duly to deliver the identical words. ‘The decision,’ McShane noted, ‘is likely to leave ratepayers with a bitter taste because it will cost them an extra £820 a year.’ McShane, however, gave a more detailed contextualisation than had been forthcoming in the Sun. The view of the leader of the local Tory opposition was reported (‘absurd’), and the piece concluded by making a link to other examples of the council’s alleged folly: Haringey may soon have more staff to sample the true brew, however. The council is on the look-out for eight recruits to work in its gay services unit at a cost of £100,000 a year. Bernie Grant hit the headlines in October when he refused to condemn the rioters at Tottenham, where a policeman was stabbed to death. He said the police ‘got a bloody good hiding’. The results of further ‘research’ by McShane dominated page seven of the next day’s Mirror, under the headline ‘There’s a lot of awful coffee in Haringey’ (6 December 1986). The report began once more with the ‘order’ from Haringey Council. We read that Nicaraguan coffee cannot be found at ‘posh stores like Harrods and Fortnum and Mason’ nor at ‘leading coffee merchants’. But it is finally traced to the ‘Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign Headquarters in Islington’. The Mirror asked 91

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passers-by at Tottenham Town Hall to sample some. Of the three people asked, two (a council home help and a council visitor) found the coffee awful and one (a home care organiser) enjoyed it. A City expert on coffee was also quoted as saying that: ‘Nicaragua will sell its quota whether Haringey Council drinks it or not’. The article concluded with: ‘Bernie Grant’s verdict on the coffee is still in the dark. He declined the Mirror’s offer to join us for a cuppa’. The story was also carried in various provincial newspapers. The Manchester Daily Star, 5 December 1986, ran the story as ‘Bernie backs red coffee’. The non-existent ‘order’ was referred to, and the piece likewise concluded by pointing out that Haringey ratepayers ‘will also have to find more than £100,000 a year for eight new staff in a unit being set up to help local gays and lesbians’. Wolverhampton’s Express and Star followed suit with ‘Bernie’s coffee bar’ (7 December 1986). Here the ‘order’ by ‘the idiotic ‘‘Barmy’’ Bernie Grant’ was said to have been enforced ‘despite the fact that his loony council faces rate-capping for overspending, and is £28 million short in its budget’. And as if this were not enough: ‘Grant and his comrades have still committed £120,000 to a homosexual and lesbian unit. Life is certainly funny in Grant’s Marxist Haringey, but the joke is on the ratepayers’. The Sunday People ran a story on 8 December 1986 entitled ‘Nuts to you and your coffee, Bernie’ which, in the space of four short paragraphs, discussed the ‘order’ in terms of ‘Barmy Bernie Grant . . . brewing up more trouble’, ‘coffee potty Bernie’, ‘Bernie old bean’ and ‘the loopy council leader’. The conclusion ran: ‘Mind you, I’d have thought he would have felt much more at home with coffee from Brazil. That is, after all, where nuts come from’. The Weekly Herald, 12 December 1986, featured ‘Coffee controversy stirs a bitter brew’, concentrating upon the taste of the coffee and the local Tory reaction, but not reproducing the fictitious ‘order’. Not so, however, the Birmingham Post’s ‘Bitter taste’, 19 December 1986. This quoted Peter Bruinvels, Tory MP for Leicester East, to the effect that: ‘It is just as daft and offensive as poor old Leicester City Council now trying to pair with Nicaragua’. The ‘order’ by Grant, ‘widely criticised recently for his comments on the riot at Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm estate’, was also presented for comment to Timothy Eggar, a junior minister at the Foreign Office. Eggar remarked that: ‘I understand the comment was made that the coffee has a distinctive taste, which may not please the majority unless they are used to it. I think the same can be said of Mr Bernie Grant’. 92

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Further reproduction of these statements by two national Tory politicians featured the following day in Greenock’s Telegraph (‘Coffee move slammed’), the East Anglian Daily Times (‘Coffee choice not to Tory’s taste’) and Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Journal (‘Daft claim’). As amply demonstrated by the McGoldrick case (see Chapter 5), Brent was a favourite subject of ‘loony left’ stories. Thus, for example, on 26 February 1987, the Sun claimed that the borough was providing cash to enable black youths to visit Cuba free but that the cash was not available to white ones. The story, billed as ‘Another Sun exclusive’ was headlined ‘Freebie trip for blacks but white kids must pay. Barmy Brent does it again!’. Written by David Jones, it alleged that the council would spend at least £9,000 to make good any shortfall in the funds raised by the group organising the trip. Those chosen to go had to be unemployed, on low pay or rehabilitating after conviction for a crime. The article quoted the leader of the Brent Conservative group as saying: ‘For a hard-up, rate-capped borough like ours to waste cash like this is ridiculous’. ‘Youth worker Shirley Williams’ was quoted to the effect that: ‘Blacks are getting the subsidised places because we really only want to take them’. The article begins by stating that: ‘A Loony Left council is splashing out at least £9000 to send a group of black teenagers on an all-expenses paid jaunt to communist Cuba’. However, there is absolutely nothing in the article itself to back up such an assertion. Indeed, as the article itself admits, the whole event was being organised by a group called Caribbean Exchange, who were holding a series of fund-raising events to pay for the trip. Our own researches showed that the group’s only connection with the council was that they were affiliated to its Youth and Community Services, just like hundreds of other groups in the borough, including the scouts and guides. Brent told us that they allowed the group to use council premises for fund-raising activities but made it clear that they had not applied for a grant to help pay for the proposed trip, although they were eligible to do so. There was no evidence that Caribbean Exchange was favouring black youths at the expense of white ones, nor was rehabilitation after conviction a condition of going on the trip. Furthermore, we could not find any youth worker named Shirley Williams in Brent, although David Jones insisted to us that he did speak to such a person. We did manage to track down a youth worker named Lynne Williams but she flatly denied making the statement attributed to ‘Shirley Williams’. Caribbean Exchange told us that the story had made it more difficult to raise funds for the trip 93

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because it had sown racial divisions and exerted a destructive effect on the project. Caribbean Exchange actually complained to the Press Council about this story. In an unusually tough adjudication, the Council stated that: The headline, which was provocative and potentially racially divisive, was unsupported in the story below it by anything more than an assertion by the newspaper. On the evidence presented to it, the Press Council finds that the headline was inaccurate and misleading. The article contained inaccuracies, some of them significant, and unsupported assumptions. In the Press Council’s view it was loosely written and had not been investigated as closely as such a story should have been before a newspaper decided to publish it. The paper’s overall presentation was misleading and the complaint against The Sun is upheld. Another allegedly ‘loony’ council frequently in the news was Hackney. So, for example, on 27 February 1987 a story attributed to ‘a Standard reporter’ and headlined ‘Taking ‘‘sexist’’ man out of manhole’ appeared in the Evening Standard. The substance of the story was that the council’s equal opportunities committee had proposed banning the term ‘manhole’ and that this was now council policy. The article quoted four people: an anonymous council spokesman, sewage worker Tom Jordan, Tory councillor Joe Lobenstein, and deputy council leader Jim Cannon. It claimed that the council’s engineers and sewerage workers would in future have to use the words ‘access chambers’ instead of ‘manhole covers’. Jordan was quoted as complaining: It’s absurd. We have a memo from the council telling us about the change. I can’t imagine calling manholes anything else, least of all an access chamber. Where on earth do they dig that description up? But I suppose we shall have to comply with the regulations – even though we all think it’s a joke. Most of us are sexist anyway – we love the topless models which the council hates. So they are asking us to be hypocrites. The council spokesman states that: ‘It is our policy to use non-sexist language. The word manhole clearly defines it. It is an insult to women. Why not call them womenholes?’. From a different perspective, Joe 94

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Loebenstein denounces the whole idea as ‘potty’ and ‘a total waste of money’. The most extensive quotation, however, is from Jim Cannon, who states that: I don’t see anything wrong with calling a manhole an access chamber. Language reflects people’s attitudes. At the moment it reflects a man’s point of view. Talking about manholes and access chambers strikes me as a marginal issue. But it should be looked at in the context that language should make women more confident of their own position and take away the restrictions that only men can do certain things. The following day the Sun ran a short piece under the headline ‘Now manhole is a dirty word’ and the Standard headed its equally short article ‘Loony’. The Star, however, carried a full report by a ‘Star reporter’ entitled ‘Now the lefties bar manholes’. The story is almost identical to that in the previous day’s Standard, except that Jim Cannon is also quoted as saying that: ‘I am at the stage when the use of the word man grates with me’. A Sun editorial on 1 March, headed ‘Not again’, opined that Hackney councillors were not fit to hold public office, adding that: ‘As for the idiot who first thought of banning ‘‘manholes’’, we suggest he puts his head down the nearest access chamber and keeps it there’. The story also formed the subject of Keith Waterhouse’s column in the Mirror on 3 March, under the headline ‘The silly tendency’, in which he lumps in the Hackney councillors with those from Lambeth who had changed street names and declares them all to be ‘barking mad’ and a ‘gang of lunatics’. The story was also repeated in the Cumberland Evening News (3 March), Peterborough Evening Telegraph (4 March), Nottingham Evening Post (6 March), East London Advertiser, Southend Evening News and Municipal Journal (all 7 March). Letters about it featured in the Standard, Birmingham Evening Mail, Sunday Telegraph and Ilford Recorder. However, as our own research showed, Hackney council had never in fact issued any instruction, memo or report about the use of the word ‘manhole’, nor had the word been the subject of any formal discussion within the council, although it did have a policy of avoiding words such as ‘fireman’ and ‘foreman’ which might give the impression that certain jobs were reserved specifically for men. Nor did the council employ anyone named Tom Jordan. So where did the story come from? Our researches eventually led us to the Fleet Street News Agency, which 95

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circulated the story on 27 February. Its then editor was Leif Kalfayan, who was shortly to move on to the Mail. Kalfayan admitted that his recollection of the story’s origin was poor, but insisted that it had come from the Hackney Gazette; however, our own researches show that the paper had never run the story, and when we raised the matter with its local government correspondent, Tim Cooper, he vehemently rejected Kalfayan’s claim and insisted that the story had originated from the agency. Whatever the case, it’s important to note that the source which was used by both the Standard and the Star to boost the credibility of the story was the deputy leader of Hackney Council, Jim Cannon. However, the quotation from Cannon by no means confirms the story, since nowhere does he state that the council has banned the use of the term ‘manhole’, simply remarking that: ‘I don’t see anything wrong with calling a manhole an access chamber’. Cannon told us that that he returned home one night at 1 a.m. to find a message asking him to ring a journalist ‘urgently’. When he did so, he was surprised to be asked how he would react if the council were to ban the use of the word manhole. He recalled saying that he thought the use of language a serious issue, adding that the journalist surely had more important issues to investigate. Now, anybody who has ever been interviewed by a journalist absolutely determined to elicit a quote which will fit the story they’ve already written (as well, of course, as suit their newspaper’s political line) will understand the difficult position in which Cannon found himself. However, it also needs to be borne in mind that he was relatively inexperienced in these matters, having only just been made deputy leader of Hackney, a borough in which there were undoubtedly Labour supporters so ideologically pure that they did indeed believe that all language should be purged of any conceivable sexist or racist connotations. In these circumstances, Cannon may well have wondered if the word ‘manhole’ really had been banned, or perhaps he was unwilling to alienate the Labour purists by stating outright that if the council were to pass such a ban it would make itself a laughing stock. But, for whatever reason, he made the absolutely fatal error of answering a hypothetical question in such a guarded and equivocal manner that it enabled the journalist to stand up (after a fashion) the highly dubious story which they were clearly determined to publish. The most well known of all the ‘loony left’ myths is undoubtedly that of the ‘ban’ on the nursery rhyme ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. This story first 96

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appeared under the by-line of Bill Akass in the Star, 15 February 1986, with ‘Now its Baa Baa Blank Sheep’. According to Akass: Toddlers have been ordered to stop singing Baa Baa Black Sheep . . . because it is racist. Staff at a nursery school in Hackney, London, claim the traditional nursery rhyme is offensive to blacks. At first they wanted the 30 children aged between one and three – only two of whom are black – to sing Baa Baa White Sheep instead. But now it has been banned altogether at Beevers Nursery in De Beauvoir Road. Leaders of Left-wing Hackney council welcomed the ban last night. A spokesman said: ‘We consider playgroups and nurseries should be discouraged from singing the rhyme. It reinforces a derogatory and subservient use of the word ‘‘black’’ among our youngsters in their formative years. This is particularly important because the majority of children in our nurseries come from black and ethnic minority communities’. This view was contrasted with that of ‘one outraged mum’ who stated that: ‘I think it’s bloody stupid. What will they do next?’. The Star story was taken up by Tim Cooper in the Hackney Gazette, 18 February 1986. Under the headline ‘Baa Baa banned’, with the strap ‘Councillors object to ancient rhyme being recited in nurseries’, this stated that: ‘Children in Hackney have been banned from reciting the nursery rhyme – because Labour councillors think it is racist’. It then goes on to quote the above council spokesman. However, what happens here is that the reaction of the council spokesman on being presented by Bill Akass with his original story has metamorphosed into the reason for the imposition of the alleged ‘ban’ in the first place. However, the story also contains a quote from one of the playleaders to the effect that: ‘We’re run by parents and if they want us to stop singing it, we would. But there have been no complaints so far, though someone once suggested it could be racist’. Typically the Sun simplified all these difficulties. Under the headline ‘Lefties baa black sheep’, 20 February 1986, it was asserted that: ‘Loony left-wing councillors have banned children from reciting the nursery rhyme . . . because they claim it is racist. One nursery has even reacted by writing new words which begin Baa Baa White Sheep’. This version of the story duly appeared in the Irish paper the Sunday World, 23 February 1986, which also suggested some new nursery rhyme possibilities, such as ‘Senior Citizen MacDonald Had a Rural Collective’, ‘Old 97

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Socially Disadvantaged Single Parent Hubbard Went to the Cupboard’, and other such witticisms. The story received further attention in the letters columns. In the Hackney Gazette, 28 February 1986, a correspondent suggested a new version of the rhyme: ‘Baa baa black sheep, censored by a fool. Yes sir – yes sir, another sheepish rule’. On 4 March the Gazette ran a contribution from another reader: Some Labour, Militants and SWP are trying to create a racist problem where it does not exist . . . Stop this phoney anti-racist campaign. Banning Baa Baa Black Sheep, black coffee, white coffee, etc . . . is to reduce a noble battle for justice and equality for all races to a trivial pursuit in semantics. The Gazette published yet another letter three days later, offering: ‘Baa baa grey sheep, have you any wool? Yes person, yes person, three containers full (bags is an offensive term for women)’. The Ilford Recorder, 6 March 1986, featured a letter under the headline ‘Baa! Protest that has no rhyme or reason’, whose author exclaimed: What about this latest nonsense in Hackney about children learning ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’? It’s as pathetic a complaint as wanting to remove from the marmalade pot the friendly golly kids love . . . What of the many white people whose surname is Black? . . . And some black people whose surname is White? . . . Will we be expected to feel odd when buying a ticket to – dare I say it – Blackfriars, or even Whitechapel? Later the story was even to appear as the subject of a spoof in Knitting International, 4 April 1986, drawing explicitly on the Sun’s report. This reported the activities of a ‘Campaign Regarding Equal Tonality in Natural Sheep’, under the headline ‘The white sheep of the family’. The story thus enjoyed considerable and widespread coverage. Despite constant repetition, evidence was nowhere adduced to make the story stand up. Nor were those, journalists and letter writers alike, who repeated the story able to point to actual, solid, factual evidence which backed up their assertions. Only the black paper, The Voice, emphatically rejected the story and offered an explanation of its long-running success. Under the headline ‘Hackney humbugged’, it argued that: ‘the row over 98

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Hackney Council’s alleged banning of the nursery rhyme . . . is not so much a storm in a teacup as a deliberate attempt to discredit the work that the council does in increasing racial awareness’. The actual facts of the story are as follows. When Bill Akass discovered what he alleged to be a ban at Beevers Nursery on ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, he rang Hackney press office in order to get the council’s view on the matter, even though the nursery was run by the parents, and not by the council (as Akass’s story could be read as implying). Furthermore, as can actually be judged from the Hackney Gazette article, there was never any ban on ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ at the nursery; instead, and for reasons quite unconnected with racism, ‘Baa Baa White Sheep’ had occasionally been sung simply as an alternative version of the rhyme, and with numerous other lines changed for humorous effect. Martin Bostock, at that time press officer for the council, takes up the story: It was possible for the council to say: ‘we don’t know what this nursery is doing, but whatever they’re doing it’s up to them’. This was the advice we took to the then leader of the council [Tony Millwood]. I had a long discussion with him. He, however, wanted to take a bullish attitude and show support for the alleged ban at Beevers. And, between us we arrived eventually at a statement saying that we supported what they’d done, although making it quite clear that it was not a council nursery and not a council ban. From here, of course, it was but a short step for Tim Cooper of the Hackney Gazette to visit Beevers and ask parents for their reaction to Hackney council’s support for the alleged ban; indeed, as Cooper himself said to us: I think they [the council] really shot themselves in the foot. I think they issued the statement because they, or the council leader at the time, believed the ban was in force and tried to justify it. I think they were wrong. There was no ban in the first place. By issuing the statement they virtually created the story, which obviously snowballed from there. And, in many respects, Martin Bostock agrees: The council allowed itself to be led by the nose into the story in the first place . . . We allowed ourselves to be drawn in and comment 99

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on it. We didn’t have to, but we did. However, I think that the newspapers concerned were guilty of turning our support for the alleged ban into a council ban. We were accused of instituting a ban, but, however naı¨ve we may have been as a council, and I think we were over this one, we did not ever say that we had banned or wanted to ban the rhyme. Thus the genesis of this story has a great deal in common with that about manholes analysed above, and has to be explained not only in terms of newspapers’ ideological positions and news values but also of a certain ideological rigour and rectitude on the part of certain council representatives themselves. However, this episode in Hackney was only the beginning. According to Anthony Doran, writing in the Daily Mail, 9 October 1986, under the headline ‘Baa baa, green (yes green) sheep!’, Haringey Council had ordered playgroup leaders to attend a racism awareness course, on pain of grant withdrawal if they refused, at which they were instructed that the council had banned the rhyme as racist. In future, children would have to sing ‘green’ sheep instead. An anonymous playgroup leader is credited with the story. Parents, teachers and Kenneth Baker at the Tory conference in Bournemouth, were quoted as condemning the alleged ban. The story appeared the same day in the Birmingham Evening Mail, where it featured twice, under the headlines ‘Silly bleat’ and ‘Green sheep? They’ve got to be joking’. In the latter, a local race relations leader is called upon and denounces the alleged ban as ‘ridiculous’ and as raising ‘a great danger of turning the whole subject into a joke’. The story also appeared in the Liverpool Echo (‘Black sheep in the dog house’) and the Yorkshire Evening Press (‘So sheepish’), which advised its readers to ‘enjoy laughing at this potty behaviour. But let’s not be too carried away with hilarity. It’s funny, yes. But is it not also sinister?’. The Birmingham Post, 10 October 1986, followed suit with ‘Racist sheep are a joke’, an article in which local parents were quoted as deriding the ‘ban’. The Sunday People, 12 October 1986, likewise reported on the ‘ban’ and the ‘compulsory course’, commenting that: ‘with loonies like this running the schools, the future for education in Haringey looks extremely black. Sorry. Extremely green’. The News of the World, 12 October 1986, announced a ‘Green sheep take over’ in an article which began with the words: ‘Labour has promised to step up the numbers of coloured 100

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immigrants. That’s a mistake’. Following this introduction the green sheep story is reported, along with the aside ‘but what if it turns out Martians are green?’. A Tory MP lamented in Birmingham that day: ‘It makes you weep that loonies get elected to councils’ (Sunday Mercury, 12 October 1986). Carlisle’s Evening News and Star, 13 October 1986, ran the story beneath ‘Bernie Bleat Barmy’, claiming that the alleged ban ‘will probably cause a storm of protest on Mars’. The Yorkshire Evening Courier, 14 October 1986, also ran the story, warning: ‘but it is no joke that parents must watch the thinking that has abnormal sexual quirks as acceptable and should be taught so in schools, that political indoctrination is part of their social studies’. The Liverpool Echo, 15 October 1986, returned to the story with ‘Just Barmy’, whose author opined that: ‘I’m surprised they haven’t also condemned it on grounds that to subject a sheep to intrusive personal questioning over whether it has any wool is an offence against animal rights’. The same day Ipswich’s Evening Star ran ‘A load of wollies!’. The facts of the story, which were never reproduced outside the black press, were that the racism awareness course had been requested by playgroup leaders in Haringey, that attendance was not compulsory and that the council had issued no such ban. There is no evidence that the rhyme was ever mentioned on the course. Haringey went to great lengths to counter the ‘green sheep’ allegations, initiating legal action against the Daily Mail (which it was forced eventually to drop due to mounting costs), and taking statements from fifteen people alleged to have been involved in the ‘ban’. What appears to have happened is that some playgroup workers who did not attend the course did not appreciate some of its arguments, relayed to them by colleagues who had attended, about the racist connotations of everyday language. The non-attenders then complained to the Mail, well known to be evervigilant for ‘loony left’ stories, that next they would probably be forced to stop children singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. In its attempts to stand the story up, the Mail phoned or door-stepped about twenty playgroup workers, one reporter claiming to be a Haringey parent looking to place a child in a playgroup which did not practise racism, and others posing as Marks & Spencer or Tesco managers wanting to put on racism awareness training courses. None confirmed the alleged ban on ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. The council’s considerable efforts to defend itself were ignored by the press for some time. In the Haringey Advertiser’s ‘Black sheep still in 101

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evidence’, 16 October 1986, the council’s rebuttal made its first appearance in print. A council spokesperson was quoted as saying that ‘the frequency with which stories like this appear in the Mail seems to suggest that it is trying to discredit the council’. But the fiction had by now been uncritically reproduced across the entire country. That same day it even appeared in a satirical piece in Men’s Wear, which pointed out the need to don ‘green ties’ for formal occasions. Three days later the Sunday Times, 19 October 1986, featured a letter beneath the headline ‘The blacking of Comrade Black Sheep’. Haringey was subjected to a mock critique for failing to realise that the rhyme encapsulates the socialist principles at the heart of our caring, loving society . . . Green sheep don’t exist. If they did they would probably live in a world far removed from our galaxy, probably called Haringey, whose cultural heritage would be rather different from ours. Auberon Waugh, writing the same day in the Sunday Telegraph, used the ‘ban’ to demonstrate how, compared to the US, Britain is ‘pretty well a nation of loonie lefties’. Two days later a Times leader, ‘Exploiting race’, warned that ‘ it is a common fallacy to suppose that what is funny must be harmless’. The Haringey fiction was used as a springboard for an extensive denunciation of Brent’s so-called ‘race spies’ and a call for the withdrawal of government funding from such schemes. (See Chapter 5.) The story cropped up again on 23 October 1986 in the Hendon Times under the headline ’Stop stirring up trouble’. The Sunday Times, 26 October 1986, featured a letter headed ‘Colour bar’ which claimed: ‘It is clearly no longer permissible to black a job . . . To describe a certain skin affliction as blackheads is completely unacceptable’. That same day an unrepentant Mail on Sunday featured a similar letter which argued that an example had been set for ‘fellow lefties’ in the north, with Manchester now to be noted for its ‘Green Pudding’. On 30 October the Daily Mail returned to the story with a leader drawing parallels between Haringey Council, the Spanish Inquisition and Nazi Germany. The Haringey playgroup leaders themselves issued a statement deriding this editorial in particular and pointing out the irony of the fact that the Mail itself had ardently supported Hitler right up until the outbreak of the Second World War. This statement attempted to set the record 102

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straight on Baa Baa Black Sheep, but was reproduced only in the black press (Asian Herald, 3 November 1986; West Indian News, 5 November 1986). Nothing daunted, however, The Economist, 1 November 1986, was perfectly happy to feature the story among the list of ‘loony sins’ that Tory Central Office could use to pin on the ‘ever-so-moderate Mr. Kinnock’. But not all newspapers persisted in repeating the story. The Birmingham Evening Mail, 22 October 1986, published a letter from Bernie Grant denying the story, and the Yorkshire Evening Press, 14 November 1986, printed a correction to its previous month’s leader on the story, stating that: ‘We regret that the editorial, which was written in good faith, was based on an inaccurate report’. On 20 February 1987 the story resurfaced in the Islington Gazette under the headline ‘Bye Bye Black Sheep’, with the strap ‘Mum’s fury over ban on ‘‘racist’’ nursery rhyme’. Attention, this time, was focused on an angry mother’s removal of her handicapped son from an Islington council nursery because his teachers objected to his singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. The article quoted from the child’s report which stated that: ‘We do not encourage the rhyme Baa Baa Black sheep because it has been identified as racially derogatory and is actively discouraged by Islington Council’. It then went on to give a good deal of space to the mother’s negative reaction to her son’s report, and the piece concluded with a council spokesperson stating that: ‘it is not council policy to ban Baa Baa Black Sheep but if individual nursery workers find it offensive the council is not in the business of forcing them to teach that rhyme rather than others’. It also added that ‘the council appointed an antiracist adviser for the under-fives in 1985’. What appears to have happened in this case is that the staff of Beacon Day Nursery really did believe that it was Islington council policy to discourage the rhyme. Because the nursery staff were unwilling to talk to us, we do not know why they believed this. However, given the veritable flood of ‘loony left’ stories appearing in both national and local papers at the time, it is surely not too fanciful to speculate that these stories may well have fuelled such a belief. On the other hand, the council spokesman’s equivocal statement quoted above, and his refusal to issue a forthright condemnation of any such ban, left the door open, just as in the Hackney examples analysed earlier, for the inevitable flood of press stories which followed the Gazette piece. The Daily Express, 20 February 1987, ran the story on its front page 103

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under the headline ‘School bars boy’s Baa-baa Black Sheep ‘‘racist’’ rhyme’. This report was very similar to that of the Islington Gazette, save that the writer, Michael O’Flaherty, failed to report the council’s reaction. That the council had appointed an anti-racist adviser for the under-fives is all that we hear about the local authority, thus letting the nursery workers’ mistaken impression of council policy set the framework of the piece. The Daily Telegraph, 20 February 1987, did however conclude its article headed ‘Boy’s first rhyme upsets nursery staff’ with the council statement. The Daily Mirror, 20 February 1987 ran a short piece, ‘Baa Baa blacked’, in which the statement is abbreviated to: ‘if they find it offensive we’re not going to make them teach it’. In the Daily Mail, Ruth Gledhill wrote a piece entitled ‘The little boy who made the mistake of humming Baa Baa Black Sheep’, which at least includes a quote from local Labour councillor Chris King: There is clearly a problem somewhere, down the line, and we are going to look into it. We have over 6000 staff and on this occasion someone clearly got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It was an over-zealous interpretation of our equal opportunities policy. We have a strong equal opportunities policy, but no member of this council has ever resolved that Baa Baa Black Sheep is to be actively discouraged. We have a lot of staff and we cannot – and nor should we – control everything they do. However, the way in which the story is written, and in particular laid out, gives the strong impression that the ban was indeed council policy. For example, it includes a photograph of what it calls the offending ‘coldly official comment’ written by a member of the nursery staff, with the entirely erroneous caption ‘What the council said’. Islington complained to the Press Council about this article, but the Council rejected the complaint, supporting the contention of the Mail’s associate managing editor that the story was not about the policy of Islington Council but about how one member of the council’s staff interpreted the policy and the actions she took, apparently regarding the quotation from Councillor King as an adequate representation of the council’s position in a long article which was otherwise almost wholly critical of it The Sun’s first report, ‘Baa Baa nursery ban on sad little Dan’, 20 February 1987, began with the words: ‘Handicapped tot Daniel Griffin delighted his mum by reciting Baa Baa Black Sheep but loony leftie 104

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teachers banned it – for being racist!’ This prepared the ground for the Sun’s leader the next day, ‘The vile hard left’, which stated that: Loony left councils have given us a good laugh over the years. But Islington’s ban on a retarded five year old . . . is not funny but sick . . . Islington’s callous treatment of little Daniel and his parents earns them the title of vilest council in this country. The story once again evoked a response in the letters columns, and not simply those of the tabloids. For example, The Times, 26 February 1987, under the heading ‘Baa, baa, bah’, printed a letter which satirically endorsed ‘the humanitarian stand taken by Islington council against the humming of ‘‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’’ by a five-year-old handicapped child, which was mentioned in a newspaper article last week’. The writer found the rhyme not only racist but also sexist and full of ‘rampant class distinction’. ‘Whatever’, the writer wondered, ‘are we coming to?’ Appropriately enough, the next instalment of the story came on 1 April 1987. That evening the SDP intended to run a party political broadcast, presented by John Cleese, to ‘alert the public to the extremism of local government’, as David Owen was quoted as putting it in that day’s Sun. This was intended to include the line: ‘Then there was the council that accused a five year old of reciting a racially offensive poem. You’ve guessed it – Baa Baa Black Sheep’, with the words ‘Islington Council’ flashed on screen in red. Islington sought a High Court injunction to have this section of the broadcast dropped, on the ground that it was not official council policy to impose such a ban, but Mr Justice Drake refused the injunction on the grounds that there was evidence that the SDP would in fact be able to justify its allegation. However, within minutes of the council’s defeat, David Owen announced that the remark would be dropped from the broadcast in order to avoid further distress to Daniel Griffin’s family. It was replaced by a remark about Brent’s race advisers (see Chapter 5). The case received extensive press coverage in all the major daily newspapers, appearing on even the front pages of the Sun and the Daily Express. And although the council had lost its application, it did at least manage to get its position represented by the press; only the Daily Star in its report on 2 April failed to give space to the council’s view. At a press conference following the decision, Owen accused the 105

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council of being part of Labour’s ‘lethal left’, claiming that: ‘what is absolutely clear is that they have not even got a sense of humour’. Owen’s attempt to set the agenda was not, however, taken up by the press, and he had to contend with equal attention being given to statements by the council and by Labour’s Bryan Gould. Indeed, the Daily Mirror’s leader of 2 April actually rejected the SDP’s claims against the council and turned the ‘loony’ label against Owen himself, commenting that: ‘Outclowning anything that Basil Fawlty could have thought up, the SDP leader . . . fumbled farce out of a victory’. Like the myth that the film Child’s Play III was responsible for the death of the unfortunate James Bulger, the myth that Islington council banned children in its schools from singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ has proved remarkably resilient, and sections of the press seem determined that it remain so. Thus, for example, the Sunday Times, 8 February 1998, in an article entitled ‘Champagne socialist toasts family windfall’, claims that the former leader of Islington council, Margaret Hodge, ‘banned the singing of Baa Baa Black Sheep in nurseries’. On 4 October 1999, the Daily Mail enlivened an article about the nursery education policies of Margaret Hodge, then Education Minister, by reporting that: Under her ten-year leadership, the north London council became a byword for ‘loony left’ local government, notoriously backing nursery school staff in 1987 who told off a mentally-handicapped five-year-old for humming Baa Baa Black Sheep as it was considered ‘racially derogatory’. Shortly after Labour had lost control of Islington to the Liberal Democrats, the Evening Standard, 6 July 2000, ran an article on the new council’s policies, reminding readers that Islington ‘was once one of the country’s most celebrated loony Labour councils. A place that symbolised the worst excesses of the Left, where . . . Baa Baa Black Sheep was banned for being politically incorrect’. And when Hodge became Children’s Minister, the Sun, 14 June 2003, told its readers that her ‘Loony Left council once banned kids from singing Baa Baa Black Sheep’. Later that year, as part of its ‘MPs Rich Report’, the Mail, 28 September, spiced up its entry on Hodge by stating that ‘as a councillor [she] helped ban the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep in primary education in Islington’. What these various stories all too clearly demonstrate is exactly what 106

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happens when local and national politicians, aided and abetted by politically supportive newspapers, make a concerted effort to demonise those with different political viewpoints and aspirations. Stories are quite simply manufactured out of thin air, or stood up on the flimsiest, most dubious of grounds. And thus, drawing on an already wellstocked reservoir of anti-socialist demonology, certain councils are effectively allotted pariah status; once cast beyond the democratic pale and isolated as politically ‘other’ and alien, they can safely be subjected to a sustained campaign of distortion and vilification without newspapers running the risk of being accused of abandoning ‘normal’ professional journalistic standards. As John Walker, press officer for Haringey during this period, put it: If you create a climate where an authority is seen to be ‘loony’, anything becomes plausible, and therefore journalists feel they have carte blanche to write whatever they want. There’s a whole range of issues where we’ve been at the end of that kind of treatment, simply because if it sounds daft enough therefore we will have done it. As we have been at pains to point out, certain local councils stigmatised as ‘loony’ by the press did not, either through ineptitude or ideological zealotry or a combination of both, do much to help their own cause by the way in which they dealt with the newspapers attacking them. However, this should not be allowed to obscure the plain fact that, in pursuit of frankly political goals, a significant number of newspapers had clearly decided to throw their considerable weight behind the Tory campaign to de-legitimise London’s Labour councils, which, like the abolition of the GLC, was part of a wider strategy to wipe socialism off the British political map. In such a situation it is frankly difficult to see how even the most sophisticated of press and PR operations could have prevented or discouraged newspapers from printing stories which they were clearly quite determined to publish, whether true or not.

Note 1. This chapter draws upon research carried out by Chris Bertram, Luke Martell and Brennon Wood, all of whom were fellow members of the Goldsmiths Media Research Group, which published the report Media Coverage of Local Government in London in June 1987. This was commissioned by the Association of London Authorities.

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Chapter 5

‘Hate on the Rates’

Criminalising Dissent

R

ecurrent urban violence throughout the 1980s made relations between the police and the policed increasingly problematic. These problems were most forcefully expressed in predominantly black, inner-city communities. In 1980-1 there were major urban disturbances involving black people in Bristol, Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth, and in September and October 1985 there was similar unrest in Handsworth, Toxteth, Brixton and Haringey. In this last case, which centred on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham on 6 October, 245 people were injured; 71 police officers were hospitalised and one killed. The violence was triggered by the death of a black woman, Cynthia Jarrett, during a botched police raid on her home. These events were undeniably urgent; they demanded both definition and containment. At each confrontation, local voices were raised, calling the methods and ethos of inner-city policing into question, and, in particular, protesting about what they saw as the shift from consensual to coercive policing, and the weakening of the powers of local authorities (many of which were in non-Tory hands) over the police. However, the Conservatives were extremely concerned to immunise national politics, and especially policies concerning law and order, from such questioning. Not only were they keen, in this area as in others, to strengthen still further the hand of central government, but, in spite of their avowed commitment to strengthening law-and-order, they were concerned that they had in fact presided over a crime rate which had 108

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risen by 50 per cent since 1979, and a detection rate which had dropped from 42 per cent in 1978 to 32 per cent in 1986. Unwilling, and indeed ideologically unable, to accept the links between inner-city deprivation, racism and urban unrest, Conservative politicians and newspapers thus had to look for other explanations of, and remedies for, the urban disturbances which marked the first half of the 1980s. An ‘obvious’, common-sense explanation was that criminals and ‘subversives’ were stirring sections of the population, and especially the black population, to riot. As Geoffrey Pearson (1983) has shown, fear of the ‘mob’ is a perennial feature of right-wing discourse on law-and-order in Britain, and when coupled, as it was here, with fear and dislike of black people, it makes for a potently populist ideological brew. Those involved in the Broadwater Farm and other similar events therefore had to be cast, at all costs, not as people reacting against genuine grievances (poor housing, unemployment, racist policing and so on) but as criminals, or at least as their dupes. Above all, the events had to be de-politicised, cast beyond the reach of reasoned political argument, and those involved in them, in any way, denied any form of legitimate representative status. Thus, for example, for The Times, 3 July 1986, the Farm was simply a ‘disorderly neighbourhood’ with an ‘almost eighteenth-century atmosphere of open criminality’. Or as Douglas Hurd summed it up, it was ‘unattractive to employers, badly designed, blighted by crime, excessively dependent on inadequate or tyrannical local authorities, and above all lacking cohesion’ (1988: 7). A vast amount of ideological work thus went in to criminalising and demonising black communities, both denying them a legitimate political voice and giving explicit support to those sections of the police calling for extra and exceptional powers to deal coercively with urban unrest. Absolutely crucial to this twin process was a highly supportive and complicit press (Hollingsworth 1986: 106–39; Gordon and Rosenberg 1989; Searle 1989; Van Dijk 1991), and newspaper reporting of race issues, especially in boroughs such as Haringey and Brent, was a key factor in the formation of the ‘loony left’ category. In the hunt for ‘subversives’ in the case of Broadwater Farm,1 the lead was taken by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman who, at a press conference on 7 October 1985, stated that: ‘Groups of Trotsykists and anarchists had been identified as orchestrating the disturbances in Tottenham and Brixton a week earlier. They are both black and white and come from within and outside London, operating in areas of ethnic concentration’. That day, the front page of the Standard 109

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faithfully bore the headline ‘Plot behind the riot’, and, as well as quoting Newman, also featured the Police Federation Chair’s pointing a finger at ‘a criminal group of people who opportunise on . . . someone else’s difficulties’. The next day’s Star, under the front page headline ‘Red butchers’, warned that: ‘Leftwing infiltrators aim to spread race hatred and set black against white. Their object is to wreck and destroy’, while its leader column inveighed against ‘sick-minded agitators with no regard for democracy – far less human decency’ and attacked the ‘rent-a-quote army of politicians and sociologists [who] spout a new bucketful of pseudo-scientific humbug to explain the outrage away’. The same day’s Times called for ‘those hard-faced leftists’ to be ‘hunted’. Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph reported that: Trotskyites, socialist extremists, Revolutionary Communists, Marxists and black militants from as far away as Toxteth descended on Tottenham yesterday to take part in a meeting called because of Sunday’s riot on the Broadwater Farm estate. They cheered speakers who declared: ‘This war is just beginning’, and supported calls for the police to be put under the control of the local community . . . White bearded men in sandals, many accompanied by girls, rubbed shoulders with the local black people and supported calls for more violence on the lines of that on Sunday night, when a policeman was hacked to death. But it was the same day’s Daily Express which really went to town on this theme under the headline ‘Kill! Kill! Kill! – Red-trained hit team gave orders as riot mob hacked PC to death’. This article reported that: The thugs who murdered policeman Keith Blakelock in the Tottenham riots acted on orders of crazed leftwing extremists. Streetfighting experts trained in Moscow and Libya were behind Britain’s worst violence. The chilling plot emerged last night as detectives hunted a hand-picked death squad believed to have been sent into London hellbent on bloodshed. According to the paper, some of these people had been lying low under the umbrella of outwardly innocent racial pressure groups in London. Red Ken Livingstone’s GLC and other leftwing 110

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councils have given thousands of pounds of ratepayers’ cash to some of these groups, totally unaware that it was being filtered to activists. As it happens, the Express had fallen victim to one of Rocky Ryan’s hoaxes, but, in fact, the story is not significantly different from others produced in Fleet Street that day, just a little more lurid. As Peter Hillmore put it in the Observer, 13 October: ‘Mr Ryan chooses stories newspapers not only want to believe but are actually desperate to believe. This means they are not going to let a few facts stand in their way’. Nothing daunted, however, the Daily Mail, 15 October, ran a story headed ‘Cubans in a link with riot estate’, which stated that: ‘Cuban Communists and young blacks met on the Broadwater Farm some time before the Tottenham riots exploded. Their meetings were fixed by Haringey Council leader Bernie Grant’. (This story, which insinuates a great deal more than it overtly states, is analysed in some detail in Van Dijk 1991: 75–8.) From the beginning, then, the voices of the Tories, most of the press and sections of the police sang in harmony. By constantly stressing black criminality, while at the same time linking this to the threat of subversion and denying the presence of a local black polity, they defined civil unrest simply as criminal violence and mob rule, for which, as the Daily Express leader put it on 8 October: ‘there can be no excuse, no sociological explanations, no twentieth century bleeding-heart cliches’. Together, these voices perfectly epitomised the conservative discourse on social disorder which, as Simon Cottle (1993: 24–5) puts it, interprets such disorder as illegitimate acts of criminality motivated either by criminal greed, hooligan excitement or political extremism. Those directly involved are regarded as a deviant and criminal minority who, deliberately placing themselves outside of the legal and moral frameworks of society, can only expect and deserve the punitive actions of established authorities – which, arguably, includes most of the press. The need for any thoroughgoing reappraisal of policing methods thus remained firmly off both the government and mainstream press agenda.

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De-legitimising the Local Representatives As a ‘criminal ghetto’, Broadwater Farm could, clearly, have no legitimate political voice of its own. But criminalising the estate in such a comprehensive fashion also demanded the constant degrading of its local representatives. The Daily Mail, 8 October, attacked one of Broadwater’s most important figures, the head of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association, Dolly Kiffin, via a sinister caricature of ‘Dolly Kissin’ [sic]. ‘The white residents’, we are informed, ‘dread Dolly’. In fact, during the following months, Dolly Kiffin was subjected to what the Gifford Enquiry (see below, pp. 116–17) called a ‘systematic campaign of denigration’ by the press, a campaign which ‘appears to be intended to discredit her and remove her from her position of trust in the Broadwater Farm Youth Association. It may also be an attempt to destroy the Youth Association itself’ (Gifford 1986: 240). But the realm of legitimate expression was narrowed not only by attacking estate notables; the same day’s Daily Mail also cast hints of subversion at the local council and its leader, Bernie Grant, Labour’s black prospective parliamentary candidate for Tottenham. Thus an article entitled ‘The black view’ focused on Grant’s refusal to condemn the violence encountered by the police, while ‘Brainwashed’, by Baroness Cox, argued that: ‘Tottenham was the inevitable result of the insidious long-term propaganda and push against our police by agitprop factions claiming to represent the interests of our inner-city black communities’. This ‘barrage of propaganda’, she exclaimed, was ‘often paid from the rates!’ Meanwhile The Times leader warned that: ‘There has recently been much talk . . . of communities and community leaders. That often overstates the cohesiveness of the black population and the pinpointed authority of its leadership’. Neither the Daily Mail nor Baroness Cox were alone in this conspiratorial innuendo. The following day’s Standard insisted that blame for the riot ‘be laid at the door of those in authority – not parents, but teachers and local councillors – who have supported and confirmed the young rioters in their hatred of the police’. The Daily Express’s ‘Hate on the rates’, 10 October, uncovered an allegedly ‘anti-police’ video from the GLC, ‘freely circulated in Tottenham in the days leading up to the terrifying events’. ‘This was no home movie assembled by Left-wing loonies’, it warned, but was ‘professionally crafted, with a powerful message’. Elsewhere in the Daily Express, Eldon Griffiths, Tory MP and 112

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parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation, criticised GLC police policies beneath the headline ‘Merchants of hate’. The ‘riot’ was thus opened up to an already-existing GLC demonology which could then be turned against other troublesome local authorities. But above all, it was Haringey Council’s leader who provoked the ire of the press. As the Standard, 7 October, explained: ‘Bernie Grant was repeatedly questioned by Pressmen on whether he would condemn the rioters, but he refused’. With a series of controversial statements, most notably that the police had got ‘a bloody good hiding’, Grant refused to shut down the range of possible interpretations of the Broadwater disturbances. Though Grant insisted that his words had been taken out of context, he persistently raised the issue of policing on the estate and refused to allow the community to be labelled as simply ‘criminal’. In so doing, he diverged sharply from the views expressed by sections of the police, prominent Tories and most newspapers. The press response was immediate. The 8 October Sun headlined with ‘It’s Barmy Bernie on the attack’, the Daily Express with ‘Amazing attack on the police by black champion of the Left’, and the Standard called on Kinnock to ‘Give Bernie the boot!’, explaining in a leader that: The only hope of a link between young blacks and the police would have been local community leaders. That this is out of the question in Tottenham is demonstrated by the astonishing attitude of the black leader of Haringey council. Meanwhile the Sun, 9 October, gratuitously described him as ‘peeling a banana and juggling with an orange’ and quoted an anonymous Labour councillor as saying that: ‘Bernie Grant is like the leader of a Black tribe – always looking for battles and shaking his spear. He sees all Whites as his enemy’. On 11 October the Mirror joined in with an attack on ‘the ravings of Mr Bernie Grant’. The contemporaneous Conservative Party Conference at Blackpool provided numerous opportunities to attack Haringey’s black political representatives. On 8 October a junior environment minister announced a Bill to ‘stop ratepayers’ money being used for political purposes’. Two days later, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd dubbed the leaders of Lambeth and Haringey ‘high priests of race conflict’ and singled out Grant as an ‘evil’ which should be expelled from the Labour Party. Hurd argued that these leaders, ‘so far from supporting the police, use . . . 113

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every demagogue’s trick to attack [them] . . . and make their task more difficult’, The Daily Express, 11 October, faithfully reported these comments beneath the headline ‘Comrade Bernie’, with the strapline ‘Britain’s young blacks need this high priest of race conflict like a hole in the head’. The isolation of a criminalised Broadwater Farm was reinforced by the charge that political power was being usurped for subversive ends. These local attacks were given national significance by extending the condemnation of Grant to Labour’s policies at the national level. Noting that Grant was a prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, the Sun, 9 October, ran a leader entitled ‘Listen to Labour’s new voice’ which not only expressed the wish that ‘Bernie Grant should rot in hell’ but warned readers that: ‘With people like that in power, Britain would be swept by riots on a scale to make Tottenham resemble a tea party’. The Daily Mail, 11 October, linked its call for tougher sentencing with a dismissal of Labour’s policies: ‘ ‘‘Accountability’’ is the Socialists’ buzzword. More accountable to whom? To Bernie Grant in Haringey? . . . Why not put the manacles on the police. And be done with it!’ Thus the ongoing criminalisation of Broadwater Farm was increasingly expressed in national terms as an attack on the credibility of the Labour Party in general. As Peregrine Worsthorne explained in the Daily Telegraph, 13 October: A very definite new factor entered, or rather re-entered, British politics last week: fear of the mob. Whether it will prove as big a boon for the Tories as was the Falklands War remains to be seen. But in my view it has the possibility of doing so. ‘The embodiment of this new mob menace to life and property’, Worsthorne elaborated, ‘is Mr Bernie Grant’. The following day’s Daily Telegraph leader accordingly announced Labour’s electoral vulnerability given its alleged infiltration by a ‘new alliance between the far Left, the criminal fringe and the de´classe´ drop-out community’. Such was the venom directed at Bernie Grant by Tory politicians and newspapers that the Guardian, 10 October, devoted a leader to ‘the heady cocktail of demonology’ thrown at the Haringey leader. As this pointed out: He is a directly elected Labour councillor and a caucus elected leader . . . [who] has been warning of a savage breakdown of 114

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Tottenham relations for month after month . . . Now that the breakdown has come he acts as a mouthpiece of defiance for the constituents he represents. While most of the rest of the press alleged that local government in Haringey had been infiltrated and subverted, the Guardian insisted that people such as Grant ‘are the community leaders the community itself has chosen’ and, when they bitterly detail the collapse of relationships with the police, distaste for the message cannot hide the reality of the problem. Television’s definition of the situation also differed, on occasion, from that of most newspapers. (For an extended analysis of televisual representations of urban conflict see Cottle 1993). In particular, programmes such as the BBC’s London Plus, Channel 4’s Diverse Reports and ITV’s TV-Eye and World in Action took a critical look at policing methods, allowed ‘dissident’ voices to have their say, and refused to represent the events at Broadwater Farm as simply a consequence of a breakdown of ‘law and order’. On the other hand, television’s autonomy was only partial, since, on BBC and ITV national news programmes in particular, the notion of criminality did frequently define the agenda. But if television current affairs and local news programmes did, from time to time, recognise the right of local people and their various representatives to be heard, most newspapers flatly denied such claims to democratic representation. Refusing to accept that Broadwater’s black population was organised in terms of any acceptable form of polity, they wrote up the violence not as political analysis but as crime reporting. Violence is, of course, an absolute staple of crime reporting, and within the ideological terms of this particular journalistic genre, as Hall et al. point out (1978: 68), violence ‘represents a fundamental rupture in the social order. The use of violence marks the distinction between those who are fundamentally of society and those who are outside it. It is coterminous with the boundary of society itself’. (For an excellent discussion of the ideology of crime reporting see Chibnall (1977).) Thus those in any way associated with the criminal use of violence are automatically defined, as far as the operations of crime journalism are concerned, as engaging in a form of illegitimate social activity, and can expect to be treated accordingly – as pariahs and hatefigures. With its democratic composition effectively denied, the council was 115

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thus represented as simply ‘anti-police’, its policies aiding criminals rather than representing the ‘majority’. By offering alternative definitions of the situation, councillors were accused of wilfully ignoring the common-sense, ‘obvious’ truth about Broadwater Farm – namely that it was inhabited and run by criminals. By ignoring this plain fact, they and other representatives of the residents were not only acting irrationally, but actually threatening the legal order itself. Increasingly they came to be represented not simply as ‘loony’, but as dangerously authoritarian. Thus by a remarkable ideological conjuring trick, the increasingly authoritarian and arbitrary nature of policing powers was made magically to reappear as the scandalous seizure of the town halls by local tyrants and commissars!

The Iron Fist As for the residents themselves, the view of them which emerged from most newspapers was akin to that of enemy occupiers. Thus, for example, on 3 July 1986, at the height of the law-and-order grande peur, as the very forms of policing partly responsible for the alienation of the Farm’s residents in the first place were being further intensified, and a new Public Order Act which eroded still further the distinction between public protest and criminal activity passed through Parliament, the Daily Express gleefully ran the headline: ‘Riots: time for the iron fist!’. ‘Sir Kenneth and his men’, the following day’s leader thundered, ‘must use whatever means are necessary to ensure that those seeking to foment riots are promptly dispersed, identified and arrested, so that they can be bought to trial and given exemplary sentences’. ‘Those seeking to foment riots’ were identified once more as ‘either left-wing race agitators or young thugs out to loot shops’. In the relentless process of criminalisation, other interpretations of the disturbances were either brusquely swept aside or else completely ignored. For example, following the government’s refusal of an investigation of the events at Broadwater Farm, Haringey Council set up an independent inquiry, chaired by Lord Gifford (to which the police refused to give evidence). The inquiry in turn commissioned a social survey of the estate, led by the noted criminologist Jock Young. The survey’s findings attracted virtually no press attention. The only major report came from the Guardian, 4 July 1986, and this was written by the investigators themselves. ‘Our central, and perhaps paradoxically most 116

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alarming finding’, they argued, ‘is the normality of Broadwater Farm’. There was a ‘remarkably high level of agreement spanning all sections of the community’ that crime was a problem, though decreasingly so, and that the police had given poor service and acted ‘unjustly and illegally’. Furthermore, ‘the young people who took to the streets . . . were themselves worried about crime and more likely to have been victims than offenders. It is not policing that they hated but the way they are being policed’. Meanwhile, the Gifford Report (Gifford 1986) itself was simply rubbished by the mainstream press. In terms of previous research, there was nothing particularly novel about the findings: the violence’s origins were traced to police alienation from the local black community, and the police were found to be hostile and disorganised, insensitive to local needs and given to abusing their powers. Among its many recommendations, the report called for police training in racial awareness, more co-operation with community leaders and increased welfare spending on education, housing and unemployment. The Report was welcomed by the black press as a substantiation of many long-running complaints. The Caribbean Times, 8 July, for example, insisted that: ‘Bernie Grant’s tough and uncompromising stand in exposing the underlying causes of the uprisings on the Broadwater Farm Estate has been vindicated by a hard hitting, no nonsense report’. By contrast, Today, 8 July, focused on Gifford’s ‘outsized social conscience’. The Standard found the reporting wanting in emphasis on the ‘criminal element’. ‘What it calls cooperative policing with the organisations ‘‘which represent the community on Broadwater Farm’’ ’ was flatly rejected by The Times, which insinuated that: ‘Who in practice would run such agencies is not hard to imagine’. The Daily Mail found little space for the report itself; instead, its main news item focused upon the local council’s ‘Guyana-born Marxist leader’, while its editorial slammed the ‘thoroughly anti-police . . . so-called ‘‘independent’’ inquiry’, whose ‘extreme bias makes it worthless’. It concluded that its recommendation for ‘more community control over the police [means] presumably that they should come under the orders of Haringey council chief Bernie Grant’. On television, however, the debate about policing continued apace, at least in local news programmes such as The London Programme, London Plus and Thames Debates, news programmes such as Channel 4 News, and, at considerable length, in impressive Channel 4 current affairs specials such as May the Force Be With You and Inquiry – the Police. 117

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Anti-antiracism As noted above, Conservative politicians and newspapers routinely argued that black unrest was stirred up by ‘agitation’, rather than fuelled by justified grievances. Crucial here were organisations such as the Centre for Policy Studies, the Social Affairs Unit, the Hillgate Group, the Conservative Philosophy Group and the Salisbury Group (from which emanated the Salisbury Review), whose ideas were routinely pedalled in more populist form in the press by pundits such as Ronald Butt, Peregrine Worsthorne, Paul Johnson, George Gale, John Vincent, Andrew Alexander, Ray Mills and Roger Scruton. Chief among the sources of ‘agitation’ for these groups and figures was what they called the ‘race relations industry’, and, in particular, the philosophy of antiracism. And what emerged from their writings, as Paul Gordon has argued, was not just a campaign against anti-racism, but a campaign which used as its means a fertile mixture of intellectual dishonesty, fabrication, smear, innuendo, half-truth and selection. This is not to say that everything done in the name of anti-racism or race equality was beyond reproach or criticism. That, unfortunately, was far from true. But the attacks on local authority policies were not concerned with constructive criticism. They did not distinguish between the good and the bad but were, rather, aimed at anti-racism as such, in almost whatever form it took. (Gordon 1990: 176) Indeed, at its most extreme, anti-antiracism did not simply imply that racism did not matter, but, rather, that it did not actually exist. (For further discussion of anti-antiracism see Murray 1989.) As noted above and in Chapter 1, by the early 1980s, antiracist initiatives had come to occupy a significant place on the left’s political agenda, not least as a result of urban unrest in black communities such as Handsworth and Brixton. However, alarm bells had long rung on the right at any sign of antiracist activity in black and Asian communities. Thus in his famous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech of 20 April 1968, Enoch Powell had specifically targeted those ‘immigrants’ and their sympathisers who, as he saw it, were determined to ‘agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, to overawe and dominate the rest’. For 118

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the right, then, the urban unrest proved conclusively that Powell had been perfectly correct; in their view, what was needed, above all, was law, order, discipline and, if necessary, force majeure. Antiracist measures were, for the right, part of the problem, not part of the solution, as they were seen as actually fostering divisions along racial lines; in addition they were regarded as a waste of public money, an interference with individual and corporate freedom, a form of left-wing propaganda, and both un- and anti-British. As Paul Gordon has pointed out, opposition to municipal antiracism united, as few other issues did, the various tendencies constituting the ‘New Right’: The economic liberals primarily concerned with the freeing of market forces deplored the local state interventions in social and commercial life and saw in municipal anti-racism disincentives to free enterprise and a waste of rate-payers’ money. For their part the social authoritarians seeking the re-establishment of traditional Conservative values saw in municipal anti-racism nothing less than attempts by the far left to subvert British culture and values and to constrain individual freedom (1990: 176) Thus, for example, after the Brixton events of 1981, the Daily Express, 20 April, argued that race relations law was giving black people ‘special status’ and so ‘dividing the two communities, instead of uniting them’, while in The Times, 10 July, Ronald Butt complained that young blacks ‘are instructed that they are discriminated against, oppressed and denied work by a racialist society, and are misused and persecuted by the police’. In such a febrile atmosphere even moderate bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality came under attack. Thus a Daily Telegraph editorial, 8 January 1982, attacked a CRE code of practice on equal opportunities as ‘bossy nonsense’ and the Daily Mail, 30 July 1982, criticised the CRE as an ‘agent for discord’; similarly on 24 October 1983 Andrew Alexander in the Daily Mail dubbed the CRE ‘the equivalent of the Holy Inquisition’ and the Daily Express, 16 May 1984, referred to the ‘thought police of the Commission for Racial Equality’. In the wake of the Broadwater Farm disturbances in 1985, Ronald Butt in The Times, 17 October 1985, claimed that race had become a weapon in a ‘new class war’ in which ‘class warriors’ manipulated blacks, seeing in them a class politics which had otherwise disappeared from Britain. 119

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Meanwhile the Daily Mail, 8 October 1985, linked the unrest with a video on policing produced by the GLC and a cartoon book on racism produced by the CRE as ‘evidence of the torrent of lies and twisted truths that is indoctrinating our society today’. Hardly surprisingly, then, the antiracist policies of the GLC, ILEA and the Labour London boroughs reduced the anti-antiracists of the rightwing press to a state of apoplexy. Thus when in 1983 ILEA set out its antiracist policy for London schools, which merely stressed its commitment to equality for all pupils and called for the removal of all forms of discrimination in schools, the Daily Mail, 30 September, called this ‘reverse discrimination’ and the Daily Express, 2 October, ‘school apartheid’ and ‘racist, patronising, divisive’. The offensive was significantly stepped up when the GLC named 1984/5 as Anti-Racist Year; this was also the moment when certain Labour boroughs decided to make antiracism a political priority. At the Conservative Party conference in 1985 the Party chairman Norman Tebbit attacked ‘the divisive racism preached by the black power merchants of the extreme left’ which he described as ‘as objectionable and destructive as that preached by the white racists of the National Front’. By the time of the events dealt with in this chapter, then, the notion that antiracism is itself a form of racism had become firmly established on the right. A good example of this perverse form of thinking is offered by the Daily Mail, 3 May 1984, in an editorial which declared that: ‘Nowadays racial strife is less likely to be caused by ordinary folk [sic] than by the professionals of the race relations industry who in effect go round looking for ways of stirring it up’. Unsurprisingly Roger Scruton helped to give such ideas an intellectual gloss, arguing in The Times, 30 October 1984, that it was the antiracists who are ‘the real racists’. But the real hero of the anti-antiracists was Ray Honeyford, the Bradford headmaster who, amid howls of outrage from most of the press, was forced to resign after publishing a series of assaults on multicultural education in the Times Educational Supplement and the extremely rightwing journal the Salisbury Review, thereby alienating both his local education authority and many parents at his school. The Daily Mail, 30 October 1984, gave him space to denounce multicultural education as ‘the most dangerous force in Britain today’, while the same paper, 3 April 1985, alleged that the campaign against Honeyford is the work of extremists who ‘prate of the evils of racism’ but themselves ‘personify fascism’. 120

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In similar vein, in the Sunday Telegraph, 30 June 1985, Peregrine Worsthorne stated that: ‘Much more effective than the National Front in stirring up racial hatred today are those ostensibly dedicated to antiracism’. Likewise Paul Johnson, in the Daily Mail, 17 June 1985, compared the ‘primary racism . . . preached by the brutish bigots of the National Front’ with the ‘secondary racism’ of the ‘race relations fanatics’. For Johnson the latter were the ‘more insidious phenomenon’. He continued: ‘I can think of nothing more likely to stir up race trouble in Britain than the activities of these secondary racists . . . the National Front and the race relations doctrinaires are in unconscious alliance’. Another doughty fighter in this particular cause was Roy Kerridge, who argued in the Daily Mail, 15 October 1984, that: ‘The new guerrilla fighters are . . . the black equivalent of those Trotskyites who falsely claim to represent the working man . . . Anti-Racist year, an encouragement to those whose interests lie in a racial power structure, seems to have set the seal of officialdom on a black movement that is essentially no different from the National Front’. As Martin Barker perceptively noted at the time, the notion of racial prejudice was then in the process of being redefined by the right: ‘Here it has nothing to do with disliking foreigners, or with discriminating against them. You are racially prejudiced if you refuse to adopt the characteristic life style of the country in which you have chosen to live’ (1981: 17). Racism is thus reinterpreted as a threat by ‘immigrants’ to the ‘British way of life’. An important ingredient of this way of life, so the thinking goes, is tolerance, easy-goingness, an ability to ‘muck in together’. ‘Immigrants’, with their demands for ‘special rules’ (like Sikhs not wearing crash helmets) and their complaints about such taken-for-granted toys as golliwogs are ‘abusing our hospitality’ and generally ‘rocking the boat’. As Michael Billig et al. have pointed out, such complaints are components of a deeply nationalist ideology: ‘The rules are ‘‘our’’ rules. This is ‘‘our’’ country and, if ‘‘they’’ want to come here, ‘‘they’’ must abide by ‘‘our’’ rules, which constrain ‘‘us’’. If ‘‘they’’ obtain special privileges, then ‘‘they’’ will be receiving unequal treatment’ (1988: 120). Thus if an employer doesn’t want to employ a black person then that’s their choice, and their decision can actually be defended in the name of equality and fairness, since there’s nothing forcing them to employ a white person either. This whole ‘commonsensical’ edifice is, of course, founded on the notion that the British way of life is fair and reasonable; thus anybody who questions it is by 121

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definition unreasonable and prejudiced. From this kind of thinking arises the conclusion that: The truly ‘prejudiced’ are forcing us, by accusing ‘us’ unfairly of being prejudiced, to change ‘our’ language. And how could ‘our’ language have been prejudiced, when the words describe such neutral things as colours and dolls? . . . ‘Our’ language, our reasonable and traditional ways of life are being threatened by an unreasonable way of life, a prejudiced way of life. (Billig et al. 1988: 121–2) In more directly political terms, the attractions of anti-antiracism for the Thatcher government are not exactly hard to fathom. As David Edgar put it at the time: On one level, the issue can bring together in a neat package the currently fashionable issues of education, local government, law and order and personal morality . . . But most centrally of all, antianti-racism provides a means to transfer responsibility for the most visible and threatening sector of the young unemployed (and thereby responsibility for the problems, including civil unrest, connected in the public mind with that unemployment) away from the state and toward the black community itself, aided and abetted by the sinister forces manipulating it. (1988: 133) Nowhere was the ideological battle against antiracism waged more fiercely than around Brent, after Maureen McGoldrick, the headteacher of Sudbury Infants School was suspended on 18 July 1986 by the local education committee for making an allegedly racist remark. Supposedly she had told a council education officer that she did not want any more black teachers at her school. McGoldrick claimed she had been misheard or misunderstood, and on 26 August the school governors rejected the allegation of racism against her. However, the council refused to reinstate her, and on 5 September most teachers at Sudbury went on indefinite strike in her support, backed by the local branch of the National Union of Teachers, the Brent Teachers’ Association. On 12 September McGoldrick and the NUT won an interim injunction preventing Brent from holding their proposed disciplinary hearing until the 122

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issue had been aired in open court, and shortly thereafter Education Secretary Kenneth Baker wrote to the council asking for the reasons for the head’s continuing suspension. On 22 October the High Court ruled that McGoldrick should not be submitted to a disciplinary hearing by the council, but Brent appealed and McGoldrick remained suspended. At this point, by which time the ‘race spies’ allegation (see pp. 125–34) had further fuelled the fires of controversy, Baker sent inspectors to examine Brent’s schools and Brent teachers threatened to strike over the head’s continuing suspension. On 5 November McGoldrick was reinstated pending the council’s appeal and returned to her school. On 19 November Brent won its appeal but in his ruling Sir John Donaldson indicated that although Brent was entitled in principle to proceed with its hearing it should not actually do so. The council, however, decided to go ahead. On 28 November Baker again wrote to Brent asking for details of the charges against McGoldrick and demanding why it was proceeding with the hearing in spite of Sir John’s remarks. Unhappy with Brent’s reply Baker reiterated his questions on 3 December. Meanwhile the NUT sought a High Court injunction and leave to appeal to the Lords. Still dissatisfied with Brent’s responses Baker took legal advice with a view to halting the hearing by using powers under Section 68 of the 1944 Education Act. On 15 December the NUT won its injunction and McGoldrick was granted leave to apply for a judicial review of Brent’s decision to proceed with the hearing. The following day Baker invoked the Education Act and directed the council not to proceed with any further action against McGoldrick. The council complied. It now seems clear that McGoldrick never made a racist remark in the first place, and had simply told a council official that she did not want any teachers, black or white, who had no experience of teaching infants. This appears to have been misunderstood, either accidentally or deliberately, by the official in question, and by the end of the day in question the story was circulating in Brent that a head had refused to accept any more black teachers at her school. Pressure then mounted on the council from those involved in the Equal Opportunities in Employment Agenda to make an example of the headteacher, and both officers and councillors were left in no doubt by sections of the black and Asian communities in Brent that this was an opportunity to show that they meant business when it came to enforcing the council’s antiracist policies. In order fully to understand the import of what follows, a degree of contextualisation is vital. 123

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During the 1970s, Brent had the highest proportion of black and Asian people to white of any borough in Britain. Here, as elsewhere, and as described in Chapter 1, members of the minority communities became increasingly involved in local politics during that decade; amongst other initiatives the Asian Labour Party Association was formed, and people of Asian and Caribbean origin were encouraged to join the Party and to attend local ward meetings. The overall aim was to ensure that black and Asian candidates, or at least candidates sympathetic to these communities’ views, were represented on shortlists for ward elections. Such initiatives were greeted more sympathetically on the left of the Party than on the right; in particular, the right accused certain white, left-wing Labour councillors of behaving in a self-interested manner towards the minority communities, and stories of local Labour infighting soon made their way into papers such as the Daily Mail. By 1986 people from the black and Asian communities had made significant inroads into Brent politics. In March that year the council published the Two Kingdoms report which found that children from certain sections of those communities were dramatically underachieving educationally, and the council’s education policies stemmed directly from this report. However, in the implementation of these policies, the leadership of the local NUT branch, the Brent Teachers’ Association, began to feel increasingly sidelined, while many black and Asian members of the BTA, feeling that the Association’s leadership lacked commitment to the antiracist cause, organised themselves around the Equal Opportunities in Employment Agenda (EOEA), mainly in order to increase recruitment of black and Asian teachers in schools whose pupils, especially in the south of the borough, often came largely from these communities. Clearly, then, the splits within the local Labour Party were mirrored in the BTA. In the specific context of the McGoldrick affair, the theme of antiantiracism first appeared in a Standard leader on 15 September 1986 entitled ‘Thought police’, which argued that the ‘inverted racism’ of education authority chairman Ron Anderson in suspending the head teacher would be preposterous anywhere. In Brent, which is more than 50% black, it is actually subversive, exacerbating racial tensions and creating new tensions where none existed. To create a situation where the merest rumour of discrimination is enough to get a head 124

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teacher suspended or a job interview stopped is to inculcate the very prejudices Brent Council is supposed to be fighting. However, it was the apparent discovery by the Mail on Sunday, 19 October 1986, of the council’s plan to appoint what it called ‘race spies’ in Brent’s schools that gave the anti-antiracist theme its biggest boost.

‘Race Spies’ The ‘race spies’ story occupied the front page of the Mail on Sunday under the headline ‘Race spies shock’ and continued on pages 12–13 under the heading ‘Analysis’. It was also the subject of the paper’s ‘Opinion’ column. The front-page article began: ‘Race commissars in a left-wing borough are recruiting 180 Thought Police to patrol schools for prejudice. And they will be paid out of a £5 million Government grant intended to promote racial harmony’. Noting that teachers were working in a ‘climate of fear’ and that government ministers, ‘powerless to prevent taxpayers money being used’, were worried that other local authorities may follow suit it continued: Brent plans to put a race adviser in every school from January. They will be backed by project teams who will move in at the first sign of prejudice. The 180 advisers will have the power to interfere in every aspect of school life . . . from discipline to the curriculum. Inside, the ‘Analysis’ feature fulminated: The plan is Orwellian. In every school teachers will be monitored for a ‘correct’ attitude towards racial matters. Those who do not conform will lose their jobs. Lessons will be watched and leisure activities, such as playgroups and school libraries, will be put under the microscope. Everybody and everything will be forced to conform to what the Race Relations Department of Brent Council regards as appropriate behaviour. It then went on to analyse (in a highly misleading fashion, as we shall see) how the ‘race spies’ were to be financed: Brent gets £5 million in grants under Section II of the Local Government Act 1966. And it is this money which will be used 125

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for this scheme. Councils up and down the country have discovered this Act as a way of getting money for extremely dubious purposes. The bill for government-backed race workers has grown from £3 million in 1967, when the grants were introduced and when workers in this field were all doing a legitimate and necessary job, to £55 million by 1980 and nearly double that this year. The article then explained that Brent and other councils originally spent this money on extra teachers with the aim of overcoming black children’s record of low achievement. Now, however, Brent was to spend the money on ‘race advisers’, the so-called ‘race spies’. The Mail on Sunday article concluded with a quotation from a ‘very senior teacher who begged not to be identified’ which expressly echoed the idea that antiracism is itself a form of racism: Brent Council is not interested in black people or genuinely helping minorities. It is interested only in revolution. It wants to politicise every black man, woman and child in the borough so that they become the foot soldiers of its revolutionary ambitions. These people’s interest is in keeping black people down. They need black disaffection. The only people exploiting the black people in Brent are the racists of Brent Council. It is a racist council because it is using the legitimate and sometimes very painful grievances of black people for their own purposes. ‘That is true cynicism,’ the article concluded, ‘that is true evil. And that is true racism’. This, though, was nothing compared to what the ‘Opinion’ column had to say, which is worth quoting in full as the most extreme and militant example of the kind of sentiments pedalled by large sections of the British press during the McGoldrick affair: The appointment of 180 Racial Awareness Officers to operate as Race Commissars to sit in every school in Brent shames the nation. George Orwell’s Thought Police have arrived. The barbarism of totalitarianism where the only wisdom is the State’s wisdom, and the only Truth the State’s Truth, is upon us. In Brent they cannot send teachers who do not conform or obey the diktats of the Commissars to the salt mines. They can – and they have shown time and time again they will 126

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– drive them out of their jobs. Those who wish to appoint the Race Commissars are not, of course, the slightest bit interested in the genuine problems of the black minority in this country. They are useful to them only as the foot soldiers of the revolution of which they dream. A few years ago one could have dismissed them with amused contempt. But the tag ‘The Loony Left’ simply will no longer do. The Trotskyists have seized Brent and Manchester. They are deeply entrenched elsewhere too. Their aim is quite simply: To bring our democratic society crashing down around our bourgeois ears. They do not disguise the fact that this is their long-term aim. Brent is but the beginning. We’ve been warned. The Government needs to act to limit their powers. The Labour Party under whose banner they ostensibly stand, must drive them out. The response by other papers was immediate and ferocious. For example on 20 October, Today’s leader column accused Brent of ‘sinister excesses’ and the Daily Express quoted Rhodes Boyson as saying that the scheme ‘reminded him of the 1950s US Communists trials when people were destroyed by smear campaigns’. In the same paper, Jon Akass remarked: ‘What is happening in Brent is not so much loony as evil’ and continued with an appeal to British ‘common sense’: Brent does not need advisers any more than it needs co-ordinators and liaison officers. The proper business of a council is to empty dustbins . . . These new narks are much given to graphs and tables. It would be interesting to see a graph which sets the proliferation of advisers against incidents of racial disharmony. The more advisers, the more the mayhem. In the same day’s Daily Telegraph, a leader entitled ‘Race disgrace’ broadened the attack to take in much more than just the antiracist policies of Brent, or even the activities of left-wing boroughs in general. Furthermore, without any apparent irony or sense of contradiction, it demanded precisely the same kind of autocratic, interventionist behaviour that it accused Brent Council itself of practising. Its remarkably authoritarian language makes it worth quoting at some length: It is unpleasant, and potentially dangerous, for central government to override democratically-elected local authorities. But as the 127

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Government watches the race relations policies of Brent Council proceeding from the absurd to the evil, it may feel it has no choice but to act. Two million pounds of taxpayers’ money is to be used to create 180 jobs for ‘race advisers’ – every Brent school will have at least one – their eyes peeled and their ears cocked for ‘racist’ remarks or gestures, real or imagined. The evil of such a policy has been seen too often lately. Teachers with unblemished records have been hounded, their careers destroyed and their families harassed, for placing teaching before politics. Such persecution has hitherto been ad hoc. Now Brent proposes to institutionalise it. For too long there has been too much unquestioned defence of the manufactured sensibilities of the race relations lobby. This action by Brent, which will lead to the indoctrination of children, the loss of good teachers, the lowering of standards and the subversion of the British educational ethos throughout an entire London borough, signals that enough is enough. The race relations demagogues of Brent have accrued to themselves power and influence of ridiculous proportions and the borough’s education responsibilities are being gravely neglected. Mr Baker, the Education Secretary, cannot allow this to go on. If necessary, Brent must be made an example of. Power must be turned over to parents, governors and head teachers. But first, Government inspectors should go in to report on what needs to be done to cater principally for the educational – and not the ethnological – needs of the borough’s children. Government-appointed commissioners should hire teachers according to their aptitudes, and head teachers for those schools currently without one. In short, the Government must make education in Brent fit to be handed over to those who should control it. Fundamentally, the Home Secretary must review the clause in the 1966 Local Government Act that empowers the Government to pay for such illiberal beings as race officers to be employed, and such abuses should never be allowed to happen again. The Government says it cares about education. This is an ideal chance to prove it. The Sun ran the story under the headline ‘Spies in class to spy on sir’, and in a leader entitled ‘Nightmare’ it warned: In Russia, political commissars in offices, factories and the armed forces ensure that the people keep to the Communist party line. In 128

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Brent, England, the left-wing council are plotting to catch the citizens earlier – in the schools. Some 180 race advisers are being installed to snoop on teachers for any hint of deviation. Were the nation mad enough to vote for Labour at the next election, there would be one certain result. The nightmare of Brent would become the nightmare of Britain [emphasis in the original]. Finally, on 20 October, it was the turn of the Standard. Once again the anti-antiracist argument is hammered home, in tandem with the by now familiar call for the firm smack of central government: Labour councils in London who spend a fortune on the rates to eradicate racism and sexism from their boroughs often appear more absurd than dangerous. These middle-class white activists in Ealing or Camden or Islington are the kind of people for whom the tabloid phrase ‘loony Left’ seemed exactly fitting. But ‘loony Left’ suggests an amused toleration. What Brent councillors are doing to their local schools is not funny, and is not to be tolerated. There is nothing loony about their perversion of education in Brent. They are building up to a systematic control of what is taught and how as can be witnessed in Komsomol schools in the Soviet Union. And they are doing so through fear, and through intimidation . . . Black and Asian schoolchildren outnumber white pupils in the borough. But it is not in their interests for the council to exacerbate the race issue. Black parents as well as white want their children to be educated – and educated to get on in a society which is predominantly English in its culture and values. By obstructing this aim, and discriminating against white job applicants, Brent councillors are inciting racial prejudice rather than the opposite. Before their bigoted and oppressive system of control leads to a complete collapse of parental confidence in the schooling of their children, the Government must step in and give education back to the parents, governors and head teachers with whom it rightly belongs. If this requires legislation, in advance of Mr Kenneth Baker’s Education Bill, then so be it. Brent must be made an example of. Had there been any truth at the heart of what the Mail on Sunday had originally claimed, this would indeed have been cause for concern. However, such is the pack-like nature of most British newspapers, and 129

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so politically partisan are they, that the story was simply recycled in the most unsceptical manner imaginable. Furthermore, such was the haste with which Baker called for a report after the Mail on Sunday broke its story that it’s difficult not to suspect a degree of collusion between his office and the paper (although it should be noted that the Home Office, which funded the posts in question, strongly rejected the paper’s claims). So what was the truth of the matter? Ever since 1976 Brent had been receiving money under Section II of the 1966 Housing and Local Government Act in order to improve the provision of education for people of Commonwealth origin. Such grants were available to cover special staff costs for local authorities in areas like Brent where there are large black and Asian communities. Up until summer 1986 Brent had been using these funds mainly to employ black teachers in generalist posts which gave them special responsibility for improving the education of pupils of Commonwealth origin. At this point, however, the Home Office, after reviewing the way in which Section II grants were being spent, asked all local authorities to reapply for their grants, specifying in detail which jobs would be funded and why. At the same time, Brent had devised the Development Programme for Race Equality in order to try to counter the educational problems described in the Two Kingdoms report which the council had published in March 1986. This found that sections of the borough’s black and Asian population were dramatically under-achieving educationally, and the council’s antiracist policies in education stemmed directly from this report. The Development Programme’s aim was: ‘To enable schools to develop methodologies, structures and curricula which will improve the attainment and life-chances of black pupils, and thereby create greater race equality’. The Programme was based on the idea that the promotion of race equality in schools required three main kinds of change and development: curriculum development, staff development, and organisational development. At the start there was a total of 55 posts, of which 52 were teaching posts and 3 clerical and administrative. Fiftyone of the teaching posts were based in schools, and all of these were under the day-to-day supervision of head teachers. Their overall task was to assist heads in the developments mentioned above. The posts were funded under Section II, and appointments were made during the first half of October 1986 – immediately prior to the ‘race spies’ story. The full story of the Programme, and the extremely destructive effects 130

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of the ‘race spies’ story on its development, can be found in Richardson (1992). Richardson, who was chief inspector of education in Brent from 1985 to 1990, notes that even some of the more apparently ‘neutral’ language in the original Mail on Sunday story, such as ‘race adviser’, appeared nowhere in any of the documentation about the Development Programme. He also confirms that the paper never contacted officials in the borough to check if the story was accurate, that other papers simply followed the Mail on Sunday’s line without bothering to check the facts with the council, and that none of the papers attacking the council ever quoted directly from Brent’s own official documentation about the Development Programme. It’s also worth noting that after the Programme had been in operation for a year, two independent studies were made of it, one by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate and one by Sir David Lane (a former Tory MP) on behalf of the Home Office. Both were largely positive, and Lane’s report explicitly stated that: ‘The DPRE teachers are in no sense ‘‘spies’’ but are seeking to play their proper role as catalysts and stimulators of new ideas and practices’. Lane also stated that the press coverage of the DPRE had been ‘outrageous’ and ‘disgraceful’. None of the positive comments in either report was quoted by the press, and the Mail on Sunday even used the publication of Lane’s report as an opportunity to repeat its ‘race spies’ smear! Unfortunately, however, the Government preferred to act on the basis of newspaper versions of events rather than on the actual facts of the matter. The Home Office suspended its commitment to funding the Programme, and refused to accept Lane’s report until yet another committee of inquiry had been set up. Furthermore, the press campaign demoralised many of the original staff, who soon left the Programme, and made it difficult to recruit new ones when the Home Office finally conceded that the Programme was indeed eligible for Section II funding. In the end, it was killed off by a combination of rate capping and Brent education committee falling to Tory control. Returning, however, to the original press onslaught, we find that The Times, 21 October 1986, devoted much of its leader, ‘Exploiting race’, to the story. Having listed various manifestations of alleged council lunacy (including ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’) it then went on to deal with the ‘leftist borough’ of Brent which it stated is in many senses a pathfinder in the use of public funds for political purposes and malign political causes, and nowhere more 131

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conspicuously than by its proliferation of advisory jobs in the area of race relations. Unproductive in any ordinary sense, they are highly productive of what the hard left wants: social discord. The leader repeated the other papers’ false claim that the new posts would be responsible not to individual heads but to the borough’s chief race relations officer, and continued that Section II funding in practice is too often used to teach what is miscalled anti-racism, and even to promote the idea that teaching English is a sign of colonialism. The new Brent appointments, therefore, are under suspicion of amounting to planting in schools the agents of the local authority who will have power to intervene anywhere in the curriculum, or with discipline, and whose job will be to see that head teachers and all teachers are obeying anti-racist orthodoxy. Moreover, education in Brent is already riddled with conflict with schools suffering the loss of teachers unwilling to live with political interference and the fear of being accused of racism. All this breeds the very thing, racialism, which it purports to prevent. Anger is stirred up among decent white people who resent the accusation of racism and the demand that racial disadvantage should be overcome not by teaching English to those who need it but by teaching ‘anti-racism’. The implication is clear – Brent could not be trusted to use the Home Office money for ‘genuine teaching jobs’. But the question is then raised whether ‘funding under Section II should continue at all, given the available evidence of the kind of people into whose hands it falls, and who disburse it to their own ends’. Thus revelations of Home Office funding were not used – as indeed they were by the Guardian and the Independent – to suggest that the story had been twisted out of all recognition by Baker and his numerous press allies. Instead they were used to suggest that the funding should be stopped altogether: what wasn’t mentioned anywhere was that the original decision to employ these staff had originally been agreed by all the parties on the council. Undoubtedly the most extreme example of the antiracism-as-racism thesis generated by the ‘race spies’ affair was a cartoon from the Daily Mail, 24 October (see over). The same day’s paper also devoted a leader to the subject of ‘loony Left’ boroughs which, although it did not 132

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mention Brent specifically, concentrated heavily on the question of antiracism, arguing that: They do not want to see the younger generation of coloured children assimilated or integrated. They want them radicalised; glorying in their separate identify as blacks; preserving the chips on their shoulders with that pride which is instilled in soldiers for their regimental insignia. Just as the Scargillites were ready to conscript the miners as cannon fodder in a class war to smash this country’s economic system and its Rule of Law, so there are Trotskyites and other factions of the revolutionary and anarchist left – men and women whose power flourishes like rank weeds in our decaying inner cities – who would recruit underprivileged blacks to man the barricades.

Of course, one expects these enrage´ sentiments from rightist papers such as the Daily Mail. But it’s curious to find them in the Guardian too, which, along with the Independent, reported the McGoldrick affair in a far better informed way than the rest of Fleet Street. However, in a 133

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leader of 28 October the Guardian accused the council of pursuing McGoldrick in order to avert ‘a possible loss of face within the psycho-drama of London Labour town hall politics’. There may indeed be some truth in this, but the leader then continued: ‘Anti-racism is too important to be left to the anti-racists. Their effect – perhaps even their aim – is to provoke racism rather than to damage it’. It concluded that: The kind of anti-racism which says that it is better for white teachers to lose their jobs unfairly than for white staff to teach predominantly non-white children would be racism by any other name. There is evidence that this is now happening in Brent. The problem is, however, that much of that ‘evidence’ came either from the government or from their allies in the press, and, as we have seen, is unreliable in the extreme. The fact that the Guardian published such a leader, which actually went against the spirit of much of its own reporting on both racism in general and Brent in particular, showed just how successful the Conservative government and press had been in setting this particular agenda, and just how isolated and demonised Brent had become by the end of October 1986.

‘The Amazing Kenneth Baker’ Just as the Broadwater Farm events were used both to criminalise dissent in black communities and to argue for an extension of the powers of central government over local police forces, so was the allegedly awful state of education in Brent put to work in order both to attack antiracist initiatives and to agitate for greater central government control over local education authorities, and indeed over the school curriculum itself. In 1986 education was firmly on the political agenda thanks to one of the Tories’ perennial campaigns to ‘keep politics out of the classroom’. In May in the Lords various Tory peers tried to attach to the Education Bill a ban on the teaching of certain subjects, inspiring the headlines ‘Tory bid to ban ‘‘biased’’ lessons’ in Today, 19 May, and ‘Kick out politics from classrooms’ in the same day’s Daily Mail. Particularly significant in the context of Brent was a series of comments by the outgoing Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph in which he attempted to counter suggestions in the recently published Annual 134

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Report by Her Majesty’s Inspectors that the secondary education system was being damaged by lack of resources caused by Tory budget cuts. Joseph’s explanation for the deficiencies which the Inspectors had perceived was, however, very different, namely ‘poor teacher quality’ and ‘ethnic bias’. Needless to say, what Joseph meant by ‘ethnic bias’ was entirely opposed to what antiracists would mean. Thus under the headline ‘Sir Keith hits out at ethnic bias’, the Daily Telegraph, 22 May 1986, sympathetically noted that, according to Joseph: ‘Children from ethnic minorities should learn their culture at home and not in schools’, adding that he had called for schools to ‘transmit British culture, enriched as it has been by so many traditions . . . It would be unnecessary, therefore, and I believe wrong, to turn our education system upside down to accommodate ethnic variety’. Inevitably, other right-wing papers eagerly picked up on Joseph’s remarks. The same day’s Daily Mail gave it front-page prominence and quoted him at length. According to the Mail, Joseph said that racial prejudice was a serious obstacle to the Government’s aims of eliminating educational under-achievement by pupils from all backgrounds and preparing them for life in an ethnically mixed society. However, it also quoted him as saying that: ‘The majority community does not have a monopoly of prejudice’ and that ‘turning the system upside down to accommodate ethnic variety’ was a position which ‘offers a spurious justification for prejudice – for the self-indulgent bias of those who in any case want to subvert our fundamental values and institutions’. Elsewhere an article headed ‘The education crisis’ discussed the Inspectors’ report and did indeed touch on inadequate resources. However, its sub-heading – ‘It’s not so much lack of finance as inadequate teaching and management, say school inspectors’ – clearly suggested a preferred reading of the piece, as did the box at the top of the article, headed ‘The main message, by Sir Keith’, in which he argued that ‘schools and colleges need not only adequate resources, but also a better trained and better deployed teaching force – and better management and leadership’. Thus when Kenneth Baker took over as Education Secretary in May there was a major ideological battle being waged around education, with very different reasons being advanced for what was generally perceived as its poor state. On the one hand, scarcity of resources resulting from Tory cuts, on the other, ‘militant’ teachers, the politicisation of the curriculum, and the activities of ‘loony Left’ councils and 135

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local education authorities. In the circumstances it was hardly surprising that Baker came to his new job on an explicitly anti- ‘loony left’ plank, one which he was to exploit to the utmost. Indeed, his first public statements were promises to lessen local government responsibility for education by developing a new school governors system with a significant degree of parental involvement and setting up a network of ‘city technology colleges’ with large inputs of private capital. In the specific case of Brent, the council argued that the educational under-achievement of many of the borough’s black and Asian children could be at least partly attributed to racial disadvantage, whereas Conservative politicians and newspapers insisted that education in the borough was in crisis because of the council’s antiracist policies. Thus, for example, the Daily Telegraph, 3 September, reported that: ‘The council is determined to increase the number of black and Asian teachers – a policy which, say Conservatives, has in practice left gaping holes in school staff lists’, a view which the paper endorsed in a leader on 5 September which explained the teacher shortages in terms of ‘intimidation’ and ‘extremism’. Meanwhile the Times Educational Supplement, 12 September, cited the fact that: ‘in recent months Brent has lost its chief executive, its chief education officer and its deputy chief education officer’ and implicitly linked this with ‘intense pressure from the ruling Labour group to implement the authority’s race relations policies vigorously’. The Sunday Times, 14 September, interviewed a former director of education in Brent, under the headline ‘Council meddling made me quit’, who complained of ‘inverted racism’. The Times Educational Supplement, 3 October, ran an article entitled ‘Heads set to quit over race discipline row’ which rested largely on unattributed opinions ‘voiced by black activists from Brent attending the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool’ which suggested that the disciplining of McGoldrick would be a small price to pay for winning the support of a growing black electorate, and that any exodus of white heads could well lead to the appointment of more black ones. The following day the Daily Mail ran a gloss on this piece headed ‘Blacks’ campaign to drive out heads’, while on 15 December another Daily Mail article exposed what it claimed to be ‘the racial obsessions and political extremism haunting thousands of parents and teachers’ in Brent. It was a Daily Telegraph leader of 5 September, entitled ‘A whiff of Orwell’, which first called on Kenneth Baker to intervene. According to the Telegraph, the McGoldrick incident was ‘flagrantly designed to 136

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intimidate teachers in our many mixed schools’ and ‘calls for an unequivocal response from an Education Minister who claims to be as sensible as Mr Baker’. Other calls soon followed. On 15 September the Standard took up the Orwellian leitmotiv with a leader entitled ‘Thought Police’, which linked the actions of Brent with countries such as Ethiopia, Cuba and South Africa and concluded that: Totalitarian councils have a lot of power to misuse, when they choose to. Brent’s misuse of power has created unhappiness and demoralisation in every school in the borough, not least among those black teachers who see their cause being caricatured in the name of political ‘correctness’. Until the Government can diminish the power of these authorities, in places such as Brent education will always take second place. And on 4 October a Daily Mail leader argued that: Whatever the councillors’ motives, their bullying methods are inexcusable. Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker, who has already asked Brent Council to state why Miss McGoldrick was suspended last July, should consider sending inspectors to examine urgently the whole educational situation in the borough. Thus the response from much of the press to what it unequivocally represented as Brent’s ‘bullying’ was to demand the firm smack of central government on the democratically elected local authority – or, from a different perspective, bullying! In fact, Baker needed no invitation to intervene, and, as mentioned earlier apropos the ‘race spies’, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that government and press colluded in fanning the Brent flames as a means of legitimising Conservative plans to centralise further the educational system. Ammunition to support such a view was provided by the Daily Express, 21 October. Firstly there was a front page article based on an interview with Thatcher headed ‘Maggie vows to take on Left: I’ll break classroom wreckers’. This invoked the Brent case to clearly party political ends: Mrs Thatcher is to take on extreme Left-wing councils to bring order and standards back into the classroom. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Express yesterday she promised tough action to 137

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protect children from being brainwashed and to keep political indoctrination out of the playground. And she spoke of her ‘horror’ at the antics of hard line Labour councils such as Brent, London, which is spending £5 million on sending 180 anti-race ‘spies’ into schools. A secret Cabinet committee is working on a Tory-led classroom revolution. Among the ideas being discussed: a nationally required basic syllabus to be incorporated in the new GCSE certificate to ensure standards in English, arithmetic, reading and writing. A new deal on pay and conditions of teachers with the possibility they may be employed on fresh contracts by the Government instead of by the local authority. Handing real power to head teachers, governors, parents and pupils to run the schools free from the interference by local politicians using direct Government cash. Greater competition and parental choice with a move towards more of the old-style direct grant schools. The proposals are all up for inclusion in the Tory election manifesto. The Prime Minister’s determination to get to grips with State schools will lead to the biggest shake-up since the war . . . She stressed that although the taxpayer had to fund the system, the Government had very little power to control it. She went on: ‘This is exercising our minds very much because centralisation is not the thing we wish to have. But you have got, nevertheless, to make jolly certain that children are taught certain things and are taught them properly. It is ironic that the reason central government did not take these powers was to avoid the very political indoctrination which is occurring in some schools’. Secondly, the Daily Express devoted a leader to the same subject: With her blunt promise to stop political commissars of Left-wing councils turning our schools into Soviet-style propaganda camps Mrs Thatcher has brought hope to millions of worried parents. For years they have watched standards decline as the tentacles of those only interested in indoctrination have spread across the school timetable. With the unemployment queues growing and academic standards falling, they were rightly worried about their children’s prospects. In Brent we have witnessed just about every kind of political abuse of the education system imaginable. Elsewhere in London, Haringey, Ealing and above all the schools run by the Inner London Education Authority millions of pounds have been 138

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spent on the wrong kind of lessons. This tragic madness is nationwide. Parents on Merseyside, in Manchester and many other areas face the same lunacy. Lessons such as peace studies have too often replaced attention to basic standards of reading, writing and arithmetic. Alongside them, ratepayers’ money is thrown away on spurious race relations exercises, gay and lesbian rights, and the menacing monitoring of the police. Jobs-for-the-boys are dished out faster than rate demands and rapid increases in bureaucracy are justified as some kind of crazy job creation scheme to reduce unemployment. The Government can be blamed for having been tardy in moving on these issues and in allowing a desperate helplessness to descend on so many homes. They have been understandably anxious not to upset local feelings. We sympathise with the Prime Minister’s concern to keep central government out of the educational system. This has been the explanation for their reluctance to be over-involved. But given the seriousness of the issue of local educational power, she is right to promise to act now. And as Mrs Thatcher moves to sort out those who want to bend the minds of your young, so given a third term in Downing Street, she will cut the town hall politburo down to size. Her fight back for sanity and the British way of life is as welcome as it is overdue. The only consolation for those living under the yoke of Socialist town halls is that they are learning through bitter experience just where to place their cross when Mrs Thatcher calls the next General Election. On 23 October, the day after Brent announced its appeal against the High Court ruling forbidding it to hold a disciplinary hearing, a Standard leader thundered: Now the time has come for Mr Baker to go to Miss McGoldrick’s aid with all the force his Whitehall department can muster. He must ensure her short and long-term protection against those who will seek revenge. For the sake of the future of our teaching system, Mr Baker must prevent local councillors ever again setting themselves up as kangaroo courts. It was left to The Sunday Times, 2 November, to make the most explicit link so far between the McGoldrick case and Tory plans to centralise the educational system. Brent and other London Labour councils are only 139

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mentioned briefly, but their baleful presence lurks behind the entire piece. According to the paper: The Government is preparing to revolutionise British education if it wins the next general election. Kenneth Baker, the education secretary, is intent on following up his decision to take control of teachers’ pay away from local councils and the teaching unions with a historic bill giving head teachers and school governors new and sweeping powers. Moves towards a common curriculum for schools are also being considered as part of the new legislation, which is likely to be trailed in the Conservative election manifesto. Baker considers that local education authorities have too much control over school curricula and that the emphasis needs to return to basic subjects. Without the barest hint of irony the Sunday Times also quoted Baker to the effect that ‘too many authorities are centralist’! Brent’s decision to go ahead with its disciplinary hearing after winning its appeal before Sir John Donaldson brought forth yet another press chorus of appeals to Baker. Thus the Daily Mail leader, 29 November, argued that: The object surely is to inspire widespread fear which will paralyse all opposition to whatever these gauleiters choose to do. It is time that Mr Kenneth Baker stepped in and put an end to the terrorisation of the schools in Brent. The Daily Express leader, ‘Bigots of Brent’, concluded on a similar note: ‘Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker, should use his powers to end this wretched business himself’. And indeed, amid a flurry of well-managed press coverage, Baker wrote to Brent on the same day asking why the council was going ahead with its plans for a disciplinary hearing and what the charges against McGoldrick actually were. The Daily Mail, 9 December, devoted a leader to the subject entitled ‘Discrimination in reverse’. After yet another attack on Brent’s antiracist policies came the by now routine pay-off: Mr Kenneth Baker, the Secretary for Education, is determined that teachers should be assessed on their abilities. We are with him in that. But he must make very sure that it is head teachers with heads of department, and not rabid councils like Brent, who do the assessing. 140

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Parents, governors and head teachers should have more say in how their schools are run. Central government should have more power to lay down academic standards. And the meddlesome role of local education authorities should wither away. That is the administrative revolution in education to which Kenneth Baker is committed. It can’t come soon enough for our children. Their schooling is far too precious to remain the plaything of municipal gangs of political paranoids, who regard promotion on merit as a white racist plot. The Express, 13 December, certainly left Baker in little doubt as to what he should do. Unusually it did actually raise the question of how a government committed to lessening state involvement could intervene in the affairs of an elected local authority, but then failed to address it: The Secretary of State for Education is given sweeping powers under the 1944 Education Act. He can block any authority’s actions if he thinks them unreasonable. Of course, these powers should be used with caution, and we would expect any government – like Mrs Thatcher’s – committed to rolling back the frontiers of the State to be extremely careful about invoking them. But surely Mr Kenneth Baker is right to intervene in the case of race-row headmistress, Maureen McGoldrick . . . It is time Brent’s Labour rulers were sharply reminded that Brent is a suburb of London and not, as they appear to think, of Moscow or Havana. Only the State, in the person of the Education Secretary, can come to Miss McGoldrick’s rescue. He must act now. This, however, was as nothing compared to the eulogy to Baker which flowed from the pen of Paul Johnson in the Daily Mail on 15 December. The paean was entitled ‘This man is bad news for Kinnock and good news for Britain’s parents’ and was one of the most overt attempts to justify the Tories’ controversial education plans by invoking the spectre of extreme left-wing education authorities. Reminiscent of the kind of article about Stalin and other Soviet leaders which used to appear in Pravda, it began with breathless gush of the most fawning kind about ‘the amazing Kenneth Baker’ who had ‘in a few short months transformed the education scene’. This ‘astute politician with an extraordinary skill in translating ideas swiftly into accomplished fact’ had recently ‘hustled through the Commons his dramatic new Education 141

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Bill’ and ‘outlined proposals for the biggest educational reform in over 40 years’. And as if all this wasn’t enough, ‘Baker is hustling through a key pilot project’, namely the city technology colleges. The alternative to Johnson’s rosy vision of Baker’s brave new educational world was, of course, an ‘orgy of witch-hunting’ by Labour councils ‘against head teachers who do not toe their political line in all its fanatical details’. Thus centralising measures were necessary to bypass the Labour bigots who think ‘peace studies’, ‘racial consciousness’ and perverted sex lessons are more important than the ‘three R’s’, let alone the technical knowledge that our children must acquire to get jobs in the modern world. He is going to end the power of those who want to end competitive games, depress the cleverest child to the level of the dullest, and who regard ‘success’ as a dirty word. According to the leader in the Guardian, December 17, neither Brent nor Baker came out of the McGoldrick affair unblemished. Brent, it argued, was to blame for allowing the affair to become ‘a test of political virility between the council and Whitehall’. On the other hand the paper was the only one to examine critically the way in which Baker used the affair to advance his centralising strategy, arguing that: He has taken the McGoldrick case and squeezed it for every drop of party political advantage in the current crusade against ‘loony lefties’. He has taken every opportunity to disparage Brent’s anti-racism, thus giving the impression that he is indifferent to racism itself. He has happily waltzed into the thick of the McGoldrick case, using rarely invoked powers, and is obviously never happier than when overriding local government autonomy (quite a Baker habit) as long as it gives him political advantage. Just as Brent has prolonged the agony by their stubbornness, so too has Mr Baker prolonged matters by raising further clouds of litigation with his new intervention. You might think that somewhere among this lot there would be some thought given to the interests of the children at Sudbury school. But education is a political playground now and bullies have never had much time for ordinary pupils. The Daily Mirror, meanwhile, forewent a direct editorial comment but instead published an eloquent cartoon on the subject on 18 December (see over). 142

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‘Theatres of Municipal Madness’ In press coverage of Brent the language of lunacy was everywhere. For example the Star, 23 October, claimed that the case ‘exposes the utter lunacy of extremists who hijack the worthy cause of better race relations with their infantile bans on Noddy books, Little Black Sambo and golliwogs on marmalade jars’. And the Sun leader, 16 December, entitled ‘Barmy bunch’, asked: ‘Just what will it take to make these barmy extremists see sense? An appeal from Comrade Gorbachev? Maybe it is time they all saw a good psychiatrist!’ A similar line was followed by a leader in that day’s Daily Mail, which bemoaned the fact that: ‘Once our town halls were renowned as repositories of sound government . . . Today, the most notorious of these town halls have been converted into theatres of municipal madness’. However, other articles used Brent to smear Labour as a whole and not 143

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just an allegedly extreme section of the party. Thus, for instance, on 24 October a Daily Express leader entitled ‘A common contempt for good sense’ lumped together Brent’s ‘shameful harassment’ of McGoldrick with Hackney’s invitation to members of Sinn Fein, and Camden ‘paying out £1,470 a week in ratepayer’s money to accommodate Irishman Joseph Donoghue, his wife and eleven children in a comfortable hotel’. (This story was covered elsewhere in the same paper under the exquisitely tasteful headline ‘Sponger tinkers get new housing’.) According to the leader: These snippets have one important detail in common. Indeed, it is their essence: all the councils involved are Labour controlled. In their different ways they demonstrate a common contempt for decency and commonsense. Many of the leading lights in these councils will have been at the Labour Party conference, cheering Neil Kinnock as he promised them victory at the next general election. They show us what life under Labour actually means. By their fruits ye shall know them. Also on 24 October, Today carried an article by Eric Jacobs on the subject of Brent. Entitled ‘A devoted teacher is paying the price: the new bigots’, it argued that the McGoldrick case tells us a great deal about the cancer that is eating away at far too many of Britain’s Labour-controlled city councils. It shows what can happen when an authority falls under the control of extremists. Council members first get themselves elected under the innocent banner of Labour. Then real control falls into the hands of people dedicated to narrow and perverse doctrines of ‘equality’ – more concerned with promoting minority causes than majority interests . . . Racism is not what matters to them. What they want is to assert their power over school governors to hire and fire. Power is what they really care about. Power to impose their own narrow and distorted view of the world on everyone they employ. Referring to the functions of the ‘race advisers’ as ‘vague but menacing’ it then went on to broaden the attack by arguing that Brent’s ‘way of thinking is spreading to other Labour councils’, and that ‘the decay of the local Labour parties in London’ has allowed ‘extremists’ to move in. Jacobs concluded: 144

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Working people in such areas as Brent, Hackney, Haringey and Camden still vote Labour out of an instinctive loyalty, unaware that these party machines have been taken over by minority groups and extremists. The result is a daily display of lunacies. If one Labour council is not inviting IRA sympathizers to make speeches, another is campaigning for homosexuality to be taught as normal behaviour and a third is attacking the local police. If Neil Kinnock is to restore his party’s reputation he must restrain a great many more people than the handful of Militants he has so far drummed out of the party. The Daily Mail, 6 November, contained an explicit example of the theme of Brent-as-microcosm-of-Labour-Britain. Its leader, ‘Brent lessons’, concluded that: ‘The public are starting to realise that the lunacies of Brent today could be those of all Britain tomorrow – if Labour wins power next time’. Much the same point was made by the Sun, November 21, which argued that: ‘If, by some miracle, Labour does win power, there will be no one to save Maureen McGoldrick. She, and the nation, will be at the mercy of Marxist tyrants’. Meanwhile the Standard, 20 November, devoted two entire pages to a sustained hatchet job on Brent. Entitled ‘The brotherhood of Brent’ it is a farrago of innuendos and slurs which demonstrates all too clearly the means by which certain papers attempted to place Brent beyond the democratic political pale and thus make them legitimate targets not only for press hate campaigns, but, more seriously, for punitive action by central government which might otherwise be considered unacceptable in a democracy. Significantly this piece was extremely closely reprised in the Daily Express, 29 November, by their education correspondent Will Stewart under the headline ‘Truth about left wingers in school race row: the hounding of Maureen McGoldrick’, and recycled yet again in the Daily Express by the same hand on 25 April 1987 under the give-away title ‘The buddies of Brent’.

‘A Closed Demonstration of One Point of View’ Television’s treatment of the McGoldrick affair differs in several important respects from Fleet Street’s. In the news programmes which reported it there was, of course, an absence of the overt editorialising that characterised even the alleged ‘news’ stories in much of the press. Nor was there anything like the sheer amount of coverage as in the press. For the most part the story remained in the local news programmes; 145

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even when it did make its way onto the national news it did not achieve the equivalent of the front page treatment it was receiving in the press at the time. It was also noticeable that broadcast news reports kept the issue of whether or not the council had the right to hold its disciplinary hearing far more sharply in focus than did most of the papers. But why did television touch this story at all? Why should the suspension of an infants school head be thought of as newsworthy on national television? Was it because the sheer amount of newspaper coverage succeeded in bouncing the story onto the broadcast agenda? The scepticism displayed by broadcasters towards other ‘loony left’ stories tends to militate against such as interpretation. And it does have to be remembered that, unlike many of the stories examined in this book, there is a hard core of incontrovertible facts to this case, namely the suspension of a head teacher in disputed and controversial circumstances, official strike action by NUT members, and a High Court case involving the NUT and Brent council, a case which brought the story out of the borough and into the West End of London. Finally there’s also the overt involvement of Education Secretary Kenneth Baker. However, the question remains of whether press coverage of Brent influenced the manner in which the broadcasters represented the borough. Some television and radio news reports were more adequately balanced than the newspaper stories, in that council spokespersons appeared more regularly and routinely in items on Brent, but, on the other hand, these spokespersons were frequently outnumbered by their critics, sometimes by as much as four to one. For example on the lunchtime news on the BBC on 23 October there were interviews with three Sudbury parents who were hostile to Brent, but only education authority chairman Ron Anderson spoke for the council. Meanwhile on that day’s BBC Six O’Clock News the lack of balance was made even more notable by the addition to the above of an interview with the shadow education spokesman Giles Radice, who accused the council of ‘an act of vindictiveness’. This however, was a better balance than Channel 4 News and ITV’s News at Ten, both of which managed to exclude the council altogether while including critical comments about the council from three Brent residents (two black, one white), Fred Jarvis of the NUT and Giles Radice. Intriguingly, however, it was when television dealt with the story at greatest length that the similarities with its treatment by the press were at their most apparent. Take, for example, Thames Television’s Reporting London, 26 October. The item on Brent was introduced by a clip from the 146

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Tory Party Conference at which Harriet Crawley, a delegate from Brent, was seen denouncing the council as a ‘fascist left-wing junta’. This was the full extent of the filmed introduction, which then gave way to the presenter promising us a ‘startling story’. It was at this point, with the words: ‘Meanwhile Brent continues to keep the papers supplied with curious stories, like a recent one about racist body language’, that the inevitable shots of newspaper cuttings first appeared: in all, such shots were used four times in the course of this short programme. Presumably the intent was to demonstrate that Brent was indeed a newsworthy story; however, such shots also suggested all too clearly the programme’s debt to an agenda set by Fleet Street. The Brent report was introduced by Bill Wigmore and began with an emotional interview with McGoldrick. There was some attempt early on to put Brent’s antiracist policies into their appropriate context, but an indication of the direction which the programme was going to take was provided by the use of concealed camerawork to photograph assistant director of education Gordon Mott who, the commentary informed us, ‘took the decision to suspend Miss McGoldrick on the contested evidence of one clerk, but a few weeks earlier had himself been branded a European supremacist. Could this have made him overact in the McGoldrick affair?’ The implied answer to this question seemed clearly to be ‘yes’, and the majority of interviewees appeared to back up this judgement. Significantly, of the nine people interviewed, seven were hostile to the council, and Ron Anderson was interviewed in a highly combative, intrusive and aggressive fashion which contrasted starkly with the relaxed, unobtrusive style in which the opponents of the council were treated. Significantly, the only people who spoke in favour of the council were directly connected with it, which gave the impression that the council’s policies were not supported by the population of the borough itself. Interestingly, one of the seven council critics interviewed was with Mervyn Rice, a head about to retire from the Borough whose last Annual Report the council had apparently suppressed. According to Rice: One of the points that I made was that there was a severe shortage of teachers in Brent, particularly senior teachers, and one of the reasons for that, I argued, was the very narrow ideological base from which Brent draws its teachers. If you have to write a political essay in order to get a scale four appointment or above it naturally narrows the field. At the moment there are twelve schools in the 147

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Borough without heads. There aren’t enough political extremists to stock Brent Schools. If this last sentence was an indication of the kind of ‘analysis’ presented by Rice’s Annual Report then perhaps it was hardly surprising the council acted in the way it did. However, along with statements made by other interviewees hostile to the council, it strongly favoured the Conservative explanation of low educational attainment amongst sections of the borough’s children, namely that Brent was suffering from teacher shortages as a result of the council’s antiracist policies. Thus: Many people in Brent undoubtedly fear that the council’s race policy has degenerated into a witch hunt that has left the education service in tatters. While the Town Hall pursues a headmistress known for her commitment to multi-cultural education, one in five children has left to be educated outside the borough. The same day as Reporting London (26 October), the BBC devoted part of This Week Next Week to the subject of McGoldrick. However, before we go on to look at this part of the programme in detail it is extremely important to note that the first part of the programme was a debate about freedom of speech, and the cases raised by the presenter David Dimbleby were those of Leon Brittan, Ray Honeyford, Jon Vincent, David Selbourne, Jonathan Savery and Enoch Powell. That this is a quite extraordinarily selective list is a point which was actually raised by Clare Short in the next part of the programme. The agenda was thus largely set before the second part of the programme even began. This was concerned almost as much with the ‘race advisers’ as it was with McGoldrick. The original Mail on Sunday piece had appeared exactly a week earlier. The filmed report that preceded the panel discussion dealt with the ‘advisers’ at some length. According to the reporter, Vivian White, Brent had ‘invented a new class of non-classroom, not-quite-teachers, professional anti-racists’ to help benefit what he insisted on calling ‘immigrant’ children. The first person to be allowed to comment on the ‘advisers’ was Brent NUT branch secretary John Poole (critically), followed by Home Office minister David Waddington who was badgered by the interviewer in an attempt to try to get him to admit that he had changed his mind over the ‘advisers’. Finally when education chair Ron Anderson 148

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was allowed to give his views on the scheme he was asked: ‘Might it have been the case that the Department of Education and Science minister who, looking into the Mrs [sic] McGoldrick affair, had a better idea of what was going on in Brent than you did, and blew the whistle on your spending the money badly in Brent?’ It is also worth pointing out that the others interviewed in this part of the programme consisted of one head who supported Brent’s policies (who was asked: ‘Is there a risk that this can become an obsession?’) and four parents who supported McGoldrick. The report was clearly underpinned by a pre-set agenda, one that had a great deal in common with that underlying the press stories about Brent at the time. Much the same can be said about the way that the following discussion was framed. Thus David Dimbleby in his opening remarks to Brent’s Nitin Parshotam about the ‘advisers’, asked: ‘Are they going to take classes, or are they there, as some people have said, to act as sort of race commissars, or overseers, to report back to the racial equality group on the council?’ Again the frame of reference corresponded to that constructed by the Mail on Sunday, although admittedly Parshotam was given some time to respond to the various allegations made. In the course of his response he tried to put the McGoldrick and ‘race spies’ affairs into the context of attacks by the Tory press and party on local authorities, the very attacks which are the subject of this book. But Dimbleby refused point-blank to accept this contextualisation, brusquely dismissing this approach with: ‘You can’t throw it all at the Conservatives and the Tory press’ and trying to bring in John Poole ‘who’s said that there’d been attempts at intimidation, others feel threatened, you can’t talk openly or you’re accused of being racist’. He then added: ‘You’ve had a good deal of time to give the commercial, I’d like answers to some of the questions’. When Parshotam criticised the local NUT branch, Dimbleby interrupted with: ‘So you don’t trust your own teachers, is that what you’re saying?’ Ray Honeyford was then introduced as an accredited spokesperson on the matters under discussion, although there was no mention of the massive controversy over race in which he had repeatedly embroiled himself. Although this was raised by Claire Short, she was instead pressed by Dimbleby to state to whom the ‘race advisers’ report, thus echoing the Mail on Sunday’s approach to the issue. Later in the programme Dimbleby returned to another familiar Fleet Street line with the remark that: 149

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It is alleged that the refusal to reinstate Miss McGoldrick is actually an attempt to attack somebody with a known liberal reputation, known to be sound on race relations according to the governors of the school and the parents, in order to intimidate all the teachers in Brent. But it was not simply the kind of questions that were asked which betrayed so clearly the programme’s underlying agenda, it was also the manner in which they were asked. In particular, Short and Parshotam got a considerably rougher and more aggressive ride than Honeyford or the Tory MP Fred Silvester. Both of the above programmes were, however, put in the shade by the Panorama report of 30 March 1987. This was introduced by John Ware who once, perhaps significantly, worked for the Sun. Before discussing the programme itself, however, it’s worth noting that this particular edition of Panorama provoked an unusually large number of complaints to the BBC; indeed, such was the sheer volume of negative comment that the producers of the access slot Viewpoint wished to devote part of one of their programmes to it. Unfortunately, however, this never happened as Ware would have been abroad at the time that the programme would have had to have been made. An early indication of the stance that the programme was going to take was provided by its title: ‘Brent Schools – Hard Left Rules’. These last three words were presented graffiti-style, thus suggesting a connection between the ‘Hard Left’ and yobbish, antisocial behaviour. Throughout the programme, labels of this kind were frequently used to describe sections of the left, but never in connection with the right. For example – and these are taken from the commentary, not from interviewees: ‘Education and the hopes of black parents are the route to power in Brent Council. Two years ago a group of hard left white teachers set out on it’, and: ‘Mr Sachse is a powerful man in Brent, he is the leader of a hard left group trying to take over Brent teachers’ union’. These attempts to label, some might say smear, sections of the left in Brent were best exemplified by an extraordinary section of the programme which had partly to do with the rise of Merle Amory. This began with an interview with Max Morris, a former president of the NUT, who alleged that some years ago the ‘core of the Trotskyists, the open Trotsky group in the Brent Teachers Association’ all became members of the Brent East Labour Party en bloc. This then led on to some furtive shots of a house in Brent’s Mapesbury Road onto which, the commentary informed us, ‘Brent 150

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Labour Party’s new recruits converged. They turned it into a committee room and changed the locks. There were endless meetings, bottles, mattresses, and new tenants suddenly appeared’. Again, the left was associated with images of social disorder. According to Ware: ‘Mapesbury Road’s star graduate was Merle Amory’ and there then followed an interview with her. However, the only point of this was to try to get her to admit that she and her friends were Trotskyists attempting to infiltrate the Labour Party, and she was filmed in close-ups that would not have been out of place in a Sergio Leone film. There was no moment in the interview in which she was given the chance to talk about the council’s policies and, quite clearly, the sole purpose behind Ware’s interviewing techniques was to get Amory to make an incriminating remark about Trostskyist penetration of Labour. Those critical of the council significantly outnumbered those supportive of it, the council’s positive achievements were barely mentioned, and the entire programme followed an agenda already laid down by the press – indeed as Ware himself put it in an article in The Listener, 2 April 1987: ‘I think that – with certain tabloid exceptions – the media have got Brent right, more or less’. However, if one examines the visual style of the programme then ‘tabloid’ is exactly the word that springs to mind: this was, truly, the visual, as well as the ideological, equivalent of the Sun. This aspect of the programme was acutely analysed in The Listener, 9 April 1987, by Cary Bazalgette and Philip Simpson of the British Film Institute Education Department, and it is worth expanding on their critique. Their first point concerned the manner in which ‘interviewees who were not sympathetic to the view of the reporter were shot in tight closeup so that the slightest sign of tension could be caught’. The example of Merle Amory has already been noted, but there was an equally glaring moment later in the programme when Richard Sachse was badgered by Ware on the subject of what he alleged were two contradictory statements which Sachse had made about McGoldrick. The same thing happened again when Ron Anderson was grilled about three advisers arriving at a primary school whose head had taken down antiracist posters, and yet again when Ware confronted him with the claim that he had filmed Alan Springer, one of the advisers, kicking John Poole (in fact we see no such thing on screen, only a confused shot of a small crowd of people outside a building). Equally as important as the manner of filming, however, was the fact that interviewees like Amory, Sachse and Anderson were never 151

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allowed freely to put their own or the council’s point of view, unlike those critical of the council’s policies – their function in the programme was simply to stand at the receiving end of criticisms levelled by their opponents and reinforced not only by Ware himself but by the very manner in which they were actually interviewed. Other means which were used to present a negative image of the council’s supporters were low-angle shots (Sachse outside the building where Poole was allegedly kicked) and candid camerawork. The most striking examples of the latter can be found in the sections devoted to Soonu Engineer, the Race Relations Adviser for Education, of whom the programme-makers had clearly managed to grab only a couple of shots – one from a distance through a glass door, and one through a heavily barred window – which are repeated on several occasions. She was first introduced as ‘the camera-shy Miss Engineer’ who ‘prefers a backroom role’. Taken together, the implication of the words and pictures was abundantly clear, suggesting that she was someone suspicious with something to hide. In point of fact, she had suspected that the programme makers had a preset agenda and had refused to co-operate with them from the start. Nor were these curious visual devices limited to the representation of the ‘baddies’ of the piece. There was, for instance, quite early on in the programme, a section filmed in the home of John Heathfield, a former Primary Adviser in Brent, in which he talked of the phone calls which he had received. According to Heathfield these alleged that: ‘The atmosphere of fear is like it was in Hitler’s Berlin’, and that: ‘I feel I can’t talk freely at meetings’. In order to try to communicate a threatening atmosphere, the shots of Heathfield on the phone were tricked out in the most extraordinary way, a low-angle shot from down by his feet being succeeded by a vertiginous high-angle one from the top of the hall stairs. Fine for Psycho, but in an analysis of the state of education in a London borough . . .? This brings us on to Simpson’s and Bazalgette’s second point, which had to do with ‘visual images that were, at best, banal attempts to give a spurious dramatic atmosphere to voice-over commentary . . . At worst the images reinforced the language of ‘‘war’’ and ‘‘fear’’ which the programme stressed’. A good example of the former was provided by a reconstruction in silhouette of the original McGoldrick phone call, or the even more ludicrously over-dramatic shot of a telegraph pole with a full moon behind it which accompanied Ware’s remarks about a telephone call between Soonu Engineer and Richard Sachse’s wife. Equally over the 152

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top were the repeated roving shots of empty classrooms, the first of which seemed to be a banal attempt to find a visual equivalent to the commentary’s cliche´d remark about there being ‘a power vacuum in education’, the remainder simply adding to the general impression of educational breakdown. More important still, however, were the images of war and imprisonment that dominated the programme. In at least five shots characters were viewed from behind wire fences, and in at least two through bars. The imagery here was clearly that of the totalitarian state. Significantly these images occurred mainly in conjunction with the ‘race advisers’. The first of these was used as an introduction to Stephen Delsol, another to the accompaniment of commentary explaining that Soonu Engineer had persuaded Hazel Taylor, Brent’s Equal Opportunities Officer, to withdraw a good character reference for McGoldrick; two more shots of Stephen Delsol through wire fencing accompanied part of the antiracist posters story mentioned above. One should also note the programme’s stress on scenes of disorder, and the implicit suggestion that these were a facet of daily political life in Brent. Indeed, the programme actually opened with scenes of disorder in the council chamber, although in fact these involved parents protesting against the council’s policies. Nor was it made clear that at least one of the councillors involved in the shouting match was a Conservative, the party’s local education spokesman Arthur Steele. Further heated exchanges occurred later at an education committee meeting and these were followed by calm scenes in a multiracial school clearly operating with non-racist teaching materials. According to the commentary: ‘Most schools . . . claim they’ve adapted to multi-cultural education without much prompting from the council’. The implication is clear – the council should stop interfering in schools and leave education to the teachers. Equally prevalent were images of bureaucratic chaos. Indeed, the very first of these came in the opening credits which highlighted a bulging office tray marked ‘Resignations Only’. Shortly thereafter the commentary stated that: ‘Brent Labour’s drive against racism and sexism seems to dominate everything. It’s led to a paralysing combination of rules and regulations, new policy documents, and a battery of race and gender advisers’, all this to the accompaniment of images of offices stuffed with files and the sound of the incessant ringing of unanswered phones. Similar sounds and images re-occurred as Ware stated that Brent had ‘established a race relations and gender bureaucracy unrivalled for a council of its size’, and these reached their climax 153

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in the section of the programme in which Ware talked about the beginnings of the McGoldrick affair. Again, the clear suggestion was that Brent’s concern with antiracism and antisexism had paralysed the council’s activities and enmeshed the education system in a web of byzantine rules and regulations. Just as in the press, then, teacher shortages were blamed on the policies of Brent Council, and not on wider educational, social and political factors. As Bazalgette and Simpson (1987) concluded: Distorted soundtrack, slow motion and freeze frames were also used, not to investigate or analyse a complex and disturbing situation, but to cultivate, a` la Edgar Lustgarten, prurient involvement or moral outrage. The programme began, after the conventional shots of a rowdy public meeting, with a reference to the atmosphere of fear in Brent and concluded with a reaffirmation of that view. In between, any attempt at a reasoned, detached, analytic or investigative programme had been abandoned in favour of a closed demonstration of one point of view reinforced by emotional and rhetorical flourishes.

Conclusion Press coverage of Haringey council’s response to Broadwater Farm and of Brent’s antiracist educational initiatives showed how remarkably little things had changed since Hartmann and Husband (1974: 145) wrote that the essential feature of British press treatment of race is that: Coloured people have on the whole not been portrayed as an integral part of British society. Instead, the press has continued to project an image of Britain as a white society in which the coloured population is seen as some kind of aberration, a problem, or just an oddity, rather than ‘belonging’ to the society. This is not, of course, to argue that the press should simply have ignored the events at the Farm, but it is to point out that most papers overwhelmingly represented them in such a way as to criminalise the inhabitants of the estate, exonerate the police, de-legitimise the council and propagandise on behalf of Tory plans to lessen the powers of local authorities over the police forces operating in their areas. 154

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In the case of Brent, however, it is frankly much more difficult to argue that the suspension of the head of a small infants’ school in an outer London borough merited any coverage at all in national newspapers – let alone the mega-overkill which it received for more than three months. The events outlined above can be defined as ‘newsworthy’ only in terms of the news values of a highly partisan press, one whose antennae were hyper-sensitised to the merest hint of a ‘loony left’ story anywhere in London, and whose journalists were prepared to go to quite remarkable lengths to turn these hints into full-blown stories. But even if one concedes the argument that the Brent events had national educational significance, and therefore should have been reported by the national press, the fact remains that the explanations given by the newspapers for the allegedly poor state of education in Brent focused overwhelmingly on the apparently negative consequences of the council’s antiracist policies and almost completely ignored the wider social factors identified by the Two Kingdoms report. As Lansley, Goss and Wolmar (1989: 137) point out, the findings of the Inspectors so hurriedly sent in by Baker in the wake of the ‘race spies’ affair, gave little credence to the idea that the poor state of education in the borough could be laid at the door of the council’s antiracist policies. Admittedly lessons were found to be uninspiring, children’s expectations low, discipline and management poor, and morale low. But the council’s antiracist policies were found to enjoy ‘widespread support’ among schools and parents and to go with ‘the grain of local opinion’, although there was widespread criticism of the way they were implemented. Little evidence was found that work was ‘being distorted by improper practices to do with anti-racist policies’ or that the quality of school work had deteriorated because of them. Indeed they found that these policies ‘had a generally helpful effect in the classroom’. As one of those centrally involved in the events outlined above put it to me: ‘The McGoldrick affair became a touchstone for the black community to see which side officers, councillors, headteachers and the Brent Teachers Association were actually on’. Meanwhile, rightly or wrongly, the council felt itself compelled to defend a point of legal principle concerning local government’s responsibility for investigating a complaint about alleged professional misconduct by a headteacher. Furthermore, the more the local Tories defended McGoldrick (apparently unconcerned at siding with their historic enemy, the BTA), the more the council felt unable call off the whole affair. In particular, it 155

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could not do anything that would appear to be collusion with, or submission to, the racism so clearly evident in some of McGoldrick’s ‘defenders’ (much to her embarrassment, it should be added) both locally and in the national press. Thus once the newspapers had decided to focus on Brent, they found it an extraordinarily fertile source of political in-fighting, ideological warfare and personal animosities. In this respect, Lansley, Goss and Wolmar (1989: 137) argue that: In most other areas the incident would have been resolved in a lowkey way, perhaps with a chat between officials and a union representative. In Brent, however, the underlying tensions and the pressure on officials to take a hard line on race ensured that the incident snowballed into one of the causes ce´le`bres of the 1980s. But this, however, is seriously to underplay the active role played by a ferociously partisan national press in enthusiastically fanning the whole affair, and to state that newspapers dealt with the matter in ‘a rather simplistic way’ (132) is both gravely to understate the case and, more seriously, to misunderstand the key role played by the press in actively constructing the contours of this particular affair and putting it to particular political and ideological uses. It is, on the other hand, hard to disagree with Lansley et al.’s judgement that: No one comes out with much credit. The council showed incompetence and mismanagement. Many actions of the black activists, pressure groups and some of the council’s own race relations staff only inflamed the situation. The professionalism and sensitivity needed for the success of anti-race policies seemed absent. Throughout, the BTA batted largely for its own self-interest. (138) But we also have to remember that if, as far as Tory politicians and newspapers were concerned, the McGoldrick affair started off as harnessed to Tory plans for stripping local councils of their educational responsibilities, it, like so many other ‘loony left’ stories, ended up shackled to an even more ambitious project – that of Thatcher’s avowed aim of ‘abolishing Socialism’. In the end, then, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that if McGoldrick, Brent and Sudbury Infants School hadn’t existed, it would have been necessary to invent them. 156

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Notes 1. The sections on Haringey in general and Broadwater Farm in particular draw on research carried out by Brennon Wood for the Goldsmiths Media Research Group 1987 report Media Coverage of Local Government in London.

References Barker, Martin (1981), The New Racism, London: Junction Books. Bazalgette, Cary and Simpson, Philip, ‘Brent schools’, in The Listener, 9 April, p. 7. Billig, Michael, Susan Condor, Derek Edwards and Mike Gane (1988), Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking, London: Sage. Chibnall, Steve (1977), Law and Order News: An Analysis of Crime Reporting in the British Press, London: Tavistock Publications. Cottle, Simon (1993), TV News, Urban Conflict and the Inner City, Leicester: Leicester University Press. Edgar, David (1988), The Second Time as Farce: Reflections on the Drama of Mean Times, London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gifford, Tony (1986), The Broadwater Farm Enquiry, London: Karia Press. Gordon, Paul and Rosenberg, David (1989), Daily Racism: The Press and Black People in Britain, London: Runnymede Trust. Gordon, Paul (1990), ‘A dirty war: the New Right and local authority anti-racism’, in Wendy Ball and John Solomos (eds), Race and Local Politics, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 175–90. Hall, Stuart, Critcher, Chas, Jefferson, Tony, Clarke, John and Roberts, Brian (1978), Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, London: Macmillan. Hartmann, Paul and Husband, Charles (1974), Racism and the Mass Media, London: Davis-Poynter. Hollingsworth, Mark (1986), The Press and Political Dissent: A Question of Censorship, London: Pluto Press. Hurd, Douglas (1988), ‘Tamworth Manifesto’, in London Review of Books, 17 March, p. 7. Lansley, Stewart, Goss, Sue and Wolmar, Christian (1989), Councils in Conflict: The Rise and Fall of the Municipal Left, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Murray, Nancy (1989), ‘Anti-racists and other demons: the press and ideology in Thatcher’s Britain’, in Nancy Murray and Chris Searle (eds), Racism and the Press in Thatcher’s Britain, London: Institute of Race Relations, pp. 1–19. Pearson, Geoffrey (1983), Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, London: Macmillan. Richardson, Robin (1992), ‘Race policies and programmes under attack’, in Racism and Education: Structures and Strategies, in Gill, Dawn et al (eds), London: Sage/ Open University, pp.134-50. Searle, Chris (1989), Your Daily Dose: Racism and the Sun, London: Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. Van Dijk, Teun A. (1991), Racism and the Press, London: Routledge. Ware, John (1987), ‘Classroom struggles’, in The Listener, 2 April, p. 8.

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Chapter 6

Positive and Negative Images

In recent years we have witnessed a faltering, and retreat, of ‘sexual liberation’, a resurgence of a political movement in defence of traditional norms, a wave of moral panics around sex . . . The seismic sensitivity of sexuality to wider social currents has meant that a series of complex social anxieties, products in part of a developing siege mentality among significant sectors of the American and European populations, have been displaced onto the issue of sex. It has come to seem a frontline in the battle for the future of western society. At stake is the legacy of the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ of the past generation. (Weeks 1985: 16–17)

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T

he London local government and ILEA elections of May 1986 were a watershed for Labour’s initiatives on lesbian and gay rights, with various councils making manifesto commitments on the subject, some involving sex education in schools. Contemporaneously, the government had decided to take a tougher line, via the Education Bill, on what many of its members and supporters – not least in the press – regarded as far too ‘permissive’ an approach to sex education, against which they had been campaigning increasingly vociferously ever since the Tories came to power. 158

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At this time, the heat was on education at national level. First, teachers were involved in a long-running pay dispute. Then, on 21 May, Kenneth Baker took over from Sir Keith Joseph as Secretary of State for Education, and was soon to become a newspaper hero, promising to reduce local government responsibility for education, notably through a new school governors system which would allegedly give more power to parents, and via a new system of ‘city technology colleges’ financed partly by private capital. Around the same time the educational inspectorate released their annual report on education; this showed a steady deterioration in accommodation and in teachers’ ability to understand and cater for students’ needs, as well as cuts in spending budgets. However, as noted in Chapter 5, many newspapers had very different explanations for the poor state of education in Britain, and they rapidly enrolled this issue in their campaign against sex education. Thus in its 7 May editorial, ‘Education at the top of the agenda’, the Daily Mail complained that: Education in Britain is a disaster area . . . as education has slipped into the hands of the teachers’ unions and the local authorities we have seen it visibly deteriorate. Examination performance is down while political indoctrination is up. In place of discipline and skill in basics we now have peace studies and anti-racism. Text books, we are told, are in short supply; but not the glossy books which teach boys to behave like girls, or show children in bed with gay ‘parents’. On local election day itself, The Times editorialised on behalf of parents ‘who do not want equal-value indoctrination of homosexuality’ and against the ‘ ‘‘heterosexism’’ to which their children are increasingly subject’, while a whole page of comment in Today urged voters to ‘root out’ of local government the ‘extremists’ who have infiltrated the ranks of ‘decent’ Labour people and are ‘squandering’ rate-payers’ money on ‘an unpleasant assortment of unworthy causes’ such as ‘a £9,800 grant by Hackney Council towards an open day for gays and lesbians’ and ‘a £120,000 Lesbian and Gay unit set up by Haringey. Job applicants were told they needed no formal qualifications, just ‘‘direct experience’’ of the gay community’. A few days previously, the Standard, 1 May, under the headline ‘Love books Bernie wants to be banned’, represented Haringey’s anti-heterosexist policies thus:

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Normal sexual relationships between men and women are under attack in the borough of Haringey run by Labour leader Bernie Grant. The Labour Party’s women’s manifesto for the borough elections which take place next week wants heterosexual books banned from libraries. The 1986 local elections in London thus presented a perfect opportunity for the Tory press and party at both national and local level to mount a concerted scaremongering campaign against local Labour initiatives on gay and lesbian rights. This was able to build effectively on the demonologies which had already been created around the GLC’s policies on gay and lesbian issues, and around the 1982 Bermondsey by-election which Peter Tatchell fought (and lost) for Labour, which Gay News, March 1982, termed ‘the most homophobic by-election of our times’. (For a full account of press treatment of the latter see Hollingsworth 1986: 140–69.) The press was also able to draw on another already-existing construction: that of AIDS as a ‘gay plague’. It thus insinuated that councils pursuing rights for gays and lesbians were ‘promoting’ certain kinds of sexual behaviour and so encouraging people, and especially young people, to expose themselves to the danger of contracting AIDS. Needless to say, British newspapers had been at the forefront of this particular construction. (For a detailed consideration of early media coverage of AIDS see Wellings 1988.) On 26 April 1983, under the headline ‘AIDS: the price of promiscuity’, the Daily Telegraph ran an article which sympathetically quoted the view that AIDS might be ‘a supernatural gesture by a disapproving almighty’, the Sun, 8 May 1983 announced ‘U.S. gay blood plague kills three in Britain’, the Observer 6 June 1983 reported ‘Gay plague sets off panic’, and The People, 24 July 1983, explained ‘What the gay plague did to handsome Kenny’. In the Daily Express, 30 August 1985, George Gale castigated those ‘who have caught the disease through their own self-indulgence’, calling AIDS ‘a disease avoidable by decent living’ and arguing that: ‘Those who choose promiscuity and unnatural methods of sexual gratification choose thereby to put themselves at risk’, while Ray Mills in the Star, 6 September 1986, opined that: ‘The woofters have had a dreadful plague visited upon them, which we call AIDS . . . Since the perverts offend the laws of God and nature, is it fanciful to suggest that one or both is striking back?’ Nor were papers slow in trying to forge an explicit link 160

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between AIDS and attempts to change public attitudes towards homosexuality. Thus, an article in the Sunday Telegraph, 6 October 1985, headed ‘Labour councils support gay rights despite AIDS’, noting that Labour councils had donated £600,000 to gay projects and groups in the previous year, observed that: ‘Labour-run councils which have been giving financial and other support to homosexuals are not being deflected from this policy by the AIDS scare. Some are even extending ‘‘gay rights’’ programmes’. But far more forthright was Woodrow Wyatt in the News of the World, 9 November 1986, who fulminated that: ‘Some Labour councils encourage AIDS with grants to homosexual centres. So do Labour education authorities telling children that homosexuals living together are as stable as married couples. They also encourage children to experiment with sex. This is murder’. The anti-gay campaign by the Tory press and party, however, did not achieve its desired effect on the local election results of May 1986 – indeed, in Camden, Lambeth, Hackney and Haringey the Labour majorities actually increased. Among the targeted areas, only Islington suffered a drop in Labour seats. However, this only strengthened the propagandists’ will. Among the ever-swelling flood of stories which began to appear in the wake of the election was a piece by Sir John Junor in the Sunday Express, 11 May, about Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin which asked: ‘Does it ever occur to you that there are no depths at all to which our Left-wing trendies will not descend in their efforts to pervert the nation’s young?’ Another story appeared in the Daily Mail, 5 June, under the heading ‘The Loony Left is at it again. If you’re normal, married, and have a family, keep it dark!’ This quoted an unnamed London Labour party official to the effect that: ‘Family snaps could be banned from Labour candidates’ election literature because they are ‘‘unfair’’ to homosexuals and lesbians. Left-Wing leaders of the Greater London party are determined to ‘‘eliminate heterosexism’’ from campaign material’. This story is then linked with anti-heterosexist policies in Haringey. Much more substantial, however, was a piece by the ubiquitous George Gale in the Sunday Mirror, 22 June, entitled ‘Guarding against gay propaganda’. Outraged that Ealing Council had advertised for primary schoolteachers ‘regardless of . . . sexual orientation’, Gale argued that: This presumably means that Ealing borough council does not mind if paedophiles and pederasts teach their infants. But it will, of 161

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course, be particularly taken to mean that the council will welcome applications from homosexuals. The Inner London Education Authority has already circulated homosexual propaganda to certain schools in Islington. A conspiracy is afoot to persuade all of us, starting with our children, that there is nothing wrong or undesirable about homosexual behaviour, and that it is just as good as, and in some respects better than, normal heterosexual behaviour. Gale then proceeded to catalogue all the old stereotypes about homosexual ‘promiscuity’ and ‘their fondness for anal intercourse’ in a crude attempt to link sex education and equality of job opportunities with the spread of AIDS. He concluded that: Just as we warn children in our schools against the use of drugs, so we should warn them against homosexuality, buggery and promiscuity. Far from welcoming homosexual applicants and thereby encouraging overt displays of homosexual mannerisms, inclinations and activities, education authorities and schools should be on guard against them. The deathly propaganda of ‘gay lib’ should have fallen silent by now shamed and frightened by the terrible plague we call AIDS. But the propaganda, and the propagandists, are still at work among us, in our politics, in our education authorities, and in our schools.

‘To Babylon via Hamelin’: Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin The use to which the Tory press and party put the book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin during the May 1986 London local elections gave it a totemic significance, one which lasted long after the elections. It was made to stand for everything that was anathema to the opponents of sex education. On 2 May, the Islington Gazette ran a story headed ‘Storm over gay school book’, one of four anti-gay stories in that week’s issue. Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin was a Danish book about a little girl who lives with her father and his male partner. According to the article, the book, which was stocked at the Isledon Teachers’ Centre in Blackstock Road, ‘has sparked off a storm of protest’. Among those quoted was Simon Marsh, 162

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head of St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School, who reported the book to his school governors, condemned it as ‘unacceptable in Christian terms’ and also wrote an article about it entitled ‘To Babylon via Hamelin’ in a Christian magazine. He was also quoted as stating that: ‘Children need protection not perversion’. A similar line was taken by Barbara Robson, governor of another Islington school and secretary of the Campaign for the Improvement of School Standards: ‘Toleration of a person’s particular sexual orientation is one thing. Brainwashing children into believing that homosexuality is the norm is quite another’. The third spokesperson was Islington teacher and leader of the local SDP opposition, David Hyams, who stated that: ‘It’s typical of the present Labour administration at County Hall that they try to force-feed children with their own particular view of the world’. The only person who was quoted in the book’s defence was deputy Mayor Bob Crossman who pointed out that: ‘This book is an aid for teachers working on personal and social development with children. I have received no complaints whatsoever’. On 4 May, George Gale’s Sunday Mirror column, In My View, contained a vicious attack on Jenny (described as containing ‘pictures of Jenny on a bed with two queers’). Gale fulminated: The idea that homosexuals form an oppressed minority is nonsense. The notion that they are entitled to propagate their peculiar practices at the public’s expense is preposterous. Yet they are contriving to do so. They are now insinuating their sexist propaganda into some of our schools. Homosexuals are not entitled to promote before a captive and impressionable audience of children in schools the gospel of Sodom and Gomorrah. On 6 May the Sun ran a front page ‘Exclusive’ headed ‘Vile book in school. Pupils see pictures of gay lovers’; this was basically an even more lurid version of the original Gazette story. However, it also stated that: ‘The picture-story book, aimed at six to eight year olds, is being made available by Education Officials to junior schools’. Meanwhile Today, 7 May, under the headline ‘Scandal of gay porn books read in schools’ stated that: ‘The government was under intense pressure last night to stem the tide of pornography finding its way into schools’. Significantly, this was not the first time that the press had focused on Jenny – on 20 November 1983 the News of the World had run a piece 163

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headed ‘Picture book for kids is a gay shocker’. The fact that this was not taken up at the time by politicians or other papers thus suggests that their interest in it during and after May 1986 was primarily political. The truth about Jenny is actually rather prosaic, as revealed by a Press Council judgement against the Sun in February 1987. This found that the paper had wrongly stated that the book was available in London schools, and that the editor had failed to correct these misrepresentations. The judgement drew attention to a statement by Williams Stubbs, education officer and chief executive of ILEA, that the Authority did not consider the book suitable for general use in primary schools and that it should therefore not be available to pupils. Further testimony from ILEA showed that the Authority had only one copy of the book, that this was held at a teacher’s centre, and that it could be used only with older pupils, and even then only in particular and exceptional circumstances after their parents had been consulted. None of these facts, however, appear to have bothered the new Education Secretary Kenneth Baker, who, as in the case of Brent, seems to have preferred to act on distorted and sensationalised newspaper stories as opposed to the testimony of professional educationalists. Thus on 16 September 1986, after the book had also featured in the press assault on the Positive Images campaign in Haringey (see below), a borough which anyway fell outside ILEA’s jurisdiction, the Daily Mail, in an ‘Exclusive’, announced: ‘Baker acts over gay schoolbook’. According to the article, Baker became so angry after seeing a book on homosexual behaviour which the Inner London Education Authority had made available to children that he has demanded its immediate withdrawal. It is unprecedented for a Minister to interfere at a local level in this way, but Mr Baker said last night: ‘I am so angry that such a book should be available that I felt I couldn’t hold back’. The book, titled Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, has been put into school libraries by ILEA and other Left-wing authorities. One picture shows five-year-old Jenny playing with her doll in bed with both men. Mr Baker said yesterday: ‘Parents – and I’m a typical one – find this material grossly offensive. The cartoons are blatantly homosexual propaganda and totally unsuitable for use in classroom teaching or school libraries. Unfortunately, I cannot order an education authority to stop circulating such a book. But I can make the strength of my views known to them and ensure 164

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that the public are also aware of my thinking’. The apparent aim of making such a book available in schools is to promote the idea that homosexuality is as acceptable as heterosexuality. Two days later, on 18 September, in a Leader entitled ‘Children’s right to childhood’, Today used books such as Jenny to argue for greater centralisation of control over the education system. The parallels with the uses to which much of the press put the McGoldrick and ‘race spies’ affairs in Brent, are striking: Ministers have no power to order schools to remove pornographic, obscene or otherwise offensive so-called ‘textbooks’ from schools. In view of the increasingly lunatic behaviour of some local education authorities, the government would be thanked by all responsible parents if it took and then used the necessary powers rather than bleating sporadically. Meanwhile, on 19 September, the Daily Telegraph, in an article headed ‘Don’t ban Biggles, minister tells public libraries’, repeated the canard that Jenny was ‘widely stocked in schools and libraries’. Kenneth Baker’s intervention was quickly condemned by the leader of ILEA, Frances Morrell, as a ‘cheap and disgraceful stunt’. She also pointed out that the book had never been available in ILEA school libraries and that the Authority’s limited and controlled use of the book was entirely consistent with the advice on sex education given by the Department of Education and by Baker’s own advisers, the Schools Inspectorate. Nothing daunted, however, Baker returned to the attack in October at the Tory Party conference in Bournemouth. Thus the Daily Telegraph, 8 October, reported him as demanding: Was it a stunt to protect children from such distorted propaganda? Is it a stunt to speak up for parents who want school libraries to contain the best of our children’s literature or to say that a normal moral framework is the bedrock of the family?

‘Putting the Gay in Haringey’ Labour’s manifesto in Haringey, one of the few London Labour boroughs with responsibility for education, committed the council to 165

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supporting the right of educational workers to be ‘openly lesbian or gay at work’ as well as to supporting students ‘realising their own gayness’; it also committed the council to beginning ‘the process of ensuring lesbianism and gayness are treated positively on the curriculum’. For this the council would be subjected to what Les Levidow has described as ‘Britain’s best organised, most intense manifestation of homophobia’ (1989: 184). In response to Labour’s manifesto, the Conservatives produced a leaflet on sex education stating that: ‘We do not believe in prejudicing young minds. AIDS is a killer’. Below that was the banner slogan: ‘You do not want your child educated to be a homosexual or lesbian’, and the leaflet also reprinted a recent Daily Express article headed ‘Storm over ‘‘barmy’’ Bernie’s new gay teach-ins’. Not to be outdone, the 9 May Hornsey Journal, at that time a rabidly anti-council paper which, like the Islington Gazette, negated the tendency for local papers to take a more balanced approach than the nationals, ran a screaming front-page headline: ‘Lesbians to adopt kids. Schools to get lessons about homosexuals. HarinGAY!’ Local Tory councillor Peter Murphy was quoted as saying that: ‘No person who believes in God can vote Labour now. It is an attack on ordinary family life as a prelude to revolution,’ while the paper’s editorial shrilled: ‘We are on the edge of an abyss. We call on all decent, ordinary people to have an ‘‘uprising’’ of their own – at the ballot box’. Indeed, so keen was the paper to influence the election result that it brought forward its publication date by a day. But in spite of the campaign waged by the local and national press, the Tories in Haringey lost seven of their twenty-two seats, with Labour gaining six of them. Furthermore, the much-demonised leader of Haringey, Bernie Grant, increased his majority. After the election the council formed a Lesbian and Gay Unit, with a staff of seven, and this Unit wrote to all local headteachers advising them of Labour’s manifesto commitments and informing them of a ‘fund for curriculum projects from nursery through to further education . . . specifically designed to be anti-racist, anti-sexist and to promote positive images of lesbians and gays, and of people with disabilities’. Local objectors to the council’s gender policies then formed themselves into the Campaign for Normal Family Life. Subsequently this was changed to the Parents’ Rights Group (PRG). In September, as the conflict hotted up, supporters of the council’s gay and lesbian initiatives founded the counter movement Positive Images. 166

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As already noted, the topic of sex education was already in the Tories’ sights and high on the press agenda. In June 1986, following the lead given by Viscount Buckmaster in the Lords in May (see p. 178), Kenneth Baker introduced a new clause into the Education Bill requiring local authorities to ensure that sex education would encourage pupils ‘to have due regard to moral considerations and the value of family life’. This was, in fact, very much in line with the government’s 1985 White Paper, Better Schools, and the contemporaneous schools inspectorate document Health Education from 5 to 16. However, the latter also noted that: ‘Teachers need to remember that many children come from backgrounds that do not correspond to this ideal [of family life], and great sensitivity is needed to avoid causing personal hurt and giving unwitting offence’. It also called for the issue of homosexuality to be broached ‘objectively and seriously’, taking into account the fact that, ‘while there has been a marked shift away from general condemnation of homosexuality, many individuals and groups within society hold sincerely to the view that it is morally objectionable’. However, the measured tones of the inspectorate conspicuously failed to find an echo in the pages of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs and the Sun in their reporting of Haringey. Thus the Sunday Telegraph, 6 July 1986, ran an article headed ‘Putting the gay in Haringey’ which announced that: Courses on homosexuality are to be introduced into the 78 schools of one London Borough by the end of the year despite fierce protests from parents. Head teachers in Haringey have been instructed by the Left-wing council to develop courses designed to ‘promote positive images of lesbians and gays’. Nursery and primary schools are not exempt from the order. Conservative councillors condemned the plan last week as an attempt to ‘turn the world upside down by making the abnormal appear normal and the normal seem abnormal’. They also accused the ruling Labour group of ‘dangerous sexual engineering’. This version of the council’s positive images policies was faithfully repeated in the next day’s Daily Telegraph under the headline ‘Outrage over homosexual classes plan’. The article began: Courses on Homosexuality and Lesbianism for all pupils from nursery schools to further education have been proposed by the London 167

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Borough of Haringey, led by Mr Bernie Grant, which has decreed that ‘heterosexism is pernicious’. The plan has outraged parents. The piece also included a quote from Tory councillor Peter Murphy, the chairman of the Tottenham Conservative Association, to the effect that: ‘I am raising the issue, as a Catholic, with Cardinal Hume. It represents an open attack on family life’. A Sun article, 7 July, headed ‘Bernie kids get lessons in gay love’, was even more inaccurate than the Sunday Telegraph article, stating that: Courses to teach children about homosexuality and lesbianism are to be started in schools run by Barmy Bernie Grant’s Left-wing council. And Haringey council may even extend the scheme to nursery and primary schools. Head teachers have been ordered to start the courses to counter the ‘pernicious effects’ of straight sexual relations. The scheme, decided by the North London council’s women’s group, is official policy. They call for the promotion of positive images and practices of lesbianism and gays. The paper’s editorial concluded: ‘The Sun offers its deepest sympathy to the children and parents of Haringey’. A little later, on 14 September, the Sunday Telegraph returned to the attack with an article which alleged that: ‘Some London boroughs, including Haringey, Brent and Ealing, are taking positive steps to promote the cause of homosexuality’, adding that: ‘There are a number of books around in London schools which promote homosexual relationships. The most notorious of these is one called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin’. What is common to the Sun, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph articles, and to so many succeeding ones, is the lack of any hard facts about the council’s actual policy. But what is central to them is the implicit or explicit suggestion that children of all ages are to be taught the mechanics of gay sex, or are to be encouraged to become gay or lesbian. However, no statements or documents from the council remotely bear out any such interpretations, and no directives of the kind suggested by the Sun, Daily Telegraph et al. were ever issued. What the council did make clear, however, was that its educational aims and objectives included the following: encouraging teachers to prevent name-calling such as ‘lezzie’ and ‘poof’; supporting lesbian and gay staff who are open about their sexuality; training staff to understand and 168

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cope with this issue in the classroom; not avoiding mention of lesbians and gay men in teenage sex education; making students aware of the positive contribution lesbians and gay men have made to society in music, sports, politics and entertainment, where relevant; and presenting a ‘positive image’ of lesbian and gay relationships as one of the many lifestyles students will come across. As Labour education committee chair Bob Harris pointed out in the Times Educational Supplement, 24 October 1986: We are not trying to force children or young people to be lesbian or gay. We are not saying children in primary or secondary schools are to have homosexuality thrust upon them. The concept of ‘gay lessons’ is a nonsense. What we are saying is that lesbians and gay men have a right to be treated as equals in a society which does not discriminate against them. On 17 September the Daily Mail carried an article entitled ‘Hit squad of parents to burn gay schoolbook’ which focused on threats by the Parents’ Rights Group to burn any copies of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin which they found in Haringey libraries. Significantly the group’s leader, Mrs Pat Headd, justified their actions by referring to a quotation by Kenneth Baker in the Daily Mail: ‘The Minister’s message in your paper was a signal for us to act, and to use our own initiative’. The following day’s Daily Mail, under the headline ‘Boycott threat over gay books’ quoted Headd as stating that: ‘We will take our children out of the schools if it is taught that homosexuality is acceptable’. These were two of the earliest appearances in print of the PRG, whose attacks on the council’s policy, book burning and school boycotts would, over the following months, garner considerable publicity in sections of the press. Indeed, in the Daily Mail, which routinely treated even their most bizarre and extreme pronouncements as gospel truth, they would achieve the status of folk heroes. Considerably less attention would be paid to the alleged role of some members in assaults on and intimidation of supporters of council policy, to the shadowy sources of some of their funding, to the increasingly acrimonious splits within the group, and to various other factors that failed to fit the heroic image of embattled, ‘ordinary’ parents struggling against a local authority attempting apparently to corrupt their children. (On the role of the PRG in this affair, see Durham 1991: 111–22.) 169

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On 30 September, Haringey’s Education Committee, having heard deputations from both sides, formally agreed to initiate a policy of positive images. The recommendations were, however, minimal: setting up a working party to develop educational resource materials, and establishing a forum for consultation with parents and the gay and lesbian community which was to examine how best to implement the policy. The Daily Mail, 1 October, however, ignored these recommendations and concentrated on events outside the civic centre before the meeting: As parents burned a copy [of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin] they were jeered by homosexuals and lesbians entering the building. Inside, parents were bombarded with missiles and spat on from the public gallery as they spoke against the Labour council’s ‘antiheterosexist’ policy. The story was also covered by the Daily Mail’s stable-mate the Standard on the same day under the headline ‘Gays scuffle with book row parents’. The story is presented almost entirely from the point of view of the liberally-quoted PRG, beginning: Angry parents claim they were jostled and abused by gays and lesbians at a Haringey council education committee meeting. ‘We were pushed, shoved and sworn at in the most appalling manner’, parents’ leader Mrs Pat Headd said today. ‘Every time we were sworn at, the Labour committee chairman just smiled’. In fact it was not until early Spring 1987 that a curriculum working party was established to develop ‘guidelines for anti-heterosexist approaches in schools and colleges and to develop resource material’. Its report, Mirrors Round the Walls – Respecting Diversity, was not published until April 1988 by which time, as former Haringey Labour councillor Davina Cooper points out: ‘The political, financial and legal climate of Haringey council had changed . . . As a result principally of central government (but also of Labour Party) policy, the council had neither the resources, political commitment, nor educational power to introduce such changes within its schools’ (1994: 107).1 Indeed, there was concern within the Haringey Teachers’ Association (the local branch of the National Union of Teachers) that the council’s manifesto commitments were not being 170

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implemented quickly enough, as the Haringey Independent 2 October 1986, reported: Total opposition was expressed to the hysteria being whipped up in some quarters, which NUT members felt revealed a misunderstanding of the intentions. Members deplored the scandalous and sensational press coverage. Teachers strongly backed the council’s intention to ensure that the curriculum incorporated true images of lesbians and gay men. In fact teachers were critical that the council had not yet implemented this policy. The underlying concern of teachers was that children have both the right and the need to be informed about the world in which they live and this obviously includes an understanding of the world of gay men and lesbians. Given the scale and ferocity of the attack on Haringey’s ‘positive images’ policy, and its consequences for the Local Government Act 1988 (see below), the question of whether the council should have handled matters differently clearly needs to be raised. According to Lansley, Goss and Wolmar, a campaign which went beyond arguing for gay and lesbian rights and, by arguing for the equivalence of different lifestyles, challenged the ‘normality’ of heterosexuality, ‘could not be undertaken through a process of peremptory policy changes and gestures. It required a longer time-scale, and a far more sophisticated approach to the process of changing ideas’. In support of this view they quote Chris Smith – the first openly gay Labour MP – to the effect that sections of the left had overloaded their commitment to sexual equality ‘with a lot of language about heterosexist attitudes and a series of gestures that don’t really benefit the lesbian and gay community. The overloading has instead served to alienate people – it’s done a basic disservice to the basic cause’ (1989: 173). It is certainly the case, as former councillor Davina Cooper herself admits, that the Lesbian and Gay Unit’s initial letter to the borough’s heads was sent without consulting the education department and took Haringey council and the borough Labour Party by surprise. The council leadership and education service were furious that the unit had ignored the ‘proper’ procedures. They argued the policy should have been developed slowly and gradually with education taking the primary responsibility. That way, it was claimed, 171

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opposition would have been minimised. The unit, and lesbian and gay activists, disagreed. Had they not taken immediate action on the basis of manifesto commitments (subsequently council policy), nothing would have happened. (1994: 105) The delay in establishing the above-mentioned curriculum working party may lend weight to this final sentence, but, whatever the case, it’s hard to disagree with her judgement that: ‘The inability of Haringey education service to come forward with an authoritative version of what ‘‘positive images’’ would mean, practically, in classrooms and schools was a major strategic blunder’ which left the opposing forces free to provide their own interpretations of events and to set the terms of the debate (ibid.: 110). In this respect, she concludes that: Haringey council leadership and senior officers lacked confidence in how the policies, even if ‘accurately’ conveyed, would be received by the general public. They also feared how such information might be used by the right. As a result, their response tended to be defensive; emphasis was placed on protecting the council from attack rather than on effectively conveying the reasons why a policy such as ‘positive images’ was necessary. (Ibid.: 136) Thus, for example, when journalists approached the council looking for interviewees to talk about the issue, press officers tended to be reluctant to refer them to groups such as Positive Images, which they, along with the council itself, saw as having an ancillary function; they may also have feared what such groups might actually say to the media. On the other hand, as Cooper not altogether unsurprisingly reveals, journalists from the mainstream media were uninterested in interviewing supporters of gay and lesbian rights in the first place; as she says of members of Positive Images and Haringey Black Action: ‘Their very identity as gay, Black and radical was perceived by the media as affording them no legitimacy or credibility as spokespeople’. Furthermore, when interviews with members of these groups did actually take place, they were frequently not used, because the interviewees refused to say what the press wanted to hear, as Cooper surmises: ‘PI and HBA included a number of experienced activists well used to dealing with the media. Thus it is likely 172

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that journalists did not get statements from them that would have assisted the mobilisation of people against the policy’ (ibid.: 139). Given the evidence amassed elsewhere in this book, it’s highly doubtful that the press pack would have behaved any differently had the council adopted the strategies suggested by Cooper. As the more critical Lansley, Goss and Wolmar note, Labour councils which pursued far less radical approaches than Haringey to gay and lesbian rights found their policies ‘grossly distorted by opponents’; in addition they ‘simply underestimated the potential backlash from the initiatives and failed to recognise the scale of the prejudices and deeply held attitudes they were confronting’ (1989: 172). Not only was most of the press highly supportive of the Thatcher government’s onslaught against ‘permissiveness’, not only were its ideological antennae finely attuned to the merest hint of ‘loony leftism’, but here was a story which can only be described as a Tory editor’s wet dream, which could so obligingly be presented in such a way as to combine a heady brew of political ‘extremism’, the corruption of childhood, the threatened nuclear family and the subversion of the heterosexual norm, with the ‘ordinary mums’ of the Parents’ Rights Group as the perfect (if patronised) populist paragons, always prepared to lay on a newsworthy event such as a book-burning or school boycott, and with Education Secretary Kenneth Baker ever-ready with an appropriate response to what the press assured him was Haringey’s latest outrage. In such a situation, any pronouncements, even the mildest, on gay and lesbian sexuality emanating from the council were all too liable to be distorted out of all recognition and added to the ever-growing demonology of the ‘loony left’. It is thus not only in war reporting that truth is the first casualty. Davina Cooper, recalling how she was contacted by a children’s counselling service and asked whether it was true that copies of Jenny would be delivered to every household in the borough, remarks that: I was amazed that anybody could think a London borough like Haringey had the resources (even if it had the political will, which it didn’t) to buy and distribute approximately 80,000 copies of the book. The concept of the Town Hall waist-deep in such literature made me realise that, thanks to right-wing attacks, many people had no idea what to believe; their sense of judgement about what was plausible or likely had evaporated; thus they were suggestive 173

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to the most ludicrous and ridiculous possibilities. Even among people sympathetic to lesbian and gay equality, many, accepting that there must be some truth in what they heard, felt councils like Haringey were going too far. (ibid.: 122–3)

‘Evil People’ On the eve of the 1986 Tory party conference, the Daily Telegraph, 6 October, published a lengthy diatribe by Paul Johnson entitled ‘Assault on the young’ which, as it ties together all the themes discussed in this chapter, is worth looking at in some detail. According to Johnson, there is an ever-expanding ‘official’ sex industry, largely financed by taxes and rates [which] is being permitted to corrupt the nation, and especially its young. The public promotion of promiscuity, especially of homosexuality, is now proceeding on an enormous scale, above all where Labour local authorities hold sway. There follows a run-down of alleged activities by such authorities, at the end of which Johnson concludes: ‘The object of such programmes is to destroy the faith of the young, not merely in the principle of sex within marriage, but in marriage itself and normal sex, above all, to recruit the homosexual partners of the future’. After this highly tendentious account of local authorities’ supposed rationale for teaching about homosexuality in schools, there follows a remark unlikely to endear Johnson to gay Tories: A child who grows up to be a practising, committed homosexual is not only a sure Labour voter but a potential Labour activist. Many militant homosexuals see the Party as the vehicle by which further legal ‘reforms’ such as reducing the age of consent, will be secured. (In fact, when Johnson was writing, most of those responsible for initiating the the liberalising reforms of the 1960s and early 1970s which he and his paper found so unpalatable were ensconced in the Social Democrat Party.) 174

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Johnson then goes on to devote much space to AIDS. Unsurprisingly, the view taken is decidedly Old Testament in flavour: ‘AIDS may be described as the first catastrophic consequence of the sexual revolution and a striking example of Saturn devouring his children’. And, inevitably, AIDS is linked with the sexual policies of Labour councils: ‘The immediate dangers of active, aggressive homosexual proselytising are obvious enough, given the alarming spread of AIDS’. After a violent attack on the ‘sex industry’ (the Family Planning Association, the Brook Advisory Centres and the by now familiar list of sex education books), Johnson returns to the local education authorities, claiming that: ‘The kind of material which children are now seeing in schools . . . brazenly presents sex, in all its varieties, simply as a source of pleasure’. This ‘brazen’ pursuit of pleasure, however, is not simply hedonistic – it has a political element too: ‘Some of those involved in Labour local authority programmes clearly have evil motives. They want to proselytise on behalf of their sexual inclinations, with political recruiting as a bonus’. A sixteenyear-old report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Hans Eysenck, and Thomas Szasz (odd bedfellows indeed) are then selectively quoted in support of Johnson’s thesis that there is ‘no real evidence that sex education, at any rate as usually conducted, is serving any desirable purpose’. Johnson is also critical of the Tory record on closing what he sees as the ‘widening gap between what is supposed to be done, under the law, and what is actually done . . . especially where Labour’s writ runs’. One of the remedies proposed by Johnson is the formation of groups such as the PRG: ‘The first requirement therefore, is that parents should organise themselves to ensure that their rights under the law and under Department policies are fully respected’. Second, Johnson implores the public to urge their MPs to support amendments to the Education Bill which would enable parents to withdraw their children from sex education classes, and which would require teaching in these classes ‘to have due regard to moral considerations and the value of family life’. Johnson concludes: A number of well-organised and evil people and groups in this country have, in effect, declared war on the institutions of marriage and the family, and the Judaeo-Christian moral tradition. As last week’s vote in Blackpool indicates, they now have the backing of 175

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the Labour Party. It is time that the normal majority declared war in their turn, counter attacked, and took the warfare into enemy territory. In the next section we shall see how this counter-attack found its ultimate expression in what was to become the infamous Clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

A Perfectly Circular Process: The Magic of Reiteration As we have already seen, Education Secretary Kenneth Baker was quick to capitalise on distorted and exaggerated stories in the press about sex education. On the other hand, it needs to be understood that there were many in his own party for whom his proposed measures were far too weak. Thus Tory MPs such as Peter Bruinvels and the Minister for Local Government Dr Rhodes Boyson were arguing vociferously that parents should be allowed to take their children out of sex education lessons if they so desired, and that the government should draw up a list of sex education books which should be banned from schools. Such views found a good deal of support among fellow Tory MPs, and in large sections of the press. The Guardian, 21 August, reported that Baker had written to Ealing and Haringey councils asking for details of their policies on teaching children about homosexuality. In particular, a reference in the letter to Section 23 of the 1944 Education Act appeared to suggest that the councils’ policies in this area might run contrary to their duty to provide a balanced curriculum. The Daily Express, 22 August, reported Baker’s actions as ‘Clampdown on ‘‘gay’’ lessons’, while the Daily Telegraph the previous day wrote of ‘a deliberate attempt to molest the sexual education of children without their parents’ consent’ and called for government action. In October, at the Tory Party conference in Bournemouth, Baker was given a standing ovation for a speech in which he condemned the ‘bigotry and intolerance’ of Labour education authorities and stated that the new Education Bill would take control of sex education away from local authorities and give it to new-style governing bodies on which parents would have more say. Referring to a number of well-aired smear stories about Brent and Haringey (see Chapters 4 and 5) he stated: ‘This is nothing to do with education but is bigotry masquerading as 176

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equality and intolerance masquerading as freedom. This is not a tiny minority of fanatics and cranks. It is Mr Kinnock’s supporters applying Labour education policy’. The Daily Express, 8 October, gave considerable prominence to the Bournemouth debate under the headline ‘Maggie blitz on schools’ and the sub-heads ‘Left wing cranks will be curbed’, and ‘More parent control on sex education’. According to a Leader in the Sun, also on 8 October: ‘At last, Education Secretary Kenneth Baker is curbing the poisonous flow of homosexual propaganda into the schools . . . Sensible parent power will take over from the left-wing crackpots’. On 14 October the Daily Mail gave highly sympathetic coverage to those Tory MPs, now numbering over a hundred, for whom Baker’s plans were inadequate and who were urging him to compile a mandatory blacklist of ‘corrupting’ sex books, sack any teacher who used such books, and give parents the right to withdraw children from sex education lessons. A few days later, on 22 October, the Standard, devoted its front page to a story headed ‘Beware this dirty dozen’, with the strap ‘MP condemns ‘‘too sexy’’ school books’. The MP was Peter Bruinvels and, bizarrely, the article (which continues onto page 2 of the newspaper) consisted of virtually nothing but an annotated list of the books, whose capsule descriptions were tendentious in the extreme. The Daily Express, 7 November 1986, in an article comprising part of its ‘Wrecking of our schools’ series, also turned to the subject of sex education, arguing that: ‘The full extent of the pollution of children’s minds can be gauged by the wide selection of sex guides and advice now available in some classrooms . . . Books reveal a new chapter in moral corruption’. Summing up the series on 21 November the paper concluded that: We have shown how extremist Labour councils are exploiting pupils for their own warped political ends. How gay rights watchdogs and race commissars are appointed in their schools . . . And above all how a wide range of sex guides are recommended for schools, seemingly to undermine family life by glorifying homosexuality while not warning of its dangers. Here, however, Baker was able to seize the initiative from his Tory critics, concluding, in the course of a lengthy interview, that: What I can do is subject these schools and local education authorities to the critical glare of publicity. But at the end of the day, it is 177

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parents who must use their power to turn out the race and sex commissars who are imposing their dictates in some of our schools. The fact that all the awful examples spotlighted by the Express are taking place in Labour authorities is the clearest illustration of what will follow nationally if a Labour Government, containing many of the same extremists, is elected and given power to control the entire education system. However, it was in the Lords that reaction to press stories about sex education in Haringey began the process that would eventually lead to the enactment of the notorious Clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. On 20 May 1986 Viscount Buckmaster introduced an amendment to the Education Bill, which stated that: ‘Such sex education as is given in schools shall have due regard to moral considerations and the promotion of stable family life’. The reason why he felt that this was necessary was because: There is in this country a great deal of sex education which is amoral, if not downright immoral . . . There are certain themes which appear to be running through much of this education, and particularly in London. These are that homosexual relations are just as acceptable as heterosexual relations; that there is nothing basically wrong with under-age sex provided one takes the appropriate precaution; and that incest can on occasions be regarded as a loving relationship. Via a reference to the Sun article of 6 May 1986 (quoted above, p. 63), Jenny is invoked as evidence of this form of sex education, and the Viscount confidently asserts that the book was ‘issued by an authority in north London’ and ‘was designed for use by six- to eight-year olds’ (Hansard, Lords, cols 225–6). On 28 July 1986 Lord Monson asked whether the government approved of ‘Haringey Borough Council’s plans for compulsory lessons intended to promote ‘‘positive images’’ of homosexuality in nursery, primary and secondary schools in the borough’. For the government, the Earl of Swinton admitted that the Secretary of State for Education ‘was disturbed to see press reports of Haringey council’s plans’; he also revealed that Kenneth Baker was ‘making enquiries of the authority to 178

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establish the facts’ and to discover how it proposed to pursue its policies with schools. Although admitting that ‘there have been a number of rather exaggerated press reports’, he also added that he thought Haringey’s policies (see above, pp. 168–9) ‘pretty horrific’ (Hansard, Lords, cols 552–4). The Daily Telegraph, 29 July, duly reported the debate under the headline: ‘Homosexual teaching in schools deplored’. And then, on 18 December 1986, Lord Halsbury proposed the Local Government Act 1986 (Amendment Bill), entitled ‘An Act to restrain local authorities from promoting homosexuality’. This was intended to apply to local authority activities in general, and to schools in particular, and, as finally amended, sought to prohibit ‘the teaching . . . of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. In the course of the debate, which Stephen Jeffery-Poulter describes as sinking to ‘new levels of intolerance . . . which in terms of reactionary hysteria equalled the homosexual law reform debates in the 1950s’ (1991: 210), Lord Campbell of Alloway attacked ‘the provision of explicit books of certain types’ to children, and cited Jenny as his main example. He also translated the presentation of positive images of gays and lesbians into ‘the promotion of homosexuality’ and a ‘direct attack on the heterosexual family life’ (Hansard, Lords, cols. 312–13). Lord Bellwin quoted directly from one of the Standard’s numerous eulogies to those involved with the Parents’ Rights Group, while both Baroness Cox and Lady Saltoun of Abernethy cited a leader article published, very conveniently, in that day’s Times. Headed ‘A grass roots rebellion’ this is yet another excoriation of Haringey council and paean to the PRG, which is represented as standing against ‘malignant causes’ and ‘the extremists in charge of the local council’ who want to subject children ‘to what amounts to sexual propaganda’. The Halsbury Bill made its first appearance in the Commons on 8 May 1987, where it was introduced by the veteran moral campaigner MP Dame Jill Knight, the chair of the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group. Knight’s case for the Bill reads like a compendium of every ‘loony left’ story about sexuality ever published in the press. Thus she holds forth to the Chamber that: There is evidence in shocking abundance that children in our schools, some as young as five years, are frequently being encouraged into homosexuality and lesbianism . . . There is a pile of filth, and it is shocking when one considers that it is all paid for by the 179

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rates . . . Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being spent by some councils promoting homosexuality in our schools. Inevitably, Jenny is cited in evidence of this argument, as it ‘is being promulgated by a local council’ (Hansard, Commons, cols 997–1000). Sir Brandon Rhys Williams complains that it was wrong that ‘homosexuality should be presented openly, and even authoritatively recommended, with the support of public funds’ (Hansard, Commons, col. 1001) and Dr Rhodes Boyson argues that: ‘There is a need for a measure to control homosexual and lesbian propaganda in schools’ (Hansard, Commons, col. 1008). The Bill, however, failed, because the Chamber was not quorate, but at Prime Minister’s Question Time on 14 May 1987, Mrs Thatcher herself stated that it was a ‘great pity’ it had not passed, assured Jill Knight of her government’s support for its objectives, and expressed the hope that she would bring it back into parliament following the election (Hansard, Commons, col. 413). The election took place on 11 June 1987, after a campaign in which, as Anna Marie Smith puts it: ‘The construction of the equivalence, Labour = ‘‘excessive’’ local government = high rates = ‘‘loony left’’ = permissiveness = radical blackness, queerness, feminism = erosion of the entire social order, was central’ (Smith 1994: 184. On this point see also Hall 1988: 259–67). A particularly unpleasant feature of that campaign was a Tory poster which presented an image of the books Police: Out of School, Young, Gay and Proud and The Playbook for Kids About Sex, and posed the question: ‘Is this Labour’s idea of a comprehensive education?’ At the Tory Party conference in October 1987 the newly re-elected Mrs Thatcher, in an attack on ‘hard-left education authorities and extremist teachers’, declared that: ‘Children who need to be taught to respect traditional values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay’. Up until this point, the Government had in fact opposed the Halsbury Bill, because it believed – quite correctly – that the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality was outlawed by various already-existing statutes. However, in the light of Mrs Thatcher’s above remarks, it is altogether unsurprising that, on 8 December 1986, the Bill reappeared in the Commons in a very slightly modified form, as an amendment to the Local Government Bill. It was introduced by David Wilshire, apparently with the Prime Minister’s personal blessing. At first numbered Clause 14, then 27, it eventually became the much-reviled Clause 28. Entitled 180

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‘Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or publishing material’, it states that: ‘A local authority shall not – (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. During this and the various subsequent debates on the Clause, all the myths exposed in this chapter, and many more besides, were trotted out with mind-numbing regularity by its supporters. Protestations from Labour MPs such as Chris Smith, Clive Soley, Ken Livingstone, Alf Dubs, Jeremy Corbyn and Joan Ruddock that most of these stories were simply not true, and that the rest were highly exaggerated and inaccurate, proved to be of absolutely no avail. This is not the place to trace the further history of Clause 28; those interested in doing so should refer to Sanders and Spraggs (1989), Colvin and Hawksley (1989), Jeffery-Poulter (1991), and Smith (1994). What does need stressing, however, is the perfectly circular process whereby myths about the alleged ‘promotion’ of homosexuality by boroughs such as Haringey were propagated. As Sanders and Spraggs observe: Anything which had been published in a newspaper was given total credence and weight by both peers and MPs. Even when an item of so-called news had been clearly shown to be a fabrication, the story continued to be repeated as ‘evidence’ by supporters of the legislation. (1989: 85) These stories were then often repeated by newspapers in their parliamentary coverage, and so the process continued. As Davina Cooper puts it: ‘In this way, a self-affirming cycle of information and opinion was constituted, beneficial to the right and media alike’ (1994: 142). In such a situation, fallacies are created (for example, that Jenny is widely available in schools in certain London boroughs, or that certain schools are trying to ‘make’ their pupils into gays and lesbians) which, though ludicrous or demonstrably untrue or both, are extremely hard to contest and dispel – not least because they are endlessly recycled, rehashed and embellished by much of the press on a daily basis. The myths thus become entirely self-perpetuating. As Smith points out: 181

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Later speakers cite the same ‘evidence’ as if its legitimacy and significance were already well-known. In the final debates, the simple act of speaking the names of five local authorities, Camden, Haringey, Lambeth, Brent and Ealing, is deemed sufficient to evoke the figure of the ‘promoter’ of homosexuality. (1994: 192–3) This is an excellent example of what one might call ‘the magic of reiteration’,2 a magic made all the more powerful because the myths speak to such to such deep-seated anxieties about sexuality, the family, childhood, the breakdown of the social order, and the end of life as we know it – anxieties which were ruthlessly exploited by the Tory government and its allies in the press in the interests of legitimising a regime in which, as Richard Davenport-Hines argues, sexual appetite is regulated, eroticism is repressed, social conformity equated with health and conspicuous people of all sorts are treated as undesirable. All those individuals for whom social controls are not just a necessary evil to keep society intact, but a bulwark against personal disintegration, or a pleasure when exercised aggressively against the weak, have been aroused to fever pitch. Chiliasts who relish crises and drastic restrictions have been granted their heart’s desire. (1990: 332)

Notes 1. This, along with Cooper’s earlier account (1989), although avowedly partisan, is by far the clearest and most substantial account of the ‘positive images’ affair. 2. The most infamous believer in this particular form of ‘magic’ was Adolf Hitler, who stated that: The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must therefore confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. (1969: 168)

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References Colvin, Madeleine and Hawksley, Jane (1989), Section 28: A Practical Guide to the Law and Its Implications, London: National Council for Civil Liberties. Cooper, Davina (1989), ‘Positive images in Haringey: a struggle for identity’, in Carol Jones and Pat Mahoney (eds), Learning Our Lines: Sexuality and Social Control in Education, London: The Women’s Press, pp. 46–78. Cooper, Davina (1994), Sexing the City: Lesbian and Gay Politics Within the Activist State, London: Rivers Oram Press. Davenport-Hines, Richard (1990), Sex, Death and Punishment: Attitudes to Sex and Sexuality in Britain Since the Renaissance, London: Fontana Press. Durham, Martin (1991), Moral Crusades: Family and Morality in the Thatcher Years, New York: New York University Press. Hall, Stuart (1988), The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left, London: Verso. Hitler, Adolf (1969), Mein Kampf, London: Hutchinson. Hollingsworth, Mark (1986), The Press and Political Dissent: A Question of Censorship, London: Pluto Press. Jeffery-Poulter, Stephen (1991), Peers, Queers and Commons: The Struggle for Gay Law Reform from 1950 to the Present, London: Routledge. Lansley, Stewart, Goss, Sue and Wolmar, Christian (1989), Councils in Conflict: The Rise and Fall of the Municipal Left, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Levidow, Les (1989), ‘Witches and seducers: moral panics for our time’, in Barry Richards (ed.), Crises of the Self: Further Essays on Psychoanalysis and Politics, London: Free Association Books, pp. 181—215. Sanders, Sue and Spraggs, Gill (1989), ‘Section 28 and Education’, in Carol Jones and Pat Mahony (eds), Learning Our Lines: Sexuality and Social Control in Education, London: The Women’s Press, pp. 79–128. Smith, Anna Marie (1994), New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weeks, Jeffrey (1985), Sexuality and Its Discontents: Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities, London: Routledge. Wellings, Kay (1988), ‘Perceptions of risk – media treatment of AIDS’, in Peter Aggleton and Hilary Homans (eds), Social Aspects of AIDS, London: The Falmer Press, pp. 83–105.

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Slaying the Dragon

He [Ken Livingstone] praises Mr Blair for running ‘the government of my dreams’ on issues such as race, female equality and sexual orientation. ‘If you come out [as gay]’ he says ‘it almost guarantees you a junior ministerial post. It’s wonderful’. Guardian, 8 April 2004 Today as an experiment, I have been asked to run a few job advertisements. These are not ordinary jobs. These are some of the nation’s top jobs, none of which has ever been advertised before. So only extremely serious applicants, please . . . Bogeyman of the Left. This symbolic post fulfils the very important function of giving the British electorate (or at least the British media) someone to fear. The British find it very hard to work out the ideas or aims of the far left (also known as the ‘far left’, ‘loony left’, ‘mad left’, etc), so they prefer to concentrate on one person, as this fits better into their idea of politics as soap opera. Previous holders of the post have been Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Arthur Scargill and (briefly) Derek Hatton, but the post is currently vacant. Candidates should have a strong but well-hidden sense of humour, a gift for oratory, a short name for headlines, and a minimum of one odd hobby, even if it is only newt-keeping or tea-drinking. The post is not paid, but there are considerable fees for broadcasts, interviews, articles, etc, and the incumbent will soon be able to move out of politics and become a well-loved character on telly. Miles Kington, Independent, 28 March 1990 187

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This chapter looks at what happened to the ‘loony left’, or, more importantly, to perceptions of the ‘loony left’, in the period between the demise of the GLC in 1985 and the present. It will describe how Labour’s election defeat in 1987 was interpreted, both by the media and the Labour leadership, as a defeat for the notion of Labour as a left-wing party. This in turn gave impetus to those who were arguing that, although Labour had changed it had not changed enough and needed to travel further toward the political centre to regain power. It will then examine how the Labour leadership set about changing the party and its policies, initially through a process of political realignment which was known as the Policy Review Process, and then through organisational change, to create a party that would not only ‘look different’ from the previous model but would actually be different. The chapter will analyse how this was achieved by the recruitment of a new cadre of political actors who were themselves, if not communication professionals, then at the very least highly focused on the importance of communications as central to the political project. And it will investigate how these professionals, charged with the task of making Labour more ‘marketable’, created a new, powerful tier of appointed leaders who assumed, and then dispensed, more real power than all but a few of the elected leadership. However, it is important to indicate at the outset that it is no part of the argument being advanced that the rise to power and influence by the left of the Labour Party was a media invention, nor that there were not groups, such as Militant, whose ultimate aim was to take over the Party and transform it into a revolutionary organisation. No political party committed to democratic parliamentary politics can afford to ignore such developments. Nor is it any part of the argument that the Labour leadership’s attempts to distance the Party from leftwing ideologies and ideologues was a primary cause of either its eighteen-year period in opposition, or for its landslide victories in 1997 and 2001. It is commonly assumed that those who led the ‘project’ – the name given to the moves by Labour’s ‘modernisers’ to capture Labour and transform it into an election-winning machine – virtually created a new party, or at least a new brand, that is, ‘New Labour’. But the contention of this chapter is that they created not one new party but two – New Labour (about which much has been written) and ‘Old 188

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Labour’ an artifice, taking in everyone from left urban activists, through Militant and other ultra-left grouping, to both right- and left-wing backbench MPs and the entire trade union movement (from the ranks of the cynical right to the activist left). ‘Old Labour’ had to be created because if one is wanting to be seen slaying a dragon then it is important to make that dragon appear as terrifying and potentially dangerous as possible in order to make the act of assassination appear not just necessary but welcome. As Tim Bale notes: ‘So just as any improved version of a product must have an old, unimproved one from which it can be distinguished, New Labour needed old Labour . . .’1 The importance of this is that when the modernisers – led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson – were in the process of creating New Labour it was important for them to not just to be seen to be taking on the party and challenging its basic precepts and ways of working, but also for the party – or at least ‘Old Labour’ – to be seen to be resisting. Without controversy and dissent the public, they believed, would not believe the transformation was either real or complete. Hence, opposition was an essential part of the process and those doing the opposing had to be perceived as commanding significant support in the Party, or at least having done so in the recent past. Exaggerating the importance and success of the ‘loony left’ in its earlier supposed capture of the Labour Party was an important subtext for the modernisers – thus supporters of the ‘loony left’, the modernisers and the right-wing press all, bizarrely, had a vested interest in making it appear to be a far more significant player so that, for the latter two groups at least, its defeat would appear to have a significance way beyond that which it deserved. Paradoxically, much of the political agenda of the ‘loony left’ came to be accepted, even supported, by New Labour, as the quotation from Ken Livingstone at the head of this chapter makes irreverently clear. This agenda included support for the raft of policies associated with the equality agenda – ethnicity, gender and disabilities – it also included other policy areas such as negotiating with Sinn Fein and including, strangely enough, the Public Finance Initiative which had its origins in attempts by left Labour local administrations to raise extra cash to cover the shortfalls in expenditure caused by the Conservative Government’s policy of rate-capping. Another paradox was that despite New Labour tarring much of the 189

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Party’s older working-class support with the ‘Old Labour’ badge, they were among the groups most hostile to the political agenda of the ‘loony left’ a hostility that implicitly, or explicitly, underpinned New Labour’s campaign against the left. This hostility was based on the notion of the ‘other’ – fear of the unknown, particularly the menacing unknown – which in turn implied, a sotto voce racist undertone, never made explicit, but never required to be. Contemporary political history is always problematic to document, for the historian is dealing not just with what actually happened but also the perceptions of those involved at the time, perceptions which are frequently clouded by current political arguments and positions. In addition, political actors tend to believe that their own political stances have been constant and it is the world around them that has changed. As Alan Finlayson in his Making Sense of New Labour has observed: ‘investigation must also focus on how those with power come to forge their own understandings and on what shaped their illusions . . . They interpret the world for us and then ask is to believe in their interpretation.’2 It is now commonplace to observe that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher shared certain personal and political characteristics; in particular both Blair and Thatcher (and for them as individuals read ‘they and the people close to them’) embarked on ideological projects to remake their parties. Both saw the need to push their parties rightwards – Thatcher to the right extremity of British politics and Blair to the centre. And in order to achieve these tasks both leaders had to stake out why their trajectory was the only possible one to follow – the ‘no alternative’ scenario. Finlayson provides a helpful explanation for the dynamics of this process: In order to provide a political project with a solid ground to stand on, it is always necessary to clear a space first. Parties, movements and ideologies do this by establishing a crisis to which they have the necessary answers, so that they are the only reasonable response. Thatcherism was part of a New Right reformulation, which posited the crisis of Keynesianism welfare state, blamed failure on socialism and hence advocated that socialism be ‘smashed’ and the state rolled back from the economy. Blair’s established itself firstly within the Labour party, as a response to manifest electoral crisis. It blamed that failure on bad party management, inefficient, infighting and unworkable, un-sellable, policies.3 190

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But Finlayson’s analysis does not confine itself to the political; he goes on to make a persuasive argument as to how the modernisers, steeped as they were in the marketing paradigm, perceived the ‘project’ as something more than just political transformation: [The modernisers] also pointed to the inadequate and outdated branding of the party. The emotional connotations of the party were all wrong. The customer base, the electorate, had changed, and the party’s image, structure and product would have to change if there was to be any hope of securing a market position. New Labour saw a shift in the market; it identified a new consumer need and a market opportunity. Through research, it developed a product and a strategy for placing it, found a chief salesman who could embody the company’s values, and oriented itself so as to claim the future.4 The notion of Blair as Labour’s ‘chief salesman’ is a compelling one, particularly if one thinks of the very determined attempts made by New Labour to ‘market’ itself in a holistic way, even before Blair. It was under Kinnock that the party changed its trademark colour from the slightly strident traditional red and yellow (resurrected by the Conservatives in 2004 to remind voters of ‘old Labour’) to pastel pink; of how the annual party conference was transformed from a political decision-making body into a sales convention (for Labour’s policies) and the virtual handing over of the power to direct election campaigns from elected politicians to appointed officials. But the rise of New Labour was not just associated with the rise of the political marketing paradigm – a trend in itself that owed much to the privatisation of public life – a paradigm which saw voters as consumers, policies as products and parties as sales organisations. It was also associated with the near total dominance of electioneering by the mass media; so as parties shifted from being organisations of volunteer leafleteers and door-knockers to professionalised organisations dedicated to persuading and mobilising the public, so the defining of what was ‘politically acceptable’ to the electorate became something that became more and more dominated by the mass media rather, than as it had been in the past, a process that was the preserve of the political parties and their decision-making processes. The 1987 election can be seen as a watershed in term of the so-called 191

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‘loony left’ effect. By then Neil Kinnock’s control over the party machine had been established and the left had been defeated, both in terms of the public perception and in Labour’s crucial decision-making fora. Nonetheless, post-1987 the ‘loony left’ remained a potent factor for the media, for the Conservatives and, perhaps surprisingly, for Labour as well. In the case of the latter, the ‘misdeeds’ of the ‘loony left’ could be used to demonstrate just how far Labour had travelled in the intervening years. It was also useful as a stick to beat a recalcitrant party back into line – back the leadership or face the prospect of the return of the ‘loony left’ was the implicit message of many of the battles that both Kinnock and Blair embarked upon, and usually won. Despite the popular conception of the 1980s as a period of left dominance within Labour, there are those on the left who argue, not without some merit, that in fact the decade represented a period of retreat for Labour’s left. Two leading activists of that period – Richard Heffernan and Mike Marqusee – claim that the high point of the left (in terms of winning votes at party conference and gaining seats on the National Executive Committee) was the party conference of 1980.5 The following year Tony Benn lost his challenge for the deputy leadership of the Party, and it was downhill all the way from there. The left, as characterised by Heffernan and Marqusee, were caught in a pincer movement between attacks from the Kinnock party leadership and from sections of the trade union movement and was also, at the same time, undermined by the increasing realisation among many of their own, by now deeply disillusioned supporters, that political gains might be more effectively made by adopting less confrontational, less radical policies. As Lewis Baston observes: The leadership had, by 1987, an exaggerated fear, even hatred, for the activities of the local left. This was a replay of the debates between Herbert Morrison and the supporters of Poplarism; Neil Kinnock feared that their antics would detract from Labour’s statesmanlike image, and alienate traditional working class voters.6 Philip Gould was the founder of New Labour’s Shadow Communications Agency (SCA), he articulates this notion well when, in relation to Labour’s manifesto for the 1983 General Election, he describes his own political awakening:

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I saw the final betrayal of the people I had grown up with, the people the Labour Party had been formed to serve but whom it had abandoned. Labour had not merely stopped, listening or lost touch: it had declared political war on the values, instincts and ethics of the great majority of decent, hard-working voters. Where were the policies for my old school-friends – now with families and homes of their own – in a manifesto advocating increased taxes, immediate withdrawal from the EEC, unilateral disarmament, a massive extension public ownership and import controls.7 It is widely recognised that Kinnock’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as the party’s new Director of Campaigns and Communications in 1985 was a pivotal moment in the birth of New Labour. Almost as important was the role of Philip Gould, a long-time Labour supporter with a marketing background. Gould is an important figure in understanding this period, not just because of his intrinsic importance in running the Shadow Communications Agency – an organisation of volunteer PR, advertising and marketing experts, led by Gould and reporting to Mandelson – but because in his autobiography he sets out, with unabashed honesty, how he saw the making of New Labour.8 Just months after Mandelson’s appointment Gould sent the new Director of Communications an analysis of where he perceived Labour to be standing in terms of the public and how, in marketing terms, it had to transform its brand as an essential prerequisite to the winning power. Gould’s 64-page analysis became a crucial text in the battle to transform Labour. In it Gould wrote: Positive perceptions of the Labour Party tend to be outweighed by negative concerns, particularly of unacceptable ‘beyond the pale’ policies and figures; the party sometimes acts in a way that confirms these concerns by scoring ‘own goals’; there is some feeling that the Labour Party does not, as it once did, represent the majority, instead it is often associated with minorities; the party has something of an old-fashioned cloth cap image . . .9 Out of this report grew the Shadow Communications Agency, described by journalists Colin Hughes and Patrick Wintour as: ‘Labour’s secretive but influential image-makers. It was there, among aides and volunteers in the marketing and advertising world, that the idea of building a party 193

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fit for the millennium germinated.’10 But it is unhelpful to view the Shadow Communications Agency as having an autonomous existence separate from the Labour leadership. Admittedly its terms of reference, as proposed by Gould, were wide – including drafting strategy conducting and interpreting research, producing advertising and campaign themes and providing other communications support as necessary.11 But it was always Peter Mandelson’s, and thus Neil Kinnock’s, servant rather than their master. For Gould and the SCA were providing the Labour leadership with what it wanted – the wherewithal to transform the Party from what it was to what they wanted it to be. And once the decision had to be taken to shift campaigning from traditional forms of political activity – meetings, leafleting and so on – to mass media based campaigning, then it was inevitable that media and marketing professionals, in other words the SCA, would come to dominate Labour’s policy-making processes as well as its communications structures. In the last months of 1986, as Labour was preparing itself for the coming election, the Conservatives (and the newspapers that supported them) launched a new onslaught against the Party, and in particular against what they saw as their vulnerable flank – the ‘loony left’. This report from The Times was typical: Two Cabinet ministers last night launched one of the Conservatives’ strongest attacks yet on Labour’s ‘loony left’ council leaders. Mr Nicholas Ridley, Secretary of State for the Environment, told the Commons that some were behaving like Eastern bloc commissars ruling people by fear. And Mr Norman Tebbit, the Party Chairman, claimed that the ‘loony left’ was poised to take over the Parliamentary Labour Party. Mr Ridley said: ‘I am told that people dare not speak out for fear of what might happen to them and their families. Perhaps they cannot really believe it is happening in England in the 1980s. It is more like Poland or East Germany: the knock on the door in the middle of the night. It is totalitarian, it is intolerant, it is anti-democratic and it employs fear to control people. Every day’s newspapers contained new horrors about the attack on local government by Labour-controlled councils. Town halls founded on civic dignity had become an arena for aggressive political posing, disruption, wild accusations, threats and fear. It is vicious, it is frightening and it is deliberate . . .’12

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The Conservatives, whether consciously or otherwise, were aided in their onslaught by the Labour leadership. Two days after the Ridley/ Tebbit onslaught the Financial Times reported Labour as responding thus: Mr Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader, yesterday attacked extremist left-wing councils which he claimed attracted lurid headlines and obscured the real achievements of the majority of Labour-controlled local authorities. His comments, which acknowledge the potential electoral damage the activities of extremist councils could inflict on Labour, come immediately after repeated government broadsides aimed at what ministers have dubbed the ‘loony left’. The Government believes that in exploiting the well-publicised excesses of a number of local authorities they have found an important weapon with which to attack Labour in the run-up to the next general election. Mr Kinnock told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party attended by nearly 90 MPs that the sensationalism attached to the actions of a few councils obscured the efforts of most of the Labour movement at local level. He said many Labour councils were working under near impossible conditions to turn their policies into practical help and the credit due to them was obscured by extremism. He added: ‘It simply proves yet again that the greatest enemy of radicalism is zealotry. When idealism is made to look like extremism it is the ideals that are discredited.’13 Labour’s own research suggested that the Conservative’s attack on the ‘loony left’ was well-chosen, for it was telling them that the crucial swing voters saw Labour as ‘a party in disarray, its leader as a ‘very nice bloke’ but pushed about and bullied by extremists, the unions, immigrants and homosexuals.’14 It was this research, and the pressures emanating from the Conservatives ‘loony left’ campaign, that led to Labour’s most traumatic moment in the run-up to the 1987 election – the Greenwich by-election. By-elections were, in the 1980s, important media events – emblematic of the parties’ public standing. Vincent Hanna, a BBC political reporter, had developed a mode of by-election reporting that transformed these seemingly routine political events into entertainment for the masses. He baited weak candidates, challenged electors with their own apathy and dreamed up stunts, all with an eye to making by-elections into ‘good 195

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television’.15 As a result, far greater public attention was trained on byelections than had been the case in the past. Thus, when a by-election was called in the South London constituency of Greenwich, there were great fears that the Labour candidate, almost irrespective of whom he or she might be, would be subjected to the sort of vitriolic attack that had been unleashed on Labour’s candidate in the Bermondsey by-election the previous year. The local party selected one of its own activists – Deirdre Wood – to fight the by election. Up until that point she had not been known as a particularly prominent members of the ‘loony left’ but that was not the impression that would have been gleaned from contemporary newspaper accounts: For Labour, Ms Deidre Wood is, her opponents say, the hard face of the London Labour left: full-time politician, husband of allegedly even wilder opinions, four sons of unknown opinions, lives in the East End. (Guardian)16 Despite her refusal to have a political label attached to her, [Deirdre Wood] is considered to be on the hard-left of the party . . . it is known that the party leadership, which is anxious not to alienate traditional supporters or to hand ‘loony left’ ammunition to its opponents, would have been happier to see a more moderate candidate emerge from the selection process. (Financial Times)17 The selection of Miss Deidre Wood, a supposedly hard left member of the Inner London Education Authority, to fight the forthcoming Greenwich by-election had her political opponents rubbing their hands with glee last night. (The Times)18 It is worth noting, from these cuttings (all from ‘serious’ broadsheets), how Ms Wood’s ‘hard leftism’ is, or is not, attributed. The Guardian attributes the description of her politics as ‘the hard face of London Labour’ to ‘her opponents‘; the Financial Times tells us that she is ‘considered to be on the hard left of the party’ (by whom, it is not specified) and The Times uses the word ‘supposedly’ to justify its description of Ms Wood as ‘hard left’. However, among these nonattributions lies one important clue as to where it is all coming from. The Financial Times tells us that ‘it is known that the party leadership . . . would have been happier to see a more moderate candidate emerge.’19 196

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And, if further proof were needed, it came from the late Vincent Hanna who told The Guardian that the smearing of Deirdre Wood had been started by elements in Labour’s headquarters in Walworth Road who were keen to prevent her from being selected.20 Unsurprisingly perhaps, Labour lost the Greenwich by-election to the up-and-coming Social Democratic Party and this led to the, now infamous ‘Hewitt letter’. This was a letter from Patricia Hewitt, then Neil Kinnock’s Head of Policy, that was leaked to the Sun (at the start of its career as the receptacle of choice for New Labour secrets). The intended recipient of Hewitt’s letter was Frank Dobson, then leader of the London Group of Labour MPs. In the letter, headlined by the Sun: ‘Gays put Kinnock in a panic – secret letter lashes loonies’, Hewitt blamed the ‘loony left’ for the parlous state of Labour in London. She wrote: It’s obvious from our own polling, as well as from the doorstep, that the ‘London effect’ is now very noticeable. The ‘loony Labour left’ is taking its toll; the gays and lesbians issue is costing us dear amongst the pensioners; and fear of extremism and higher taxes/rates is particularly prominent in the GLC area. Private and public polling is now showing very clearly that, whereas London at the height of the GLC campaign was pulling Labour’s national average support up – London today is pulling Labour down. I think there are many in the London party who still fondly believe they are doing well – they need to be disabused.21 Hughes and Wintour suggest that the leak – which was headlined in the Sun ‘Gays put Kinnock in a panic: secret letter lashes loonies’ – had come from Kinnock’s office ‘to put a bomb under the London left.’22 And Heffernan and Marqusee are even more specific in their analysis of the Hewitt letter. They wrote: ‘At a stroke, the entire Tory and media campaign against local Labour councils’ equal opportunities initiatives was vindicated – by the Labour leadership itself.’23 Right-wingers in the Labour Party seized upon the defeat at Greenwich to push home their advantage. They used the media to reinforce Patricia Hewitt’s warnings about a ‘London effect’. The Sunday Times reported, in March 1987: Senior Labour party moderates gave a warning yesterday that time was running out for Labour to avoid disaster at the next general 197

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election. They told the Sunday Times that unless Neil Kinnock acted immediately to curb London’s ‘loony left’, Labour would be humiliated at the polls and Mrs Thatcher would be guaranteed a third term in office . . . Stuart Bell, Labour MP for Middlesbrough and secretary of the Solidarity group of Labour moderates, said he will be warning all prospective parliamentary candidates against manipulation by the left, particularly in London . . . Moderates are alarmed at the prospects of the parliamentary party being dominated by the far left after the general election. Ken Livingstone, the former GLC leader and candidate for Brent East, is believed to be planning to run for the party chairmanship after the retirement of Jack Dormand, a veteran moderate from north eastern England.24 The Greenwich defeat was undoubtedly traumatic for the Labour leadership. One of Kinnock’s close aides told the noted general election chroniclers David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh: ‘What changed everything of course, was Greenwich and subsequent rows – all of which were peculiarly disastrous because they re-awoke fears which many potential voters still had about Labour extremism, divisions, unfitness for government and Kinnock’s own leadership ability.’25 Labour went into the 1987 election as a bifurcated party. On the ground, party members, trade unionists and community activists still believed the Party to be a vehicle for achieving sweeping social change across a wide swathe of issues; its economic policies were essentially redistributive; it favoured unilateral nuclear disarmament and the restoration of trade union rights and it was committed to an equality agenda covering gender, ethnicity, disability and sexuality. However, the Party leadership viewed things somewhat differently. They fought a campaign based on convincing the electorate that the agenda of the grassroots was not shared by the Party leadership, that the Party in power would seek to represent the aspirations of middle Britain (a phrase not used at the time) and that they (rather than the SDP–Liberal Alliance) were the only viable alternative to the Conservatives. Journalists Colin Hughes and Patrick Wintour (seen at the time as close to Blair) in the almost authorised version of the birth of New Labour wrote: Mandelson and Phillip Gould succeeded not because they exploited slick advertising and media management more effectively than the 198

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Conservatives, but because they forged between themselves an approach to political strategy which has never before been seen – certainly in the Labour party, and arguably, ever in British politics. They welded policy, politics and image-creation into one weapon.26 In his perceptive analysis of the evolution of Labour’s campaigns and communications strategy, Eric Shaw described this as meaning that the Party concentrated its communications effort on maximising the saliency of those matters where it was most in line with popular sentiment, such as health and education, and strive as far as possible to neutralise or exclude from the agenda issues such as industrial relations and defence, where it had few hopes of evoking a supportive response.27 This author was directly involved in this effort to shift the public face of the Labour Party during the 1987 election campaign. Based on his work as a political broadcaster the author was recruited to research and advise on appropriate locations for the election campaign itinerary for Neil Kinnock and other party campaigners. The Leader’s itinerary is a crucial part of a General Election campaign. This, ideally, involves finding salient stories and strong pictures to illustrate the ‘theme of the day’ – done effectively it means that the chosen theme will dominate the main television news bulletins and hopefully spill over into the following morning’s headlines. During the 1987 campaign Labour had an excellent ‘health day’ when they focused on the case of a boy who had had to wait for hospital treatment because of waiting lists; this led Mrs Thatcher to make her ill-advised outburst in favour of private medicine, when she said that she paid to have medical treatment done when it suited her, where it suited her and by whom it suited her.28 This author’s location research involved touring the country looking for ‘suitable’ locations and interviewees. ‘Suitable’ meant finding upbeat locations and ‘reliable’ (that is, not associated with the ‘loony left’) local authorities and interviewees. This meant avoiding, at all costs, anyone who might remind the electorate of what the Labour leadership saw as its negatives. In the words of Patricia Hewitt who commissioned the project: we want places that are modern, that show the best of Britain and, in particular, the best of what Labour councils are doing, places that 199

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encapsulate Kinnock’s Britain . . . We do not want any closed factories, derelict housing sites, run-down hospitals, industrial wastelands or other wrecks of Thatcher’s Britain . . . people – bright attractive people presenting an image of the broader base Labour has too capture – not people who present an image of oldfashioned Labour die-hards.29 This author’s own recommendations reflected this desire to reflect the ‘new’ the ‘modern’ and avoid images and people associated with Labour’s past. For example, in the north-east region, one of the recommendations in the report was for a visit to Newcastle’s South Gosford transport interchange, which represented a good example of the advantages of an integrated transport system over a deregulated one. The report went on to note: ‘A visit to the control centre would afford an opportunity of seeing how the system works, talking with the employees and being seen in a modern computer-controlled environment, built by a Labour local authority.’30 As the 1987 election approached, Philip Gould undertook a series of presentations to leading Labour politicians (and then subsequently to MPs and candidates) outlining his analysis of why Labour was failing to capture public support. This author recalls attending one of these briefings, as an outside adviser. Those attending were, understandably, desperate to win but no one was feeling confident. Philip Gould spoke fluently, and in a language that many of the participants found baffling but impressive; he was passionate and convincing about his research. He showed slides that demonstrated, diagrammatically, the image of the Party, its leader and its policies. The research looked authoritative and it was difficult not to accept the validity of his findings. Out of these findings a reality was portrayed which might, or might not have been, the reality that existed out in the country, but it became accepted by Labour’s leaders and thus became the new catechism. The very first slide Gould presented – ‘Key Findings from Research – Value Change’ read: ‘Shift from collective to individual values’.31 It reflected the success, Gould argued, that Margaret Thatcher had had in shifting the centre of political gravity away from collectivist values to more to individual ones. Yet the annual British Social Attitudes survey (which began in 1983) has consistently shown that throughout this period the values of the British electorate remained resolutely ‘social 200

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democratic’ – committed to those very values that the Labour leadership were being told no longer resonated with voters.32 The second slide presented by Gould was entitled ‘Mood of the People’33 and reported findings that people felt personally better off but had long-term doubts about the state of the economy and were worried about the quality of life. The third slide was ‘What the People Think About the Parties’34 and indicated that the main finding about the Conservatives was ‘Fears About the Future’; for the Liberal/SDP Alliance it was ‘Untried but Inexperienced’ and for Labour ‘Fears About the Loony Left’. Thus, Labour’s senior politicians were being told that the single most important issue they had to confront was people’s fears about the ‘loony left’. But if Gould’s research had been faulty in identifying a shift from collective to individual attitudes, then perhaps it was also inaccurate in its portrayal that fears about the ‘loony left’ were the single most important facet of the public’s perceptions of Labour? Labour’s defeat in 1987 was, for many in the Party, harder to take than the 1983 debacle. This time there were fewer excuses. To all intents and purposes the left had been defeated. Labour had gone into the election with Neil Kinnock very much in control of his party and on a manifesto which was, apparently, more than acceptable to the traditional right in the Parliamentary Labour Party – and they were defeated, and defeated badly. From the brief moment when they were ahead in the opinion polls – just a couple of months before polling day – they ended up still on the opposition benches and having cut the Conservatives’ majority from a massive 144 seats to a still healthy 102. Labour’s defeat in 1987, unwelcome as it was, did enable the Kinnock leadership to ‘take on’ what they saw as the self-defeating extremism of some (mainly London) local councils. Labour did particularly badly in London and, although no seats in areas covered by the so-called ‘loony left’ councils were lost, it strengthened the hand of the Labour leadership in their battles to bring these councils into line. The leadership was also strengthened in this endeavour by, what for some, was the surprise defection of the Labour Co-ordinating Committee (LCC) which up until this point had been seen as part of the left alliance which was seen to have made life difficult for Labour’s leadership. In the spring of 1988 the LCC published a pamphlet, called ‘Labour Councils in the Cold’. The pamphlet, in both form and content, was emblematic of a change of mood. In it the LCC criticised some of their erstwhile colleagues: ‘They 201

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had come to see themselves as servants of local authority trade unions and professional groups, rather than the servants of their electors.’35 After the election the Shadow Communications Agency commissioned a research report – based on qualitative and quantative polling – entitled ‘Labour and Britain in the 1990s’. The focus group research found that while the majority of the electorate had not accepted ‘Thatcherite’ values: ‘Labour was too associated with the unions, the poor, the ‘‘disadvantaged’’. Its greatest handicaps were its perceived ‘‘extremism’’ and ‘‘disunity’’ ’.36 The quantative research37 was seen at the time as particularly significant. It claimed to have found that among non-labour voters the most important reasons for not voting Labour were perceptions of Labour as a party of ‘extremism’ and ‘division’; the perceived dominance of the Party by the ‘loony left’ was found to be the primary reason why the Party was thought of as ‘extremist’.38 Philip Gould recalls: The polling was clear Labour lost because it was still the party of the winter of discontent; union influence; strikes and inflation; disarmament; Benn and Scargill. It lost because people thought they ‘had left the party and the party had left them’. Labour and the voters were facing in different directions. The electorate looked onwards and upwards; they work hard; they ‘want to do better for themselves and their families’. Labour looked downwards: ‘Clawing back; turning the clock back; for Militant; anti-home ownership; strife; strikes inflation. – Not for me.’39 Speaking at a post-election Fabian Society conference Peter Mandelson, then the party’s campaign director, argued that ordinary voters felt alienated from Labour. The Guardian reported Mandelson as talking about ‘people’s fear of Labour. Fear is his word. He says it. People said Labour’s not for them but for blacks, or for gays, or for losers. Labour too easily disqualified itself, and gave too many hostages.‘40 The Kinnock Labour Party was determined not just to change its image but its ‘product’ as well. A process was begun – known as the Policy Review – which was an attempt to refashion Labour’s policies. It was intended to bring them closer into line with what Gould, and others, identified as the aspirations of ‘ordinary people’. There were to be no ‘sacred cows’, everything was to be examined. As Steven Fielding observes: 202

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The basic object of the Review was to make the party more electable as the leadership believed Labour had to develop policies that appealed to those individualist values apparently embraced by many voters and distance itself from remedies that were overly reliant on the state.41 It is interesting to note that the Review was supposed to represent a clearing out of old and irrelevant policies to be replaced by polices that would make the party more acceptable to the electorate. But the Review was as much about changing the style, as the content, of Labour’s policies. This is demonstrable by the fact that the basket of policies that came to be encapsulated in the phrase ‘loony left’ – in particular the equality agenda – played virtually no role in the Policy Review’s deliberations or final publication. The only exception being the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament, supported by an overwhelming majority of party members, and this was largely left untouched by the Review. A series of policy review groups were charged with assessing ‘relevance and credibility of party policy’ not on the basis of any ideological blueprint but on the basis of ‘needs and concerns of voters’ as defined by the Shadow Communications Agency.42 Ordinary party members were under no illusions as to the purpose of the operation. Hughes and Wintour describe the mood of the 1987 conference that accepted the proposal to initiate the Review as ‘sullen . . . There was no enthusiasm from constituency activists who made it plain that they believed the whole enterprise was a cloak for selling out.’43 After a year-long series of consultations with party members and (a few) members of the public the new policy proposals were put in place. The consensus inside party headquarters was that, given the radical nature of many of the changes, they should be launched in piecemeal fashion, so as to lessen the anticipated hostile reaction from left-wing party activists. However, Philip Gould recalls that he argued for a different course of action. He wanted to introduce the new package of policies (which were being launched prior to the 1989 European Elections) in a blaze of publicity: I argued for a continuous five-month campaign . . . At its heart was a central strategic recommendation: do not trickle out the policy review; instead make one, big-bang presentation . . . This was in 203

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complete defiance of the previous consensus about the presentation of the review, which had been to do it late, and do it gradually, in order to minimise the possibility of backlash and dissent. My view was the opposite: people would shift to Labour only if they were sure that it had changed, and only bold, demonstrable change would convince them of that. Dissent in these circumstances did not reduce our electoral appeal, but heightened it. It was evidence of change [emphasis added].44 This is a crucial quotation, central to the argument of this chapter. Here was someone, a crucial ‘insider’, arguing that the Labour leadership needed the ‘loony left’ to be seen and heard in high profile and then seen and heard to be defeated. Thus early in the process confrontation with the left was sought not avoided. This makes sense of how Labour handled the ‘loony left’ issue from the Greenwich by-election onwards, it also explains why Tony Blair has appeared to go out of his way to ‘take the party on’ – whether over the abolition of Clause Four or the downgrading of the Party’s internal democracy. Philip Gould’s role in the process is significant not just for its content but for what it tells us about the shifting balance of power in the party. For, parallel with the assault on the party’s left, went the growing ascendancy of the appointed over the elected, with power clearly moving away from elected politicians – as symbolised by Labour’s NEC – and moving towards the professional advisers. These advisers were located either inside the Leader’s office – Patricia Hewitt or Charles Clarke for example – or appointed by Peter Mandelson (himself, at the time, an appointed official) to the Shadow Communications Agency. Apart from their expanding role, in terms of campaigning and communications, appointed advisers were also making a far greater input into the selection of by-election candidates, this followed, what for Labour had been, the twin disasters of the Bermondsey and Greenwich by-elections – in which safe Labour seats adopted left candidates who then lost to SDP or Liberal candidates. As a result the party leadership created a new process for selecting by-election candidates, a process designed to ensure that only those candidates that could be seen as ‘media-friendly’ (in other words demonstrably not of the left) were selected. And selection, although nominally in the hands of a small group of members of Labours’ national executive, was heavily influenced by the professional advisers who drew up the shortlist of 204

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candidates for consideration and also attended the selection interviews and provided advice. This new process led to a series of rows with local constituency parties (for example in two areas seen as strongholds of the ‘loony left’ – Lambeth and Brent) in which local constituency activists found that they had candidates imposed on them who did not reflect their own political views. In a situation where Labour was seen by the leadership and the media as having a problem with ‘extremists’, attempts to rein in constituency parties and impose more ‘sensible’ candidates could only, as part of a strategy of publicly defeating the ‘loony left’, be seen as helpful. Another change introduced by the leadership, which was intended to wrest control of the party machinery from the constituency activists, as opposed to the ordinary members, was the introduction of One Member One Vote – OMOV. This was a successful attempt to expand the electorate for Labour’s National Executive beyond the party activists who attended meetings to the wider party membership. One aspect of the change was that it gave considerably greater influence to the media to influence the result of these elections. In the past, decisions about which candidates to back had largely been in the hands of local party general management committees (GMC) and, as often as not, the GMC would opt for one of the ‘slates’ – lists of candidates which had the support of one or other of Labour’s factional groups. In the 1980s activists tended to support the candidates on the left-wing slates. However, the introduction of OMOV made these elections much more public affairs and, in terms of the party leadership’s perception, this bore fruit as the membership of the National Executive Committee shifted from being dominated by left-wingers, largely unsympathetic to the Kinnock leadership, to its dominance by MPs who could be relied upon to support Neil Kinnock. A further change, introduced in 1990, was the ‘reform’ of the party’s policy-making structures badged as ‘The Party in Power’. Traditionally party policy had been made at the annual party conference. Policies were based on resolutions that came from local constituency parties and trade union branches which eventually did, or did not, secure a majority at the annual conference. This was always more true in theory than practice but it was a powerful fiction for, when it appeared to be working, it gave constituency activists a sense of power. Conversely, it also led to growing feelings of frustration as activists discovered, as they began to in the late 1980s, that when they pulled on levers that had 205

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previously connected them to the party’s policy-making process via the party conference – nothing now happened, the mechanisms had ceased to function. In one sense the reform of the policy-making process could be seen as a genuine attempt to make the party’s structure accord with the new reality. The new structure restricted policy discussions to only a limited number of topics a year. These discussions began life in the party branches, went to regional policy forums (open to all members) then went to a national policy forum (which had restricted membership and was closed to the media) and were then simply accepted (which usually happened) or rejected by the annual party conference. In Eric Shaw’s words: By 1992, the structure of power in the Labour Party had undergone a profound change. The highly pluralistic, deeply polarised Party, characterised by the institutional dispersal of powers and weak central authority had been replaced by a powerful central authority exercising tight control over all aspects of organisational life.45 But if these reforms were supposed to engender a sense of involvement they failed. First, because constituency activists lost their direct role in the policy-making process – the process which meant that a resolution could be passed at local branch level and, conceivably, could work its way through the machinery to become party policy. Second, because the policy forums were held in closed session – away from the media spotlight – party members’ sense of detachment from the policymaking process also increased. In the past they might not have much enjoyed watching the live television coverage of the annual conference, showing a party divided among itself, but at least it provided them with some sense of involvement. There might have been perfectly good presentational reasons for excluding the media from the deliberations of the National Policy Forum – after all it would be difficult to argue that television coverage of Labour conferences in the early and mid-1980s had been of benefit to the party’s electoral prospects – but in doing so it had the effect of cutting off activists, and ordinary members, from seeing the policy-making process in action. Ironically, an argument can be made that those anxious to push through change in the Labour Party made a tactical error by trying to exclude some of these deliberations from public view. For it is clear that when the ‘modernisers’, such as Peter Mandelson and Patricia 206

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Hewitt, moved into controlling positions within the Labour Party and embarked on the programme of change that was to lead to the creation of New Labour, they clearly decided (as demonstrated earlier with regard to the Policy Review), that if they were to succeed then Labour not only had to change but had to be seen to change – and the more difficult that process appeared, that is, the more the modernisers were ‘resisted’, then the more thoroughgoing would the change be perceived to be. As Peter Mandelson wrote: ‘perception is reality in politics, and if perceptions exist, they need to be put right.’46 The same process can be observed at work in the way that, a few years later, Tony Blair and his allies, launched their revision of Clause Four of the Party’s constitution, the clause that appeared to commit the party to public ownership of most major industries. In writing about his plan to confront the party with the abolition of Clause Four Blair said that he was embarking on this course because: ‘It’s time we gave the party some electric shock treatment.’47 Blair told Gould that the only way they could build trust with the British people was by showing them that the Party had changed and therefore could be trusted with government and this could only be achieved by dramatic measures. Revision of Clause Four would demonstrate how much Labour had changed – it would not initiate change, but would signal that change was already underway. As Stephen Fielding observes: ‘For Blair the point of revision was to cause a fuss . . . It was precisely due to its symbolic significance that Blair wanted the clause revised.’48 Tim Bale concurs with this analysis. He writes: A new rather audacious strategy was tried: rather than playing down its past difficulties, the Party would own up to them – and in spades. The encouragement of amnesia was replaced by the penitent’s promise to have changed for the better, and for good. Almost as soon as Tony Blair became leader, he and his lieutenants more or less consciously began to paint a portrait of their own Party ‘s past in which accuracy was sacrificed, not to enhance but to belittle the original in the hope that to engage in pre-emptive auto-strikes, acknowledging the truth of much of the tabloid version [of that past] and then demonstrating that New Labour had learnt its lessons and wiped the slate clean would boost both the electoral chances of the Party and what they hoped was their ever-tightening grip upon it.49 207

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Labour went into the 1992 general election campaign far more confident than it had been in 1987. It had continued the process of change begun in 1985; the Party’s decision-making structures, its policies and – it hoped – its image, had all undergone wholesale change. And the spectre of the ‘loony left’ appeared to have been banished. But as election day approached the Conservative-supporting press returned to the fray and phrases such ‘the loony left’s bully boys’50 ‘It’s the loony left again’51 and ‘antics of the ‘‘loony left’’ ’52, littered the pages of the national press in March and April of 1992. According to the Daily Mail’s post-election analysis: Far from making advances in the South, Labour were repulsed in nearly all the seats they thought they could capture. Clearly the ‘London effect’ of the so-called Loony Left still haunts voters who have had to put up with some of their crazy ideas.53 David Hill, who was Labour’s Director of Communications in 1992, agreed with this analysis. He told a post-election seminar: Immediately after the election I said that the main reason why, when it came to the crunch, people felt that they could not vote Labour, was because they were concerned about Labour’s history . . . the problem for Labour has was that people had very long memories. Our canvassers discovered . . . that people on the doorstep were remembering 1979. They were also remembering the arguments that took place in the Labour Party in the early 1980s. These memories were fostered by the newspapers in particular. And people recalled, or thought they recalled, that Labour had a history of internal conflict and a history of chaotic government. As people saw it, they could not be confident that they could trust Labour . . . they felt that Labour was a party which was no longer in tune with them . . . that the Labour Party’s approach to life was not consistent with third own perception of their aspirations, their outlook and their wish for success, for themselves and their families.54 However, the Butler and Kavanagh series of general election studies tells a somewhat different story. In their study of the 1987 general election the term ‘loony left’ received seven index entries, the volume 208

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looking at the 1992 election contained none. And the academic psephological analysis of the 1992 result appeared to give the lie to the Labour’s leadership’s belief that the main cause of their defeat was their failure to shake off the ‘loony left’ label. In a pre-election analysis in The Times Ivor Crewe investigated whether there was a ‘loony left’ effect at work – as the Conservatives had been claiming. Crewe reported that there was none, with London showing an above-average swing to Labour of 8 per cent.55 His view was supported by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher whose post-election analysis in the Sunday Times demonstrated: ‘Only four regions saw significant changes in the party profile of seats, with London accounting for more than a quarter of all Labour’s net gains. The ‘‘loony left’’ image, which so damaged the party in 1987, has almost disappeared . . .’.56 The decision by the Conservatives in 1992 to campaign around the ‘loony left’ issue is redolent of the fact that much of their campaigning in this period was based on exploiting perceived fears of the voters. Their campaigns, in both 1987 and 1992, tended to focus on generating general fears about Labour which they combined with provoking specific fears about tax rises, trade union power and the ‘hard left’. But there was also an unspoken fear that ran through much of the Conservative’s campaigning and through Labour’s response – fear of the ‘other’, the outsider, the alien. And the ‘loony left’ was, for the Tories, a powerful symbol of the ‘other’. It is commonplace to observe that a great deal of political attitude formation and electoral behaviour is driven by fear of the ‘other’ – whether the ‘other’ be asylum seekers, homosexuals, young people or whatever. Fear of the ‘other’, and the use made of it by the Conservatives, can be seen at its clearest when considering the way that the Party has used race and racism in contemporary election campaigning. It perhaps begins with Margaret Thatcher saying that ‘people are afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people of a different culture’.57 Later, in 1995, Norman Tebbit’s special adviser, Andrew Lansley, wrote: ‘Immigration, an issue which we raised successfully in 1992 and again in the 1994 Euro-elections campaign, played particularly well in the tabloids and has more potential to hurt’;58 and more recently the Conservatives, and Conservative-supporting newspapers, have made concerns around asylum seekers into a major political issue. In some real, and some imagined, ways the spectre of the’ loony left’ was a useful code for race. The late Bernie Grant from Guyana, one-time 209

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Leader of Haringey Council and subsequently MP for Tottenham, was the frequent target for attack by the national press. It was an undoubted fact that antiracist issues and policies were key components uniting the left (indeed it was an issue that united the whole Labour Party) and if voters perceived Labour and Labour’s left as being ‘in favour’ of antiracism and supporting ethnic minorities, then this was an accurate perception. But there was also a more subconscious fear captured in the pages of the Daily Mail and Daily Express – a fear that something essentially ‘English’ was being destroyed. In the fifties the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, talked of Britain having lost an Empire but not having found a role; Dulles was talking about British foreign policy but it also resonated at a more parochial level. This sense of a golden age rapidly being obscured from view by a haze of multiculturalism was captured by Conservative Prime Minister John Major in his evocation of maidens on bikes, warm beer and cricket matches on the green.59 Much was changing in post-war Britain and one of the most visible signs of change was in the ethnic make-up of the population, particularly in London, which accounted for the biggest single concentration of ethnic minority residents. The municipal left saw race and race equality as important, political, moral and electoral issues. The voting records of black and Asian electors had shown consistently high levels of support for Labour and, to some extent, their electoral support compensated for the decline in the white working-class vote that, in part, propelled Mrs Thatcher to power. So Labour activists saw black and minority ethnic voters as electoral friends but also, as representing an important area of political activity. The inspiration might not have been directly from the ‘rainbow coalition’ of the American civil rights movement but there was no shortage of both political theorists and electoral strategists who were opining that, as class and political dealignment speeded-up, the left should be seeking to build a new coalition covering leftists, feminists, blacks, gays, people with a disability and so on. Hence the left was seen as heavily identified with black and ethnic minorities and this provided grist to the mill of Conservative propagandists and tabloid newspaper editors who wished to suggest, indirectly, that support for Labour equalled support for its far left which equalled support for black people and the consequent ending of their idealised notion of Britain, or of England in particular. One of Bill Clinton’s political advisers, Joe Napolitano, was brought 210

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over to the UK in 1986 by the Shadow Communications Agency to ‘warn’ Kinnock that Labour was ‘seen as associated with extreme leftism racial worries and Labour’s affinity for perceived ‘‘undesirables’’ ’.60 Philip Gould, in describing a focus group he conducted in 1985, evoked similar emotions: ‘They were frightened: they saw society breaking down and their instincts was to retreat from it into their families.’61 Ten years later (in 1995) another American pollster – Stan Greenberg, one of Clinton’s polling advisers – was in the UK at the invitation of Philip Gould. Greenberg told the Labour leadership much the same thing. He declared: ‘One of the pre-occupations of Old Labour was a pre-occupation [sic] with what the public often saw as ‘‘bizarre’’ issues: homosexuals, immigrants, feminists, lesbians, boroughs putting their money into peculiar things.’62 It is not an uncommon political phenomenon that groups, particularly those who feel they are under some sort of pressure, identify themselves not so much by who they are, as by who they are not. In this case we see a notion of ‘Englishness’ being formed in opposition to those groups that Labour’s left was seen to be representing – blacks, gays, trade union militants, ‘scroungers’, travellers, and so on – the ‘folk devils’ uncovered by sociologist Stanley Cohen more than thirty years ago.63 The combination of Labour weakness, the astuteness of Conservative campaigning and the enthusiastic endorsement of the Conservative-supporting press, created a climate in which Labour was seen to symbolise something unedifying, un-English, almost alien. As Eric Shaw observes: The real significance of the Tory and tabloid ‘loony left’ assault was its invitation to voters to define themselves as white and respectable rather than as working-class, to identify with the Conservatives as the party of whites and upwardly mobile – and to reject Labour as the party of minorities and the failures. This strategy was pivoted on driving a wedge though Labour’s working-class constituency, which effectively involved exploiting, politicising and sharpening existing cleavage patterns and rival social identities, dividing the more affluent, socially mobile and owner-occupiers from the poor, welfare recipients, one-parent families and so forth. . . .64 In his account of the rise of New Labour, Phillip Gould relates how, quite unconsciously, his focus group respondents associated Labour with ‘black’. He writes: 211

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For the next fourteen years [after 1983] indeed until the very last days of the 1997 election, Labour became a party to be feared. One woman said to me just weeks before the 1997 election ‘When I was a child there was a wardrobe in my bedroom. I was always scared that one night, out of the blackness, a monster would emerge. That is how I think of the Labour Party’ . . . Labour had become the party of the shadows; of deep, irrational anxiety. Only modernisation would save it.65 Labour continued to play to these fears. In the Party’s crucial positioning document ‘New Labour New Life for Britain’, published in 1996, there are literally hundreds of pictures of ‘ordinary people’. Of those who are clearly identifiable 215 are white and just 7 are black or Asian – all of whom are ‘unthreatening’ babies, children or students. In other words, Labour, in seeking to position itself for the forthcoming election, was distancing itself from black and ethnic minority adults. There is no suggestion that Labour was, at any time, deliberately ‘playing the race card’. What is being suggested is that the Party, throughout this period, was acutely aware of, what it took to be, its vulnerability on this issue and sought to draw the sting out of the implicitly racist attacks that might be made on the party by the rightwing press. The Labour leadership believed that the most effective way of countering these ‘fears’, (or at least so they were advised) was to establish Labour’s general ‘trustworthiness’ and hope this would act as a neutralising agent over issues such as race and feminism. Hence from 1987 onwards Labour’s campaigning teams focused on the goal of convincing the British people that they were not ‘extremists’ and could be ‘trusted’ to run Britain in the way that it had always been run. Patricia Hewitt, who was then Neil Kinnock’s Head of Policy, wrote at the time: The essence of making Labour electable, is trust. Trust in Labour’s leadership, in the team, in Labour’s ability to manage the economy competently. Trust that Labour knows where it is going – and trust in the policies to take it there.66 Philip Gould, returning from a stint with Clinton’s 1991 campaign wrote:

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As soon as I returned to London from the 1992 Democratic victory I wrote a long document . . . Labour was perceived to be looking downwards not upwards and backwards not forwards; it was for ‘minorities and not the mainstream’ and it was ‘not trusted to run the economy properly’.67 In 1992, six months after the Conservative Government had suffered the ignominy of its forced retreat from the European Monetary System, trust in Labour remained low. Party research reported in the Guardian revealed that it was still seen as ‘outdated, untrustworthy and prejudiced in favour of minorities rather than ordinary people’.68 In their post-election analysis of what went wrong for Labour in 1992, Hewitt and Gould’s explanation of why Labour remained ‘not trusted’ was simple: The party had not changed enough . . . there were too many who went along with the Kinnock project of change not because they believed in the need for change or in the kind of change he was offering, but because they thought it might win. They argued that voters were not fools and that they recognised that the party’s grassroots had not gone through the same conversion process as its top leadership clearly had undergone – if the Party was not convinced, then why should the voters be, they asked?69 Much of the supporting evidence for this assertion came from a series of focus groups Philip Gould conducted for the party in the wake of the 1992 defeat. Gould had been conducting such research ever since the establishment of the Shadow Communications Agency seven years earlier. Focus groups can be a very useful research tool but they can also be illusory, particularly if the person leading the group is not the dispassionate researcher that the text books advocate. And Gould certainly was not. He describes his first encounter with a focus group: No one trained me, I just did it. And I loved it. I loved the direct contact with the electorate, the way that I could put arguments, hear arguments, confront arguments, develop ideas, feel the intensity of a point of view and hear the opinions, attitudes and emotions of ordinary members of the public . . . I do not just sit there and listen. I challenge, I argue back, I force them to confront issues.70 213

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Exciting stuff it might be, but objective research it certainly is not. If, and it’s not a big ‘if’, Gould was convinced that one of Labour’s major weaknesses was the perception that it was not trusted, and that the principal cause of this was that the Party was perceived to be dominated by the ‘hard left’, it is hardly surprising that he came back with the news that that was exactly what people believed – especially in the light of his own particular ‘research method’. As one reads Gould’s account of his encounters with focus groups it is difficult to dispel from one’s mind the image of a hapless group of focus group subjects sitting in a North London front room in the early 1990s, being forced to ‘admit’ (a` la George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four) that it was the ‘loony left’ that had kept them from voting Labour. Gould recounts how he achieved these ‘results’. He used a technique of ‘show cards’ and prodded respondents to talk about ‘acceptable and ‘unacceptable’ fields of politics – an extremely problematic notion (who is defining ‘acceptable and ‘unacceptable’?). He reported responses such as: ‘It’s outrageous – they’re spending a million pounds on parks for gays and lesbians in Camden . . . There are too many loonies.’71 Such responses cannot be divorced from the methodologies used to obtain them in the first place. The essence of virtually any research technique which seeks to measure public opinion is the appearance of objectivity. It has been well-documented that one of the problems facing quantitative researchers is what Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann first characterised as the ‘spiral of silence’72 – certain attitudes and views become deemed as ‘socially acceptable’ and others ‘unacceptable’. Thus respondents, when faced with researchers (particularly face-to-face), seek to give the ‘correct’, that is, the socially acceptable answer. (In the early 1980s, for example, this tended to reduce the measurable support for the Michael Foot-led Labour Party; in the 1990s it worked against the Conservatives).73 Thus, if the ‘spiral of silence’ effect operated in the course of a quantitative polling interview in which the respondent and interviewer are together for just a matter of minutes, how much more must it come into effect when respondents in focus groups find themselves in a room having to ‘argue’ with an enthusiast for the New Labour project? Gould was in fact presenting the Labour leadership with the output of his ‘research’ as objective information when in fact it was more akin to the data garnered from old-fashioned political canvassing. The significance of this is that Gould’s views about what voters 214

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were thinking carried significant weight in Labour’s inner circles; in his own words: ‘I was seen as the voice of the electorate.’74 Armed with this research Tony Blair, and the team surrounding him, clearly saw it as central to their mission to persuade voters that Labour was a radically changed party from the one they had previously identified with the ‘loony left’. To effect this, following Blair’s election to the Labour leadership in 1994, he and his team had to invent not one but two new parties. The first – New Labour – had been germinating as ‘the project’75 ever since Neil Kinnock confronted Militant at the 1985 party conference. It was brought into existence by the combined efforts of Kinnock and his private office (particularly Charles Clarke76 and Patricia Hewitt), plus Peter Mandelson, Philip Gould, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. But the second party that had to be ‘created’ was ‘Old Labour’ – a party that only existed in the imaginings of the Labour modernisers and then, by osmosis, by the media. Old Labour was, as previously indicated, an unlikely amalgam of urban left activists (including Militant and other Trotskyist grouplets), right- and left-wing trade unionists and MPs who had neither joined the SDP nor were fully paid-up members of New Labour. Blair and his colleagues felt obliged to ‘create’ Old Labour because, even as late as 1994 it was clear, or at least clear to them, that the Party had still not succeeded in convincing significant sections of the electorate that the Party’s change was real and fundamental. Fielding describes this persisting image of Labour as a party that ‘remained dominated by the unions; it was only interested in representing the interests of the poor and a variety of minorities.’77 That this image might be, or might not be, a false one engendered by a hostile media was of little consequence to Blair and his inner circle – their job was to get Labour elected. Thus, rather than challenge this image he worked with it and, to some extent, sought to exaggerate it so that the differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Labour appeared greater than they actually were. In Fielding’s words: ‘he deliberately made the party’s break with its past appear more apparent than it actually was’.78 Blair believed that while Kinnock had taken heroic steps in changing the Party he had been less successful in persuading the British public that the changes were for real. Thus Blair believed that by using the phrase ‘New Labour’ at every possible opportunity he was reinforcing the message that this was a different Labour Party from the one in voters’ minds that was preventing them from supporting the party at the polls. 215

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The New Labour leadership was convinced that Labour’s victory in 1997 was the result of their persuading a sceptical electorate that the party could, at last, be ‘trusted’. This author recalls a conversation, in 1996, with David Miliband who was then Tony Blair’s Head of Policy and is, at the time of writing, a senior member of the Government. Miliband was open and insistent that New Labour’s strategy for its first term in office was primarily to reassure the British people that Labour could be ‘trusted’. And Margaret Hodge, a former left-wing leader of Islington Council – the personification in many people’s eyes of the ‘loony left’ and who had become a convinced Blairite by the time of the election – conceded that she and her colleagues had deliberately avoided discussing issues such as ‘equality’ because they ‘worried voters would see it either as being steeped in political correctness or as simply taxing them, and so we stood back from our traditional political terrain’.79 On the other hand, New Labour argued strongly in favour of gender equality. This was one area of ‘loony left’ politics that New Labour leaders perhaps felt less uncomfortable with. This was both because they were instinctively, and generationally, committed to equality between the sexes but also because all their polling was telling them that this was an effective way of closing the gender gap. Labour was seen as a male-dominated party that used macho language and adopted macho posturing and that anything that could be done to correct such a perception would be electorally beneficial. New Labour sought to bridge this gap by changing its policies and its organisation. An element of positive discrimination in favour of women was introduced into elections for the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 and four years later it was introduced into the shortlists for parliamentary selections. Thus allwomen shortlists, argued for vociferously by the Labour left, were put into effect under New Labour (although here there were many who claimed that this was only being done because there was a coterie of incipient ‘Blair babes’ being lined up to win the all-women selection contests). However, Lewis Baston is among doubters as to New Labour’s real commitment to gender equality. He suggests that Labour adopted women-only shortlists only as a result of the momentum that had been built up on the issue by the left: ‘The party leadership reluctantly came round to the view that all women shortlists were necessary in 1992–93, a step which would have been impossible had the local left not raised the profile of sex equality.’80 He argues that the real credit for making the 216

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equality agenda a political reality must go to the municipal left rather than the shock troops of New Labour: ‘The politics of social inclusion with which Labour successfully ends the century owes much to the initiatives that came through local government in the 1980s’, he wrote.81 Ironically, it was some of the more right-wing unions, keen supporters of Neil Kinnock’s leadership, that had to be persuaded that if Labour was to ever win again then a real commitment – both in policy and internal structures – had to be made to gender equality. Thus on one raft of issues – lone parents and increasing support for working mothers – New Labour pushed the policy agenda into the terrain of the far left. Indeed, according to Hughes and Wintour: Labour reformers . . . insisted that the party would not be fully reconstructed until it had been imbued with feminism. Research prepared by the [Shadow Communications] agency for ‘Labour and Britain in the Nineties’ showed that for some time women had been less likely to vote Labour than men.82 Nonetheless, the overwhelming desire to reassure the electorate and retain its newly won trust, sometimes overcame the Blair Government’s genuine commitment to gender equality. Within the first few months of the Labour Government coming to power in 1997 Harriet Harman, another politician formerly identified with the London left and New Labour’s first Secretary of State for Social Services, was tasked with persuading her fellow women MPs to support a cut in benefit for single parents – plans inherited from the outgoing Conservative Government. Fiscally the measure was an irrelevancy, the amount of money being saved was minimal,83 but Blair and his advisers saw this as an emblematic issue with which to demonstrate the extent to which Labour had changed. And how better to do this than to have the change championed by someone formerly identified with the ‘loony left’? A report in the Guardian newspaper began: Tony Blair’s honeymoon with his own party ended dramatically last night when 47 Labour MPs defied a three-line whip to stage an unexpectedly emphatic vote against the lone parent benefit cut . . . He had staked considerable authority on facing down the rebellion in the name of New Labour solidarity behind his election manifesto.84 217

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However, given New Labour’s publicly declared position on gender issues, and the fact that there were now over a hundred women Labour MPs in the House, this token gesture engendered a great deal of hostility and bitterness and created a sense of distrust between the leadership and the Party at large that was never effectively dispelled; despite the fact that in the subsequent budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer more than made up for the symbolic cut that Harman had been forced to put through the House (she herself was shortly after sacked from the Cabinet – scant reward for her apparent willingness to put herself in the front line of New Labour’s confrontation with lone parents). Perhaps the moment of greatest tension between New Labour and its ‘loony left’ past came in 1999 when the leadership was faced with Ken Livingstone’s bid to become Labour’s candidate to be the first elected Mayor of London. For many in the Labour leadership Livingstone personified all the worst elements of the ‘loony left’. Writing in the People newspaper, under the headline, ‘Why Red Ken is a Disaster for Labour’ former leader Neil Kinnock argued: The Loony Left had to be beaten before the voters would treat Labour seriously again . . . Arthur Scargill. Derek Hatton. Ted Knight. Linda Bellos. They were the names in the headlines that made people say: ‘Labour’s lost it now.’ And there was one name, above all, that made them say: ‘‘Labour’s lost me now.’’ The name was Ken Livingstone. While he led the Greater London Council the stories of high rates, public money for stunts, control by softheaded Hard Left groups poured out of the press almost every day.85 Ever since the abolition of the Greater London Council Ken Livingstone had assumed almost mythic proportions as an iconic hate figure, epitomising the ‘loony left’. In reality, he was an isolated figure on Labour’s back benches. A constant critic of Gordon Brown’s economic policies, he dug his own grave – in terms of preferment – deeply. Thus, given his GLC background, it was not surprising that when the battle for Labour’s nomination for the mayoralty of London began Livingstone was seen as a leading candidate. It was equally unsurprising that the antipathy of the Labour leadership towards him assuming the post was equally prominent. Both Blair and Brown had a fear that Livingstone, as Labour’s candidate, would re-awaken the sleeping dragons of the ‘loony 218

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left’ and the ‘London effect’. Tony Blair, in what must be an unprecedented attack for a leader of a mainstream political party on one of his own MPs running for high office, said: I was a foot soldier in the Labour Party in Battersea and in Hackney in the early 1980s. I canvassed and campaigned for Labour in London when we were at our lowest ebb. I remember knocking on doors in different parts of London only to see in the eyes of the people, time after time, that they thought the Labour Party was not for them. At that time the Labour Party was a byword for extremism. We were hopelessly divided and deeply unpopular . . . The leading figures in the Labour Party were people like Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill. The policies were not just disastrous for Labour. They deprived the public of a choice that wasn’t the Tories. Now, this is the issue: has Ken Livingstone really changed? If he hasn’t, he would not be right for Labour or London.86 New Labour’s hostility to Livingstone was not just a matter of public relations – their opposition was heartfelt. Liz Davies, a left-wing member of the National Executive, records that during a debate in the executive in 1999, as to whether Ken Livingstone was acceptable as Labour’s candidate for the mayoralty of London, the ‘loony left’ agenda loomed large. One of the strongest interventions against Livingstone came because of his record of campaigning in favour of gay rights – ironically the charge was made by a prominent gay activist, Michael Cashman. He accused Livingstone of having been in part responsible for Labour’s defeat at the polls in 1987 and 1992 and also, that by supporting lesbian and gay rights in the 1980s, Livingstone had been responsible for the introduction of the Conservatives’ Section 28, which banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools. Liz Davies quotes Cashman as saying: I’ve spoken out against a particular candidate. I’m sick and tired of lesbian and gay rights being seen as the dustbin of good politics. Now we’ve moved, but we’ve taken thirteen years to get there. I will continue to be a pain in the side to anyone who is in opposition to me.87

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New Labour’s visceral hatred of Livingstone was of such an intensity that political writers had to dig deep to explain the antipathy. According to an editorial in The Times: On one level, the deep-seated desire to prevent the former GLC leader assuming power is a matter of straight politics. Blairites believe he would use the post to embarrass, challenge and wherever possible damage the Labour Government. A psychiatrist may offer a different explanation, suggesting that Labour’s inability to come to terms with Mr Livingstone is more about their common roots than their differences. In the same way that family members can fall out because they are too similar, many Labour MPs see an uncomfortable reminder of their own past when they look at Mr Livingstone.88 The Times’ cod psychology might, or might not be, a useful way of understanding New Labour’s reaction to Ken Livingstone’s re-emergence on the national political stage. What is undeniable is, as The Times observes, that New Labour, collectively, had a problem with coming to terms with its local government past. Many leading members of New Labour first tasted political power through their involvement with local government and throughout the 1980s, when Labour was out of power nationally and looking as though it would be excluded for years to come, local government remained both the only route to achieving any sort of political power but also the only way that the public could judge what Labour in government might do. This enhanced the potency of ‘loony left’ stories in the media, particularly given the proximity of Fleet Street, to many of the councils that were controlled by Labour left-wingers. Hence, when in 2002, Ken Livingstone, now ensconced as Mayor of London, set about introducing his proposal to introduce a congestion charge on cars coming into central London, the media’s (and New Labour’s) long dormant ‘anti-loony left’ antennae started twitching.89

Notes 1. T. Bale, ‘Managing the party and the trade unions’, in B. Brivati and R. Heffernan (eds), The Labour Party: A Centenary History (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). 2. A. Finlayson, Making Sense of New Labour (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), p. 19.

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Slaying the Dragon 3. Ibid., p. 19. 4. Ibid., p. 19. 5. R. Heffernan and M. Marqusee, Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock’s Labour Party (London: Verso, 1992), p. 14. 6. L. Baston, ‘Labour local government 1900–99’, in Brivati and Heffernan (2000) p. 78. 7. P. Gould, The Unfinished Revolution; How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party (London: Abacus 1998), p. 19. 8. Ibid., p. 19. 9. C. Hughes and P. Wintour, Labour Rebuilt: The New Model Party (London: Fourth Estate, 1990), p. 50. 10. ibid., p. 48. 11. ibid., p. 50. 12. The Times, 18 November 1986. 13. Financial Times, 20 November 1986. Interestingly this particular report appeared on the same day that a Gallup poll showed that Labour had regained its poll lead. It put Labour on 39.5 per cent, the Tories on 36 per cent and the (SDP/Liberal) Alliance on 22 per cent, compared with the previous month when Gallup had Labour and Conservatives both on 37.5 per cent with the Alliance on 22 per cent. 14. E. Shaw, The Labour Party Since 1979: Crisis and Transformation (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 75. 15. Vincent Hanna passed away in 1996. It is, perhaps therefore no more than a minor footnote of political history that it was Hanna’s production company that was originally awarded the contract to undertake the research for Neil Kinnock’s 1987 election tour (work which was subsequently sub-contracted to this author). The original negotiations took place between Hanna and Patricia Hewitt. 16. Guardian, 5 February 1987. 17. Financial Times, 4 February 1987. 18. The Times, 2 February 1987. 19. Financial Times, 4 February 1987. 20. Guardian, 3 March 1987; quoted in Heffernan and Marqusee (1992), p. 73. 21. Sun, 4 March 1987. 22. Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 19. 23. Heffernan and Marqusee (1990), p. 74. 24. Sunday Times?, 8 March 1987. 25. D. Butler and D. Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1987 (London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 72. 26. Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 183. 27. Shaw (1994), p. 61. 28. See P. Hewitt and P. Mandelson, ‘The Labour Campaign’, in I. Crewe and M. Harrop, Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 53. 29. Quoted in Hughes and Wintour (1990) p. 23 and the author’s private correspondence. 30. Quotations from confidential report by I. Gaber, ‘General Election Location Searching’, submitted to the office of the Leader of the Opposition 1986.

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Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 31. P. Gould, undated handout of the presentation slides in the author’s possession, 1986. 32. British Social Attitudes Series, 1983 onwards, produced by the National Centre for Social Research, London. 33. Gould (1986). 34. Ibid. 35. Quoted in Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 156. 36. ’Labour and Britain in the 1990s’, NEC paper, November 1990, quoted in Heffernan and Marqusee (1992), p. 98. 37. This research was undertaken by LFF a market research firm owned by Andrew (now Lord) McIntosh, the Labour leader of the Greater London Council who was deposed by Ken Livingstone in 1980. 38. Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 62. 39. Gould (1998), p. 158. 40. Terry Coleman writing in the Guardian, 7 December 1987. 41. S. Fielding The Labour Party Continuity and Change in the Making of ‘New’ Labour (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), p. 73. 42. Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 46. 43. Ibid., p. 43–4. 44. Gould (1998), p. 97. 45. Shaw (1994), pp. 122–3. 46. P. Mandelson, The Blair Revolution Revisited (London: Politicos, 1996), p. xliii. 47. Ibid., p. 218. 48. Fielding (2003), p. 75. 49. Bale, in Brivati and Heffernan (2000), p. 1. 50. The Sunday Times, 22 March 1992. 51. Daily Mail, 30 March 1992. 52. The Times, 12 April 1992. 53. Daily Mail, 10 April 1992. 54. D. Hill, ‘The Labour Party’s Strategy’, I. Crew and B. Grosschalk, in Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 38–40. 55. The Times, 24 March 1992. 56. Sunday Times, 12 April 1992. 57. Quoted in H. Young, One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (London: Pan, 1989), p. 111. 58. Observer, 3 September 1995. 59. Daily Mail, 24 April 1993. The full quote: ‘Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.’ 60. Gould (1998), p. 69. 61. Gould (1998), p. 52. 62. ’Strategic Observations on the British Elections’ [sic], report by Stanley Greenberg, 8 June 1995, quoted in Gould (1998), p. 258. 63. S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Creation of Mods and Rockers (London: Routledge, 2002).

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Slaying the Dragon 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

Shaw (1994), p. 193. Gould (1998), p. 20. New Statesman and Society, 14 August 1988. Gould (1998), p. 175. Guardian, 5 January 1993. P. Hewitt and P. Gould, in Renewal 1: 1 (1993), p. 47; quoted in Shaw (1994), p. 175. Gould (1998), p. 327. Gould (1998), pp. 51–2. E. Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). A good discussion of this phenomenon can be found in N. Sparrow and J. Turner, ‘Defining a new politics: the development of new market research techniques in the formulation of strategic decision-making within political parties’, in Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing, Political Marketing Conference, Bournemouth, 1999. Gould (1998), p. 261. Chapter 7 in Gould’s book is entitled ‘The Project’. Head of Neil Kinnock’s Private Office. Fielding (2003), p. 3. Ibid., p. 3. An interesting discussion about how different New Labour is from former incarnations of the Labour Party commences with S. Driver and L. Martell, New Labour: Politics after Thatcher (London: Polity, 2003): and is taken up in an article by A. Rubinstein in Politics, 20: 3 (2000). It is responded to in Politics, 21: 1 (2001) by articles by Driver and Martell, P. Allender, P. Larkin and J. Callaghan and S. Tunney. M. Hodge, ‘Equality and New Labour’, in Renewal, 8: 3 (2000), p. 34; quoted in Fielding (2003), p. 100. Baston, in Brivati and Heffernan (2000), p. 468. Ibid., p. 472. Hughes and Wintour (1990), p. 200. The proposed £50 million saving was described as ‘modest’ in the Guardian, 11 December 1997. Guardian, 12 July 1997. People, 21 November 1999. Evening Standard, 19 November 1999. L. Davies, Through the Looking Glass: A Dissenter Inside New Labour (London: Verso, 2001), p. 100. The Times, 29 October 1999. See following chapter in this volume, ‘Driven to Distraction’.

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Chapter 8

Driven to Distraction

1

W

hen Ken Livingstone became London’s first elected Mayor in 2000 he said that transport was the ‘single most important priority for the Mayor and the GLA’.2 However, the introduction of a congestion charge for vehicles entering central London was a long way down Livingstone’s declared list of transport priorities. Reporting the launch of his manifesto the London Evening Standard quoted his transport priorities thus: There are plans to freeze tube and bus fares for four years and to investigate a 70p flat fare for the buses. He would campaign for the building of CrossRail and the Chelsea-to-Hackney line. The immediate emphasis would be on buses, with new routes from outer to inner London, better policing of bus lanes and the introduction of park-and-ride schemes. Senior LT bosses would be forced to use public transport and any proposal to provide chauffeur-driven transport for GLA members or senior personnel would be blocked.3

Only at this point does the report mention the fact that: ‘Mr Livingstone would introduce a congestion charge’. Indeed, such was the low level of interest in this particular proposal that only two national newspapers covering the launch of Livingstone’s manifesto even mentioned it, and both those, noting the tentative nature of Livingstone’s commitment, only to point out that the candidate appeared to be backtracking from his original firm promise to introduce the charge.4 The significance of this low-key coverage is that whilst congestion 224

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charging was not a matter of great controversy during Livingstone’s mayoral campaign, subsequent to his election the issue became something of a near-hysterical obsession with the London-wide and national media. Such a conclusion emerges from research undertaken by this author which looked at the coverage of congestion charging in the national and London-wide media in the period from January 2002, through the launch of the charge in February 2003 and then for a subsequent three months until the end of May 2003.5

Negativity The analysis reveals some interesting, if depressing, characteristics about the British media. One of the great cliche´s of British journalism is that ‘good news is no news’ and never more was this cliche´ more reflected than in the extent to which, in the context of congestion charging, the majority of the media fell upon each and every prediction of chaos, gridlock and ‘the end of civilisation as we know it’ with such relish. There was hardly a suggestion that congestion charging was a rational response to London’s ever-worsening traffic congestion – a solution that had long been advocated by numerous transport experts. The media appeared to be reluctant to accept that London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, had been elected on a mandate to introduce such a scheme, that he had the courage (some would say the folly) to ignore all the merchants of doom and push ahead with its introduction, not because he believed it would be popular, but because he believed there to be no reasonable alternative. The British media has a particular standing in the world. The range and technical quality of the national press is impressive by the standards of most of the world’s newspapers; and its broadcasting, with its strong tradition of public service, is widely admired. However, the British media is also seen as having a particularly negative standpoint – whether it be evidenced in its attitudes towards British sporting achievements, the treatment of its celebrities and politicians, or, as in this case, to British innovation. It is doubtful if there are many countries in the world that would report the successful introduction of such a major social innovation as congesting charging without some vestiges of national pride. How was is it therefore that a policy that clearly benefited the many came to be characterised as an eccentric proposal designed to placate minority interests that could only have emanated 225

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from a politician as divorced from the mainstream as Ken Livingstone was perceived to be? One explanation lies in the fact that the policy was undoubtedly a radical one and it’s implementation required significant political courage. Any policy which is designed to tackle a problem as long-standing and seemingly intractable as traffic congestion in central London is almost invariably going to be perceived as controversial. A second explanation is that congestion charging brought together an alliance of vested interests which were all well-organised in media terms. The organisations representing road-users – the AA, the RAC, the Freight Transport Association and so on – have well-developed links with the media. By contrast, there is no countervailing organisation arguing for the rights of commuters. There might be passenger user consultative groups but none have the high profile, or robust media handling skills and experience, which were found on the other side of the argument. It could be argued (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) that despite the media’s presumption of speaking on behalf of ‘ordinary people’, there is a real need for them to have their own national organisation. But perhaps the most important factor that caused congestion charging to be seen as something outlandish was that the policy did not receive the vocal support of either of the two main political parties represented in the London Assembly and, indeed, was associated with a politician whom, friends and enemies alike, would accept was ‘controversial’. The Conservatives were opposed to the policy in principle and maintained a campaign of unremitting, but legitimate, political hostility. Labour was in a different position. In the 2000 mayoral election they had campaigned for the introduction of such a policy but in that election Ken Livingstone had not been their candidate. Hence, having lost the election Labour, both in London and nationally, became ambivalent about the policy. The Party found it difficult to oppose it in principle but were reluctant to support any policy that might result in the Mayor, elected as an independent, gaining any political credit. Indeed, at one stage it was being suggested in the press that Labour was secretly colluding in undermining the introduction of the charge.6 The press also suggested (which was not contradicted by Labour) that Livingstone was an isolated, possibly deluded, figure. In June 2002 the Sunday Times wrote: One aspect of the farrago has been the notable absence of allies speaking up for the beleaguered city boss. Expelled from the 226

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Labour party, loathed by Tony Blair, abandoned by most of his old Greater London Council (GLC) chums and at odds with the London boroughs, Livingstone cuts a lonely figure and finally seems to be paying the price for his maverick independence. He is ‘one of the most friendless, least trusted politicians on the planet.’7

The contours of coverage The analysis of the reporting of the introduction of congestion charging indicates that the range of support and opposition for the scheme did not fit the conventional lines of the known political allegiances of the press. Certainly, opposition to congestion charging was led by the Evening Standard (despite the isolated voice of its leader column which periodically reminded readers of the paper’s theoretical support for the scheme). The Standard is published by the Conservative-supporting Associated Newspaper group as are the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – they were equally vitriolic in their opposition to the scheme. However, the London free-sheet the Metro, also owned by Associated Newspapers, was far more balanced in its coverage. The Conservativesupporting Daily Telegraph and the Murdoch-owned Sun and, its stable mate, The Times, were also very opposed. But nor was there any great enthusiasm from traditionally left-of-centre newspapers. The Daily Mirror and the Independent veered between opposition and cynicism. the Guardian was cautiously supportive but among the dailies it was only the Daily Express and, most of all the Financial Times, that could be characterised as, more or less, consistent supporters. The Sunday newspapers tended to follow the lead of their daily counterparts. On the broadcasting front ITV’s London Tonight, tended to take its lead from the press – its overall coverage could be described as falling into the negative camp. But it was BBC TV’s local London coverage that stood apart from all media – not in terms of giving the scheme positive support – but in terms of the sheer quantity and quality of the public service reporting it offered. Night after night, particularly in the crucial days leading up to C-Day, it provided viewers with high quality information which described what the charge would involve, how it could be paid and gave a range of off-air sources for viewers where they could obtain further information.

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’Common Sense’ Through an analysis of congestion charge coverage, and probably with more general applicability, it can be seen that the centre of political gravity of both the national daily papers and their Sunday equivalents is conservative with a small ‘c’ – they are against many things but change is the one they fear the most. If one looks at the overall coverage of congestion charging one sees a clear pattern emerging – namely that the congestion charging scheme was seen as a massive gamble for which London, and its Mayor, were ill-prepared. Accordingly no ‘sensible’ politician would embark on this course; therefore if such a course was being pursued there had to be some other explanation or motive to hand. And that motive was ascribed, at various times, to the Mayor’s ‘hatred’ of motor cars, to his desire to be seen as a righteous politician, to his need to raise revenue or his own version of extremist environmental concern.8 Another significant factor in the coverage of the congestion charge was the fact that most of the reporting was framed in terms of the ‘motorist’. The story was, in the main, covered by motoring correspondents. Almost by definition, motoring correspondents are car-enthusiasts – advocates for motoring and the motorist. Thus it was hardly surprising that all the motoring correspondents, bar one,9 were opposed to the charge. Some made their opposition clear, often in vitriolic language. Jeremy Clarkson in the Sunday Times and Mike Rutherford (variously of the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and News of the World) led the pack. They pitched their arguments in terms of seeing the charge as an illegitimate attack on the rights of ‘freeborn Englishmen’ to drive their cars wherever they liked, irrespective of the consequences. Typical in tone was a piece written by Rutherford in the Daily Mirror. He characterised the charge thus: Once the money-grubbing authorities discover they can earn a fortune by lifting billions from the pockets of drivers in London, the scam will quickly spread . . . but this racket – whether it is in London or anywhere else – is full of deceptive holes, contradictions, hypocrisy and is nothing short of legalised mugging.10

The ‘Loony Left’ Rides Again There is no denying that the particular personality of the Mayor – Ken Livingstone – has been a key factor in the various ups and downs of his 228

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political career. Just as, twenty years earlier, coverage of the GLC very much centred on Livingstone as an individual, so too did coverage of the congestion charge, which was invariably portrayed as his ‘pet project’. It is a widespread nostrum of popular journalism that news stories are usually best communicated through the vehicle of a strong personality or a clash of personalities. Thus, it was perhaps not surprising, that much of the coverage of congestion charging focused on the personality of the Mayor. It is both a politician’s strength and weakness to be able to supply the media with graphic quotations – journalists veer towards those politicians who, in their terms, ‘deliver’. One only needs to think about the high public profile (as opposed to the political standing) of MPs such as Labour’s Diane Abbott or the Conservatives’ Michael Portillo – to see current examples of this phenomenon in action. Livingstone was both able to deliver ‘quotable’ sound-bites and provide controversial observations. In addition, because of the national Labour leadership’s high profile opposition to his Mayoral candidature, he also attracted publicity because he was seen to epitomise grassroots activists’ opposition to Tony Blair’s leadership of the Labour Party. For all these reasons, the congestion charge scheme became closely bound up with the Mayor as an individual and as a politician – its success or failure would be his success or failure. Thus both the London newspaper the Metro and ITV‘s London Tonight, generally referred to the charge as ‘Livingstone’s’ or ‘Ken’s controversial charge’ and often featured pictures of the Mayor to illustrate the scheme. For students of media history there are unmistakeable echoes between the way the congestion charge issue was covered and the coverage of left Labour councils – particularly in London – during the 1980s. Indeed, in some ways congestion charging can be seen as a textbook ‘loony left’ case study. The phrase ‘loony left’ combines two concepts, insanity and left-wing politics, with a subtext that suggests irrational authoritarianism. In analysing the words and phrases used to describe the charge and, particularly the Mayor, the researcher is struck by the explicit way that these concepts were articulated – and the ferocity in which they were expressed. This articulation had three distinct resonances – one that connected Livingstone with ‘insanity’, one that connected him with ‘authoritarianism’ and one that connected him with ‘left-wing extremism’ – these last two being inextricably linked (and all ‘complimented’ by a steady diet of personal abuse directed against the Mayor). For example, in April 229

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2002 the Evening Standard profiled the Mayor in extraordinary terms. From the first 150 words of the article it could be gleaned that Livingstone was ‘a snapping, snarling brute’, ‘voracious’, ‘frightening’, ‘ugly’, ‘raging’ and ‘gripped by paranoia’.11 A similar, though marginally less vicious, profile was carried by the paper in July 2002 of the man seen as operationally responsible for the introduction of the charge, Transport for London’s Derek Turner. The paper dubbed him ‘Red Derek’ – coincidentally (or otherwise) redolent of ‘Red Robbo’, the 1970s leftwing motor industry union leader, Derek Robinson.12

The ‘Sanity’ Issue The ‘sanity’ issue cropped up frequently. The Daily Telegraph talked about ‘Ken Livingstone’s mad-cap plans for London traffic control’,13 the Sunday Times of ‘madness’ imposed by a ‘barmy’14 dictator. Their motoring columnist, Jeremy Clarkson, wrote about ‘Ken’s barrage of harebrained ideas’ and described the Mayor as ‘insane’ and ‘crazy’. Warming to his theme, Clarkson wrote: Obviously, it would be insane to charge motorists for using the roads and then to charge them again whenever they wished to enter a city. But, then again, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, charming and charismatic though he may be, has only ever been on nodding terms with the notion of sanity.15 For the Sunday Mirror Livingstone was ‘barmy’, and congestion charging a ‘farce’ created by a ‘power-crazed and authoritarian politician’.16 It was the Sun though that took the prize. describing Livingstone variously, as the ‘madcap Mayor’, ‘crafty’, ‘crazy’, ‘loopy’, ‘cunning’, ‘crackpot’, ‘potty’ and ‘barmy’.17 The idea that congestion charging was somehow, innately ‘insane’ became part of the media’s vocabulary and was encapsulated by the News of the World which used the congestion charge as the template for ‘insanity’ when it reported: ’Loony Ken Livingstone has had an even crazier idea than traffic congestion charges. . . .’18

’Authoritarianism’ Despite the fact that some critics of congestion charging pointed to the fact that it could be seen as a regressive tax, and the ultimate free-market 230

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solution to London’s traffic problems, for much of the media it was portrayed as the ultimate in socialist authoritarianism. The Daily Telegraph, for example, claimed that the charge was ‘one more insidious attack on people’s individual liberties’. The paper also argued that the scheme demonstrated ‘totalitarian tendencies’ of the state, symbolised by ‘Red Ken [who] is well on his way to creating the Soviet road scheme’.19 The introduction of congestion charging coincided with a ‘Free Britain’ campaign being waged by the Telegraph, based on the notion that the Labour Government was intent on infringing the ancient civil liberties of Britons. It wrapped the congestion charge into this campaign, claiming that it would ‘interfere with the rights of Londoners to drive where they wish?’20 The Mail on Sunday, in opposing the scheme, gave space to the Conservatives’ front-bench spokesperson on transport, Tim Collins. He wrote: There appears to be a good old-fashioned dose of class-Marxism stirred in too. Producing permanent gridlock in our capital city may be the idea of paradise for far-left activists, but it would be a nightmare for everyone else.21 For the Sunday Mirror Livingstone was a ‘power-crazed and authoritarian politician’.22 This was a sentiment shared by the Political Editor of the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, who, invoking all his powers of rhetoric, wrote: ‘Traffic is grinding to a standstill and thousands of Brits are thinking of emigrating . . . Families put up with graffiti, street crime and high property prices. Now they can’t even drive on their own streets.’ And he went on to describe Livingstone as a ‘power-crazed petty dictator’.23 But perhaps the most tasteless contribution could be found, perhaps surprisingly, in the Observer whose reporter found a rabbi whose synagogue fell inside the charge zone and who was willing to be quoted as saying that ‘Livingstone is going to cause more damage [to London] than the Germans!’24

The ‘Loony Left’ There is much in the characterisation of the congestion charge initiative, the way its implementation was reported, and in the reporting of the Mayor’s role, that appeared to follow the pattern of how the ‘loony left’ was reported twenty years earlier, particularly in the way that the media 231

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sought to counterpoint the notion of ‘common sense’ against the left’s special pleading for ‘the other’. When the ‘loony left’ was first being identified by the press, the ‘other’ were gays, feminists and so on. Their presumed views were contrasted with media notions of ‘normality’ – the views of the silent majority, or whatever formulation was being used at the time, to represent those who were not black, not gay, not disabled – in other words the classic nuclear family with its 2.4 children. If such is the norm in some parts of the UK – and that is extremely doubtful – then it is decidedly not the case in London, a multicultural metropolis in which lifestyles, family structures and ethnicity are very different from the fabled norm. Yet the congestion charge was portrayed as a policy designed for the minority, in contrast to the views and interests of ordinary tax-paying car-drivers. Yet the irony was that the congestion charge was aimed at benefiting bus, tube and rail commuters who represent the vast majority of London’s travelling public, at the expense of the one in ten commuters who travel into the capital by car. Nonetheless, sections of the press lost few opportunities to construct, or re-construct, a ‘loony left’ agenda out of what they took to be the motivations behind, and the consequences of, the introduction of congestion charging. In the Daily Telegraph, columnist Barbara Amiel told us that that the charge was part of an agenda that was intended to ‘coerce people on to public transport, and to eliminate the private car.’25 Sarah Sands, writing in the same paper, claimed that it was an ‘anti-family London tax’ because it would drain the life out of the capital by making it difficult for families to use cars to move around.26 On a later occasion she accused the Mayor of ‘using congestion charges as class war by other means’.27 Simon Heffer in the Daily Mail, outraged by the apparent success of the scheme, turned his spleen on its supposed supporters, arguing they were the same people with the same agenda that he had been battling against over the years: ‘Only six days into London’s congestion charge, the usual Lefties and eco-freaks are queuing up to say what a success it is. In fact, it is yet another tax on the capital’s middle classes.’28 The Sun used generalised images of inner city decay, some of which had become associated with left-wing Labour councils in the 1980s, and bracketed them with the charge: ‘Families put up with graffiti, street crime and high property prices. Now they can’t even drive on their own streets’,29 it complained. But the theme of ‘the loony left rides again’ was best captured by Sun columnist Richard Littlejohn when he wrote, 232

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(perhaps with his tongue firmly in his cheek) that the charge was ‘. . . a spiteful anti-motorist measure, pure and simple, dreamed up by Red Ken and his sexually-inadequate, Lycra-clad, Guardian-reading, cyclemad, control-freaks at TfL (Transport for London).’30 Statistical analysis of the use of the terms ‘loony left’ and ‘Red Ken’31 reveals that in the period January 2002 to the end of May 2003, the Sun, perhaps unsurprisingly, topped the table with 29 references to ‘Red Ken’ and 10 to the ‘loony left’. But it was only just narrowly ahead of the Daily Telegraph which referred to ‘Red Ken’ 31 times and the ‘loony left’ 7 times. The detailed breakdown is shown in Table 8.1. Table 8.1 References to the ‘loony left and ‘Red Ken’ in the national press, January 2002–May 2003 Red Ken Sun Daily Telegraph Evening Standard The Times Daily Mail Independent Guardian Sunday Times Daily Express Mail on Sunday Financial Times Sunday Express Daily Mirror Daily Star News of the World Independent on Sunday Sunday Mirror People Sunday Telegraph Observer Metro32

Loony Left

29 31 23 19 16 17 10 7 13 10 9 10 9 9 4 3 1 2 2 0 n/a

10 7 14 12 10 4 9 9 2 5 2 0 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 3 n/a

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Total 39 38 37 31 26 21 19 16 15 15 11 10 10 10 5 4 4 3 3 3 n/a

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Doom and Gloom News desks are hard taskmasters – keeping their reporters under continual pressure to come up with ‘fresh’ angles to running stories. Congestion charging was a story that was long in gestation. Once the initial arguments had been outlined, and the details of the scheme announced (which took place in February 2002) there was little to sustain the momentum of coverage that would be required to see the project through to C-Day in February 2003. But both nature and journalism abhor a vacuum and, because not a great deal was happening through the many months leading up to the introduction of the charge, the media excelled itself in its invention of congestion charge horror stories. These fell into three main categories. First, there were those based on the fears of specific groups and individuals who were mounting campaigns to oppose the charge – groups such as the Smithfield meat porters, the Freight Transport Association and the campaigning actress Samantha Bond. Second, there were stories derived from the scheme’s critics and sceptics, those who lost no opportunity in predicting doom and gloom. These predictions included, for example, the inevitability of there being gridlock on the edge of the zone, the failure of the charging technology or mass civil disobedience. This category of soothsayers included the RAC Foundation, the Automobile Association and the National Federation of Small Business. And third, there were the stories that emanated from the Mayor’s political opponents – in this case the Conservative Group on the London Assembly and some Labour GLA members, most notably their transport spokesperson John Biggs. As far as congestion charging was concerned there was no shortage of individuals and organisations – some hungry for publicity, some genuinely concerned about the issue and some just anxious to make political capital – who were more than happy to make gloomy predictions about the likely negative impact of the charge. Such stories were virtually uncheckable – and the more dire the warning the more likely they were to gain prominence. The seductive attraction of the ‘future’ for journalists is that no one can contradict a forecast about future trends because no one is in a position to say, categorically, that which is predicted will never come to pass. Thus the media carried a wide range of stories that fuelled people’s fears about the introduction of the congestion charge.33 Some of the 234

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more ‘unusual’ scare stories included fears of more accidents being caused, either by delivery vehicles speeding up to avoid being caught by the charge or as a result of motorists using their mobile phones to pay the charge. There were concerns about the deterioration in property in central London as homeowners in the charge zone struggled to pay the extra £5 a day that tradesmen were reportedly going to be adding to their bills. And there were fears that women would face growing joblessness as they refused to work in central London because it might entail them having to use public transport at night.34 The Evening Standard carried the most scare stories – 33 being identified over the period of the research, of which 13 were concentrated in the two months prior to the introduction of the charge in February 2003 alone. The Metro carried 21 scare stories, of which 11 were run in these two months. The Times carried 19 – of which 5 were carried during the first two months of 2003. Reflecting the strength and consistency of its anti-charging coverage the Daily Telegraph carried 27 such stories, 10 of which were carried in the months of January and February 2003. Among the tabloids the Sun and the Daily Mirror both carried 12 scare stories while the pro-charge Daily Express carried just 2 but, perhaps more surprisingly, the Daily Mail, despite its hostility only carried 6 such scare stories. Its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday, while appearing six times less frequently than the Daily Mail, managed to come up with 16 scare stories, 10 of which were run in the first two months of 2003. The key scare stories centred on concerns about: . . . . . . . . .

administrative chaos as ‘innocent’ drivers were fined fears of technological meltdown extra passengers flooding public transport unfair penalisation of low-paid and key sector workers local businesses being driven out of central London greater use being made of rat-runs potential gridlock in communities on the zone borders mass civil disobedience (that is, non-payment of fines) new opportunities for criminality.

Apart from stoking a general fear of the unknown, the underlying message of these stories was to suggest that the scheme was a poor one – flawed in its design and problematic in its implementation – and that the 235

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policy would have disastrous consequences for everyday life in London. The consistent repetition of such stories mitigated against the creation of a climate in which a rational debate about how best to organise road charging could take place. Ironically, it is possible that the deluge of media stories suggesting that the scheme would create traffic gridlock might well have contributed to its smooth introduction, as wary motorists gave central London a wide berth in the early days of the scheme in order to avoid the muchpredicted traffic nightmare. After the successful introduction of the charge, and with no signs of the predicted chaos materialising, these ‘scare’ themes were quietly dropped. But still little was written about the successful implementation of the scheme and its positive effects, nor did the press race to write stories about quite how wrong their previous predictions of chaos and meltdown were proving to be.

Analysis of a ‘Conspiracy’35 Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the media’s coverage of the introduction of congestion charging was an allegation, first made in the Evening Standard in March 2002, that there was a plot to make the introduction of congestion charging appear an immediate success, irrespective of its actual efficacy. The plot involved a secret plan to rig London’s traffic lights in 2002 in order to increase congestion, and then re-rig the lights when the charge was introduced to give the impression that the easing of congestion was attributable to the charge, rather than the changed traffic-lights sequencing. The Evening Standard’s original story36 was based on one anonymous source. Anonymously sourced stories, and the credibility that the media should give them, was a central plank in the Hutton Inquiry in 200337 which investigated claims by the BBC that the Government had lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Hutton’s general conclusion that stories should never be based on a single source is untenable, there are times when a single source, of sufficient authority and credibility, is sufficient to form the basis of a news story. However, the way that the Evening Standard covered the so-called traffic-lights ‘conspiracy’ raises worrying questions about the reliability and integrity of that paper’s use of sources. The Standard’s initial story attributed the claim that the lights were 236

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being ‘rigged’ to ‘sources’ – not even ‘sources in Transport for London’. It is, by any definition, poor journalism not to give some clearer indication of the nature of such ‘sources’ – obviously not by identifying them by name but by giving a little more information to enable the reader to form some sort of judgement as to the credibility of the sources being relied upon. Subsequent media reports indicated that ‘sources’, in this case, probably referred to the Conservative Group in the London Assembly which, a few days earlier, had been given a briefing by Transport for London about traffic lights and the congestion charge, which they, or the Evening Standard, misinterpreted. The ‘misinterpretation’, if that is the right word, arose from the fact that the briefing indicated that traffic lights were being altered in preparation for the introduction of the charge because they were to be used to re-direct traffic around the zone as the need arose. The Evening Standard ‘re-interpreted’ this to mean that the alteration of the lights was being used to facilitate the introduction of congestion charging by creating worse congestion in the lead-up period so that once the charge was up and running, and the lights re-set, the easing of congestion could be attributed to the ‘success’ of the scheme rather than the change in the traffic lights. Following this ‘misinterpretation’ two interesting phenomena occurred. First, the Standard rapidly moved away from attributing the story to ‘sources’ but instead switched the source to themselves, using phrases such as: ‘Since the Evening Standard first revealed how the traffic signals had been secretly re-phased . . .’.38 This attribution, apart from enabling the paper to blow its own trumpet, also appeared to give the story more credibility than the previously unspecified ‘sources’. The second phenomenon was the Standard’s novel interpretation of the Mayor’s denial. Ken Livingstone issued an absolute denial about the traffic-lights conspiracy; but instead of their taking this to mean that the Mayor rejected the truth of their story, the paper took this as confirmation of his guilt. They headlined the Mayor’s rebuttal: ‘Ken Livingstone . . . refusing to come clean on ‘‘secret’’ plans to rig London’s traffic lights’.39 Thus the Mayor was placed in a situation in which he was offered the choice of admitting that the Evening Standard’s story was true – and thus being found guilty of practising a massive deceit on the people of London – or denying the charge and being found guilty of covering up the conspiracy. Either way he was presented as being either ‘guilty’, or ‘guilty’. 237

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’And Another Thing . . .’ When newspapers have a particular agenda to push – and they usually do – it is not uncommon for journalists, whether consciously or otherwise, to resort to practices that might, in the cold light of day appear questionable, but have been invoked because they appear to support the paper’s agenda. This is not to suggest that, in the case of the introduction of congestion charging, deliberate lies were told, only that journalistic techniques were used that might well have given readers a misleading impression. One example was the tendency to use unreasonable juxtapositions. On a number of occasions this was used to give the impression that virtually all of London’s traffic and transport problems in the run-up to the charge could be attributed to preparations for its introduction. On 24 July 2002, for example, there was major traffic congestion as a result of a breakdown in the computer controlling central London’s 800 traffic lights. This breakdown, and the subsequent congestion, had nothing whatsoever to do with the preparations for the introduction of the charge, but this was not the impression that would have been gleaned from reading the Evening Standard’s report: ‘These are the worst conditions we have seen for a long time with motorists completely blocked in,’ said Rebecca Rees of the AA. Thousands of traffic lights are being re-phased as part of Mayor Ken Livingstone’s Transport for London (TfL) plan to give pedestrians longer to cross roads, to redirect traffic away from sensitive sites and to speed bus trips. Critics claim that the re-phasing would be reversed when congestion charging starts, to give the impression that the £5-a-day scheme is improving traffic flow [italics added]. The computer failed at 6.15am. TfL said engineers were immediately scrambled to fix the software problem.40 The sentences in italics gave the impression that, in some way, the congestion was due, at least in part, to the traffic lights ‘conspiracy’ – a charge that was not substantiated in any way in the Standard’s report. This was by no means an isolated example. The Daily Mirror, reporting the same story (in September) made a different spurious connection. They linked the gridlock to work in connection with another of the Mayor’s initiatives – the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square. The 238

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paper reported that: ‘Carmageddon finally arrived in Britain’s capital city one sunny morning recently. Traffic ground to a halt for several hours because of roadworks to pedestrianise part of Trafalgar Square.’ But that was not the end of their spurious links. They then connected the congestion with the traffic-lights ‘conspiracy’ – claiming it ‘was the last straw for many drivers who have seen average road speeds fall to as low as 2.9 mph, after traffic lights were re-phased deliberately to slow journeys and frustrate drivers out of their cars.’41 The paper then went on to link traffic congestion in London with a whole host of other issues: Heavy rains trapped thousands of Tube travellers underground in sweat-box trains which are as unreliable as they are filthy. Daily, hundreds of thousands more commuters face misery on severely overcrowded, late-running overland trains. On the streets, litter is dropped at the rate of around a ton a minute across the city. And earlier this year, London was officially named as the second worst capital city in Europe for air quality and street cleanliness.42 The only common theme, according to the Daily Mirror, was the Mayor: ‘At the centre of this chaos is London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone, the ringmaster – some would say clown – who is big on style but currently short on substance.’43 A further example of juxtaposition came on the first day of the congestion charge the Evening Standard reported a story about problems on the railway: ‘6,000 passengers stranded as rail power lines collapse’ was the headline. It had nothing to do with the introduction of the charge but the paper clearly could not resist the temptation of adding a second paragraph that read: ‘Adding to the chaos expected to accompany the introduction of the congestion charge . . .’.44

Getting the Facts to Fit the Story – A Case Study Newspapers like to have an ‘attitude’. Once a consensus has been established, in this case that the charge was hopelessly misconceived and bound to end in disaster, then it becomes increasingly difficult for reporters with a different story to tell, to obtain space. The old tonguein-cheek adage – never let the facts get in the way of a good story – is one way that less scrupulous journalists come to terms with this situation. 239

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In November 2002 the freelance transport specialist Christian Wolmar was commissioned by the Mail on Sunday to write a guide to the congestion charge. While overall the substance of the article was largely neutral there were sufficient barbs in the piece to indicate that Wolmar, previously a congestion charge supporter, had become an opponent. However, a few months later, through the nefarious route of the rival Sunday Express picking up on a column that Wolmar had written for a specialist transport magazine,45 it emerged that he had been the victim of the Mail on Sunday’s anti-charge agenda. Responding to an outraged reader of Rail magazine, Wolmar had written: You find it surprising that I criticized the London congestion charging scheme in a recent Mail on Sunday feature. So did I. I wrote a piece that was broadly supportive of the scheme but highlighted a few problems. The Mail on Sunday, however, edited my words without consulting me and added in whole chunks of copy to make it into an anti-charging tirade. I fully support Livingstone’s scheme and see it as a key experiment which, if it works, will be used elsewhere to raise money for use in rail and other public transport.46 The ‘editing’ of Wolmar’s article makes an interesting case study in the deliberate introduction of bias into originally objective copy and highlights some of the trends discussed above. By comparing the Daily Mail’s version with Wolmar’s original it is possible to see how, in four distinct areas, significant changes in emphasis were created.47 The article took the form of questions and answers about the charge. One of the first questions posed was ‘What are the likely problems?’ Wolmar originally wrote: ‘Critics of the scheme have pointed to a host of potential problems’, identifying the fact that the ‘problems’ emanated from the critics. In the Mail on Sunday this was changed to: ‘There are almost too many of them to list’. A subsequent question dealt with Capita, the company put in charge of running the scheme. Wolmar had originally written: ‘Capita, which has a patchy record on the provision of other services for councils . . .’. In the Mail on Sunday this became ‘Capita – the same company that was fined by the Government for the fiasco over teacher vetting which delayed the return to school of thousands of pupils this autumn . . .’ – an undeniable fact but one not found in the original piece. However, it is changes to two other parts of Wolmar’s article that 240

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most strikingly reveal the prejudices of the newspaper. In answer to the controversial question: ‘Has traffic in London being deliberately made worse over the last few months?’ Wolmar, in measured terms, wrote: There has been a set of roadworks and changes across the capital recently which have brought London to a virtual standstill and led to accusations that there has been a deliberate attempt to make things worse in order to make the new scheme look good. Traffic director Turner admits that schemes around the boundary, such as Shoreditch and Vauxhall, as well as the first phase of the Trafalgar Square part-pedestrianisation, have deliberately been carried out now in order that they will not interfere with the congestion charging scheme. They are expected to be completed in time for the scheme’s introduction and, as a result, some traffic lights will also be rephased. Therefore, Londoners are likely to experience less congestion but mostly not as a result of the scheme. This answer clearly did not satisfy the appetites of the Mail on Sunday which transformed it to: Has traffic in London been deliberately made worse over the past few months? Yes. London has been brought to a virtual standstill recently by major projects at Vauxhall Cross, Smithfield and Trafalgar Square: some people believe they were deliberately timed to make the new scheme look good. From January to March this year there were 33,100 different sets of roadworks allowed to go ahead in London – a 29 per cent increase on the same period the previous year, and equivalent to 367 hold-ups a day. Since Transport for London was set up in July 2000 and began preparing for congestion charging, it has overseen the creation of 150 new bus lanes, further reducing the amount of car space on the road. But the most insidious change, and for motorists the most infuriating, has been the rephasing of traffic lights. More than 2,000 sets of lights across London have had their timing adjusted to delay the traffic. The duration of the green light at one corner of Trafalgar Square has been cut from 40 seconds to 11 seconds at rush hour and eight seconds at other times. Lights in the zone are likely to be rephased when charging is introduced to give the impression that traffic is flowing more smoothly. In addition, many of the 241

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roadworks will have been completed by February and others will not begin until congestion charging is well established. Another device used by Mr Livingstone to create congestion has been to fill in bus-stop bays. This forces the buses to stop on the road, blocking all the cars behind. The changes made by the Mail on Sunday include the absolutely assertive ‘Yes’ to the question about the ‘conspiracy’ – a ‘Yes’ that is nowhere to be found in Wolmar’s original answer, nor was the torrent of statistics, nor the emotive phrase: ‘the most insidious change and for motorists the most infuriating’ – all of which were inserted without Wolmar’s knowledge, as he told readers of Rail magazine.48 In the final Q and A Wolmar attempted to answer the question ‘Will it succeed?’ He had replied cautiously: It depends what is meant by success. The scheme is unlikely to result in a massive reduction in London traffic, and the revenue of £130m per year is pretty small beer when set against the cost of a new tube line, which would be in the region of £5bn. In reality, it is a test. If it works, the mayor is likely to increase the charge which would then begin to have an impact, making public transport relatively cheaper. However, Livingstone has pledged not to impose a rise between now and the mayoral election in May 2004. The Mail on Sunday reprinted Wolmar’s answer and then added ‘But remember, what is deemed a failure by motorists may be deemed a success for anti-car politicians who have found a new source of revenue.’

Don’t Quote Me49 The use of direct quotations, both in terms of selection and length, is one of the most useful indicators of the fairness, or otherwise, of media coverage. The Evening Standard carried some particularly striking examples of the use and misuse of quotations. In July 2002 the paper published an article about London’s traffic problems which focused on the scheme to pedestrianise part of Trafalgar Square. The article was hostile to the scheme and featured criticisms levelled by Kevin Delaney of the RAC Foundation. The article ran to over 700 words, of which 450 were direct or indirect quotations from Mr Delaney. These were 242

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‘balanced’ with the following eighteen words: ‘Transport for London, headed by Mayor Ken Livingstone, is attempting to make the area more welcoming for pedestrians.’50 Another use of quotations, that might have been misleading for the reader, was found in the Standard in October 2002 under a headline: ‘Expert concedes ‘‘gamble’’ would lead to huge disruption’.51 This related to an interview that, Professor David Begg, a prominent supporter of congestion charging, had given to Channel Four Television News. The article reported that: London will be plunged into chaos when Mayor Ken Livingstone’s congestion charging starts on 17 February next year, a senior figure involved with the scheme has admitted. Professor David Begg, a leading government transport adviser, said the scheme was a gamble and could fail. The Professor, a keen supporter of congestion charging, said that the project was a ‘live trial’. That’s why the stakes are so high.52 On the face of it this appeared to be damning criticism from one of the scheme’s leading advocates. However, later into the article Begg was quoted as saying: ‘If London doesn’t get it right, we would suffer growing traffic congestion for our generation . . . I think the transport benefits would far outweigh the disbenefits.’53 In other words Begg had not changed his position – he was merely accepting the obvious, that the congestion charging scheme could fail and if it did the consequences for London would be severe.

Primary definers Those organised against the congestion charge were clearly much more successful in getting their voices heard than those who supported the scheme. The media’s coverage of congestion charging represents a classic case of Stuart Hall’s ‘primary definers’.54 This is the notion that journalists give preference to information that has come to them from known sources that they regard as ‘authoritative’. In the case of congestion charging much of the negativity about the charge emanated from what were regarded as authoritative sources – the RAC Foundation, the Automobile Association, the Freight Transport Association, the Federation of Small Businesses and so on. All these organisations were 243

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well known to journalists and seen as ‘reliable’. Because the Mayor and Transport for London were seen as ‘controversial’ – an adjective used frequently when describing him or the congestion charge – then he, and TfL, were not given the same credibility as is normally the case with official sources. In addition, the absence of support for congestion charging from either the Labour Group of the London Assembly or from central government, left the field open to the Conservatives, both on the London Assembly and in the House of Commons. However, what is particularly significant in the narrative surrounding congestion charging is the fact that throughout the whole debate the voice of the bus and train commuters – 90 per cent of the travelling public – was hardly, if ever, heard. Officially they are represented by the London Transport Users Committee but it is an organisation whose media profile is so low that it is not even referred to on Transport for London’s own website.55 And as far as this research has been able to establish no national or London-wide newspaper or broadcaster published a single comment from the organisation throughout the congestion charge controversy.56 Thus without a recognisable ‘authoritative’ source the voice of those most affected by the charge went unheard. Certainly the Mayor and Transport for London were advocating the case for the commuter but they were seen as parti pris and therefore not considered to be ‘authoritative sources’.

The Surreal Media coverage of congestion charging at times veered into the surreal. For all the attacks on the Mayor for introducing a ‘left-wing’ policy he was also attacked for introducing a ‘Robin Hood in reverse’ policy – one that robbed the poor to reward the rich. The Independent noted that it was ironic that a socialist politician had introduced such a ‘radical, free-market idea.’57 The newspaper described the charge as a ‘poll tax on wheels’,58 one that discriminated against the poor and small businesses. The Evening Standard’s columnist Simon Jenkins wrote several pieces on this theme which reached their apotheosis shortly after the charge had been introduced. The piece was headlined: ‘Now the Rich Rule the Roads’. Jenkins wrote: And the poor? Ah, them. The Mayor has dealt with them. They are all underground, sweating in the salt mines of the Tube. They are cursing his policy . . . But for the time being, any motorist can cruise 244

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the streets of London on a cloud of fivers. Mr Livingstone has buried the poor underground, and given the rich a taste of paradise. What a stupendous irony.59 Equally ‘ironic’ was the way that some newspapers, normally in the vanguard of support for ‘law and order’, decided that in this particular issue, civil disobedience was appropriate; and suggested various ways that their reader might sabotage the system. The normally law-abiding Daily Telegraph led the field arguing: ‘The only answer is guerrilla tactics. Here’s one hush-hush tip – don’t pay the London congestion charge in advance.’60 The Mail on Sunday gave its readers specific advice on how to sabotage the scheme: ‘Protesters are planning to pay in pennies, send personal cheques to Livingstone and inundate payment lines with calls at 9.45pm each day (a time designed to cause maximum congestion at the call centre)’.61 And motoring correspondent Mike Rutherford, writing in the Daily Mirror, wrote that the Mayor’s ‘car-loathing’ plans can only be defeated if ‘the motoring public take on the anti-car politicians, environmentalists and activists.’62 Less oppositional was Ross Clark in the Sunday Telegraph who described the policy as ‘Alice in Wonderland’ because it ‘penalised the ordinary commuter for the sake of the irrational fear of congestion’.63 A statement that itself could be described as ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in that the ‘ordinary commuter’ he refers to – car drivers – constitute, fewer than 10 per cent of London’s commuters; in addition, to describe ‘fear of traffic congestion’ as ‘irrational’ is a statement that would not have disgraced Lewis Carroll’s Mad March Hare. But perhaps the most surreal piece of reporting was found in the Mail on Sunday which somehow contrived the notion that Ken Livingstone was Tony Blair’s choice for Mayor. For despite Blair’s successful campaign to block Livingstone from winning the Labour nomination for the mayoralty (which led to Livingstone’s expulsion from the Labour Party), the paper accused the Prime Minister of handing the job ‘on a plate to Mr Livingstone’.64 All of which must have come as something of a surprise both to Frank Dobson, Labour’s official candidate, and even more so to Ken Livingstone, who had to run for Mayor as an independent.

The Unwilling Suspension of Disbelief Surreal is also a useful description of the way that some of press covered the first day of congestion charging. As London commuters experienced 245

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easier journeys to work and witnessed almost traffic-free streets they read in their papers of transport chaos and traffic gridlock. The Metro, for example, headlined its story on the first morning: ‘Gridlock fears as road toll kicks in’ and the paper reported: Drivers were today battling through the first morning of congestion charging, hours after mayor Ken Livingstone gambled his job on its success. Up to 30,000 motorists were expected to leave their cars at home and try to get to work in London on over-crowded buses and tubes instead. Traffic jams up to two-miles deep were forecast on the edge of the charging zone as drivers looked for rat runs and parking spaces to avoid paying the £5 fee.65 This first paragraph contained six unsourced predictions of what was likely to be happening that morning – all were incorrect. The introduction of congestion charging perhaps represented the biggest single change to affect central London since the Blitz, but on the first day of the scheme the Evening Standard took the decision to run their main charge story on an inside page. And the paper displayed great enthusiasm for anything that suggested that the scheme was not working: There were the chaotic scenes outside Embankment station at the height of rush hour . . . hundreds streaming out from the Underground; hundreds more cramming the pavements waiting for buses in the Strand. Down below, District and Circle line passengers were stacked six deep on the platforms, unable to get on already packed trains last night. One said: ‘I had to wait for 10 trains before I could get on one. The platform was a nightmare, you couldn’t move on inch. Everyone was ranting about the congestion charging.’66 The quotation in the story flies in the face of the reality of the day (it was after all half-term) and appears barely credible. ‘I had to wait for 10 trains before I could get on one’ is one of those statements that people might make in the heat of the moment but is almost certainly literally untrue; and the pay-off line – ‘Everyone was ranting about the congestion charging’ – appeared to confirm the notion that the statement about ten trains was probably not meant to be taken too literally. 246

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Even the lack of traffic chaos did not prevent the paper from seeking to make political capital out of the situation. On the first day of the charge it chose to run a story about the Conservative’s candidate for Mayor, Steve Norris, under the headline: ‘This chaos will help me become Mayor, says Norris’67 – which, given the absolute tranquillity on London’s roads, could not be seen as one of the greatest political predictions of the modern era.68 Yet at the same time the Standard, in its leader columns, expressed guarded support for the scheme: Today the attention of every major metropolis in the world is focused on our city . . . Whether people like or loathe Ken Livingstone, the Mayor deserves respect for the sheer doggedness with which he has pressed ahead with one of the most radical large scale traffic experiments in history.69 Such statements of support must have been extremely puzzling for readers on that day, when set alongside the overwhelmingly negative barrage of news and features that formed the majority of the paper’s reporting of the charge. On the day following C-Day the Metro reported that ‘the prophets of doom were having to eat their words’, but neglected to mention the fact that the paper itself had been one of the main doom-mongers. Georgina Littlejohn (author of the Metro’s own doom-laden story the previous day) admitted that ‘despite predictions of chaos the launch went smoothly’. Her story focused on the first fines being sent out for non-payment ‘after yesterday’s launch of the controversial scheme’70 and suggested that widespread rebellion could still undermine the charge. Puzzlement (for Evening Standard readers) continued on day two of the scheme when columnist Simon Jenkins wrote: ‘Mr Livingstone and Mr Kiley have earned the benefit of everyone’s doubt. They thought the unthinkable and did the undoable. They delivered a transport policy on time, on budget and without flinching from hysterical media and political attack.’71 All true, no doubt, but one might have expected a former editor of the Evening Standard to have noticed that a sizeable chunk of the ‘hysterical media . . . attack’ originated in the very pages of the newspaper for which he was currently writing.

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Conclusion Overall the conclusion has to be that, in the case of the reporting of the introduction of congestion charging in London, the majority of the British media failed in their duty to their audience. However, the shortcomings in the coverage by the Evening Standard were probably the most serious. This is for two reasons. First, because the Standard aspires to be seen as something more than just one of the tabloid pack. Its owners, Associated Newspapers, describe the paper as setting ‘the agenda for the following day’s national news’.72 If this is the case then this might partly explain the national media’s own shortcomings in their reporting of the introduction of congestion charging. The second matter of concern about the Evening Standard’s coverage is the fact that as the only paid-for London-wide paper it has a particular responsibility to report what is happening in the capital in a responsible manner. It would be difficult to argue that, in the case of congestion charging, this was a responsibility that they fulfilled, or even attempted fulfil in anything other than a wholly partial manner. Analysing the Evening Standard’s coverage of the ‘traffic-lights conspiracy’ one finds an almost textbook case of the creation and development of a media myth. It is possible to observe its ‘birth’, to analyse its metamorphosis from hypothesis through to accepted fact and then to monitor its virtual disappearance. The idea that London’s traffic congestion in 2002 had been deliberately created as a means of making the congestion charging scheme appear a success the following year, first surfaced in the Evening Standard back in March 2002.73 It was a stark assertion, based on an unspecified ‘source’, with no evidence proffered in its support, nor in a way that could be described as fair and balanced. From this point it became an accepted fact in the pages of the Standard, which the paper then invoked to explain virtually all of London’s traffic problems. What appears clear, in retrospect, is that this allegation in fact originated with the Conservative Group on the Greater London Assembly. This was a perfectly legitimate activity for an opposition party to pursue. What is more questionable was the role of the Evening Standard; for the newspaper picked up the Conservative campaign developed and exploited it. As the monopoly supplier in the paid-for London newspaper market, the Evening Standard has a responsibility to provide Londoners with 248

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reliable and balanced coverage of the affairs of the capital. In the case of congestion charging it appears that through much of the build-up to the introduction of the charge, this they failed to do. Their performance in the months following the introduction of the charge, with the exception of the period immediately following its launch, was significantly better, providing Londoners with a reasonably balanced and fair coverage of something which, one way or another, was likely to affect more of the capital’s population than any other measure that London’s government has within its power to implement. On a more positive note, the performance of the television programme BBC London was praiseworthy. Their coverage was not uncritical but it did provide an example of public service broadcasting as it should be. Both in terms of seeking to reflect what their viewers thought about the charge and providing them with the information they needed once the charge came into force, the BBC scored consistently. For local broadcasters it is very tempting to follow the news agenda set by the local and national press – it is to the credit of BBC London that, by and large, this was a temptation they resisted. This resulted in their being able to provide the sort of comprehensive and balanced coverage of congestion charging that their audience had the right to expect, not just from the public service broadcasters but from all the London-wide media.

Notes 1. This chapter is based on a research project funded by the Greater London Authority which investigated the media coverage of the London congestion charge. A fuller version can be founds in I. Gaber, Driven to Distraction: An Analysis of the Media’s Coverage of the Introduction of the London Congestion Charge (London: Unit for Journalism Research, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2004). 2. Evening Standard, 17 April 2000. 3. Ibid. 4. The Guardian and The Times, 18 April 2000. 5. Gaber (2004). The research analysed all congestion charge coverage in the national daily and Sunday newspapers, the London Evening Standard, the London daily free-sheet the Metro and the main bulletins on BBC TV and ITV for London from 1 January 2002 to 31 May 2003. 6. The Evening Standard reported (26 March 2002) that: ‘The Government is today accused of a dirty tricks campaign in an attempt to sabotage Ken Livingstone’s congestion charge. Although they are officially neutral, ministers have been

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7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

quietly spreading the word that the plan to charge drivers for entering central London will be a recipe for fraud and evasion. One minister told the Evening Standard that Britain is ‘‘a nation of anarchists’’ who will stop at nothing to avoid paying the £5 charge.’ Sunday Times, 30 June 2002. Gaber (2004) Chapter 4. The sole exception was the motoring correspondent of the Daily Express, Nat Barnes (at the time the newspaper was attempting to position itself as a left-wing alternative to the Daily Mail). Daily Mirror, 24 January 2003. Evening Standard, 29 April 2002. Evening Standard, 5 July 2002. Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2003. Sunday Times, 29 September 2002. Sunday Times, 21 July 2002. Sunday Mirror, 14 July 2002. Sun, various, July 2002 to May 2003. News of the World, 8 December 2002. Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2002. Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2003. Mail on Sunday, 25 May 2003. Sunday Mirror, 14 July 2002. Sun, 29 November 2002. Observer, 13 October 2002. Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2002. Daily Telegraph, 11 July 2002. Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2003. Daily Mail, 22 February 2003. Sun, 29 November 2002. Sun, 4 March 2003. Using the LexisNexis cuttings database. For technical reasons it was not possible to include the Metro in this particular analysis. See Gaber (2004), Appendix 2. Ibid. A detailed analysis of the Evening Standard’s traffic lights ‘conspiracy’ can be found in Gaber (2004), Chapter 8. Evening Standard, 19 March 2002. Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G. by Lord Hutton, http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/index.htm. Evening Standard, 19 June 2002. Evening Standard, 7 March 2003. Evening Standard, 24 July 2002. Daily Mirror, 9 September 2002. Ibid.

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Driven to Distraction 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

Ibid. Evening Standard, 17 February 2003. Rail, March 2003. Ibid. All quotes in this section from the Mail on Sunday, 17 November 2002, and from Wolmar’s original article in the possession of the author. Rail, March 2003. For a full breakdown of the use of quotations see Gaber (2004), Appendix 3. Evening Standard, 24 July 2002. Evening Standard, 10 October 2002. Ibid. Ibid. In S. Hall, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Robert, Policing the Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 59. He writes: the media are frequently not the ‘primary definers’ of news events at all: but their structural relation to power has the effect of making them play a crucial secondary role in reproducing the definitions of those who have privileged access, as of right, to the media as accredited sources. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/ - viewed 25 August 2004. Based on search of LexisNexis cuttings database and author’s own research at the BBC, ITV and the Metro newspaper for period covering January 2002 to May 2003. Such a result is hardly surprising given that in the six months leading up to the introduction of the charge the Committee issued just one press release in support of the charge. Independent, 18 May 2002. Ibid. Evening Standard, 20 February 2003. Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2003. Mail on Sunday, 16 February 2003. Daily Mirror, 3 January 2003. Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2003. Mail on Sunday, 16 February 2003. Metro, 17 February 2003. Evening Standard, 17 February 2003. Ibid. Indeed, in the election for Mayor of London in June 2004 Ken Livingstone again defeated Steve Norris, with the success of the congestion charge seen by many observers as one of the key explanations for Livingstone’s victory. Evening Standard, 17 February 2003. Metro, 18 February 2003. Evening Standard, 18 February 2003. Associated Newspapers’ website: http://www.associatednewspapers.com/ (viewed March 2004). Evening Standard, 19 March 2002.

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Chapter 9

The Political Impact of the Media

Introduction ‘

M

edia effects’ research, supported by extensive survey and experimental research over a sixty-year period, provides the main source of evidence about media influence.1 Its constantly reiterated argument is that people are not empty vessels filled only with media messages. On the contrary, people have values, opinions and understandings, formed by early socialisation, membership of social networks and personal experience. This inclines people to understand, evaluate and retain media information in highly selective ways that accord with what they think already. Even when people are exposed to media information on a topic they know nothing about, they still have core beliefs and general orientations – ‘interpretive schema’ – that predispose them to ‘process’ selectively this information. People, in this view, are not easily manipulated, still less controlled by the media. This cautious assessment has been revised in the last two decades to acknowledge that the media can significantly affect what people think about (‘agenda-setting’) and influence frameworks of public understanding (‘framing’).2 Even so, the central conclusion of this work is, still, that the media do not determine public attitudes and behaviour. Effects research is complemented by ‘reception studies’, a research tradition indebted to literary studies and the methodology of commercial focus group research. It argues that meaning is not fixed and inscribed in ‘media texts’ but is created through the interaction of 255

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audience and media. This active process of meaning-making is strongly influenced by the ‘discourses’ that audiences derive from everyday life. Even more than effects research, this tradition emphasises the wayward and selective nature of audience responses.3 This cumulative academic work has done little to diminish exaggerated public belief in the ubiquitous power of the media.4 Yet the conclusions of both effects and reception studies are – in broad terms – correct. They are supported once again in this overview of the consequences of media reporting of municipal radicalism in London over a period of almost twenty-five years. As we shall discover, the tabloid press did not determine the thinking of its readers. When the media appeared to be dictating public policy, this was frequently an illusion. Yet, academic exasperation with public perceptions of media omnipotence should not give rise to an over-reactive understatement of media influence. This chapter points to times when the media affected public attitudes. This, then, raises the question of why significant media influence was exerted on some occasions but not others. The answer, we will suggest, has usually to do with the pre-existing attitudes of audiences and the wider context in which the media operated. This overview also leads in an unexpected direction. It suggests that the media may have had a greater influence on the political class than on the general public, and on the politics of political parties than on the electorate. Its implication would seem to be that more attention should be given to examining interactions within the Westminster village, if we are obtain a better understanding of the political power of the British media.

Mirage of Media Power At first glance, the sequence of events suggests that the press was mainly responsible for the closure of the GLC. Between 1981 and 1983, the rightwing popular press campaigned against the GLC, mobilised public and political pressure for the GLC to be closed down, and was rewarded with a last minute addition to the Conservative party 1983 general election manifesto, committing the party to closing down County Hall. That proved to be the GLC’s death warrant when the Conservatives won the general election. However, this imputation of press influence is based merely on inference and chronology. This is typical of the way in which media 256

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influence is discerned and mythologised. A detailed examination of the evidence invites a different conclusion. The assault on the GLC did not originate in the 1980s press but in local, right-wing animosity towards metropolitan government in London that extended back to the nineteenth century. This animosity was based on four things: the belief that an all-London council would always tend to be controlled by the ‘left’; dislike of its high-spending, high-rate policies; even greater hostility towards its redistributive politics (especially in relation to space, since this led to the relocation of the poor from the overcrowded centre to the spacious suburbs); and a tenacious localism that saw metropolitan government as an encroachment on the authority of local borough councils.5 For a time, this hostility was neutered politically by the lack of influence of Conservative Party members within their own party. However, grassroots opinion found an eloquent champion in the right-wing politician Enoch Powell, who published in 1955 a detailed plan for closing down County Hall. By the 1970s, party activists were becoming a significant force within a changing Conservative Party. Conservative London borough leaders lobbied inside their party in 1973 to such effect that the GLC might well have been abolished if the Conservatives, rather than Labour, had won the 1974 general elections.6 The abolition campaign temporarily lost momentum in the later 1970s when the Conservatives won the 1977 GLC elections, and reversed policies that right-wing activists had found especially objectionable. But opposition to the GLC among numerous London Conservative activists, councillors and MPs remained. It resurfaced with increased intensity when the Livingstone administration took charge in 1981.7 By then, the GLC was already a widely criticised, weakened institution.8 Central government had undermined the council’s planning role by reversing key decisions. Local borough councils had obstructed the GLC’s housing programme (which effectively came to an end in 1980 when most of the GLC’s housing stock was transferred). The GLC’s transport policy had fluctuated in the 1960s and 1970s from plans for a massive road-building programme to subsidised public transport, both of which had been abandoned, while traffic congestion in London grew steadily worse. These failures prompted some people from the political left and centre to join right-wing critics in attacking the GLC. The council was inherently ineffectual, it was argued, because it was squeezed between an 257

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interventionist central government and resentful local boroughs. Its political failures partly arose from tensions between the inner city and the suburbs in a city that lacked, it was argued, a shared identity and understanding of a common purpose. Above all, the root of the GLC’s problem lay ultimately in a failure of conciliation. The London County Council had been redesigned as the GLC – with a broader electorate, and less power – in order to placate the right. But the right had never been won over by the change, leaving Londoners with a weak institution that lacked legitimacy. The GLC was further undermined by the deepening political conflict that developed in the Thatcher era.9 Livingstone’s regime invested the GLC with a new role by redefining its purpose. However, this put the GLC on a collision course with the government, which was moving towards a different – and fundamentally opposed – understanding of the role of local government. Public choice arguments in favour of a depoliticised, devolved system of local government that was cheap, efficient and more financially accountable had already gained ground in official circles in the early 1980s. This was linked to a political vision of national regeneration through individual initiative and enterprise, the slimming down of government, and the repudiation of planning and ‘corporatist’ politics. The GLC thus embodied everything that Downing Street visionaries opposed. The GLC propped up loss-making companies; it subsidised an antibusiness counter-culture; it was a wasteful talking shop with views on defence, peace and Northern Ireland; and its ultimate justification was strategic planning, an ‘illusion’ inherited from the mocked Heath–Wilson era. The key issue that brought this conflict to a head was public finance.10 Although the government had been elected in 1979 on a good housekeeping mandate, it had greatly increased public spending. Left-wing metropolitan authorities had contributed to this ‘overspending’ by sidestepping the government’s new grant penalty scheme. Between 1978/9 and 1983/4, the GLC increased its expenditure in real terms (allowing for inflation) by 65 per cent and the Metropolitan County Councils by 22 per cent, compared with a 4 per cent increase among other local authorities in England during the same period.11 The government found itself in a further quandary. Although it had promised in 1979 to abolish the rates, it could not agree (at that time) on what should replace it. Yet, it needed to get a grip in an area where, in the view of the 258

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prime minister, it had been insufficiently effective. As Patrick Jenkin, the minister charged with abolishing the GLC, recalls: In the end, the cabinet said, well, if we are going to have a credible local government policy – we can’t abolish the rates – we have got to have rate capping, and we have got to get rid of the GLC and the six Met counties. It was the Prime Minister who led from the front on this one.12 The tabloid press perhaps contributed to this decision by making the GLC ‘notorious’, thereby increasing its symbolic significance as a rebel authority. The tabloids also mobilised political pressure for abolition. Above all – and this was perhaps their most significant input – they conveyed the impression that the abolition of the GLC would be easy. The cabinet assumed that the GLC was ‘wildly unpopular’, and that its removal would present few political difficulties.13 However, the press’s role was secondary. Demands for abolition were initiated not by the press but by right-wing activists, councillors and business people. Indeed, considerable political momentum had already built up in favour of abolishing the GLC long before right-wing newspapers became converts to the cause. This momentum became irresistible when the government, galvanised by a sense of failure, decided to take effective steps to control local spending. Even without the press’s intervention, it is doubtful whether the GLC would have survived. After all, the six metropolitan county authorities – largely ignored by the tabloid press – were also closed down in 1986. The tabloid press cannot even be credited with winning public support for the GLC’s closure. Despite campaigning against the GLC for almost five years, right-wing tabloids only persuaded one in four Londoners that the GLC should be abolished. In fact, tabloid newspapers may well have convinced some people of the opposite. Their campaign conveyed the impression that the GLC was a victim of partisan spite; undermined the government’s administrative case for closure; generated increased coverage of the GLC from less hostile media; and made the GLC seem important in the life of the community. Indeed, there can be fewer better illustrations of the limits of the popular press’s power than its failure both to bury Livingstone as a politician, and gain public approval for the GLC’s execution.

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Contingent Influence Yet, the popular press was not always so powerless. It was much more effective in its campaign against the ‘loony left’ London borough councils. This highlights the contingent nature of press influence – the way in which press influence depends upon the presence of other factors. The ‘loony left’ campaign has been described already,14 and its political fall-out briefly outlined.15 Here, it is relevant to recall its timing, and focus attention on the havoc it created within the Labour Party. The assault on the ‘loony left’ boroughs of London overlapped with, and was an extension of, the anti-GLC campaign. It began in earnest with attacks on Bernie Grant, following the Broadwater Farm riot in October 1985 (preceded by ‘warm-up’ acts in the form of early attacks on Islington council, and coverage of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election). It intensified in the autumn of 1986, and peaked in the spring of 1987. The key moment of lift-off occurred in November 1986, in response to the growing publicity generated by the McGoldrick affair, and the decision taken by Conservative government to make the ‘loony left’ a national political issue. In October 1986, Conservative Central Office sent out the first of its three ‘research briefings’ on the municipal left.16 This was followed by a concerted, double-barrelled attack on the ‘loony left’ by two senior Conservative politicians on the same day, 17 November. Nicholas Ridley, Environment Minister, compared leftwing councils to the totalitarian regimes of Poland and East Germany (’the knock on the door in the middle of the night’), while Norman Tebbitt, Conservative Party Chairman, linked them to the possibility of a ‘Berlin wall . . . erected around our country to keep us in’.17 The virulence of these attacks smoked out Neil Kinnock, who sought to distance himself publicly from the ‘loony left’. This produced a series of headlines in which Kinnock seemed to endorse tacitly the government’s attack on a section of his own party: ‘Kinnock slams town hall wreckers’ (Daily Express, 20 November 1986), ‘Kinnock blast at ‘‘zealots’’ for helping the enemy’ (The Times, 20 November 1986) and the more explicit ‘Loony left told to button up’ (Independent, 23 November 1986). It was a foretaste of things to come. The right-wing press turned the Greenwich by-election into a public trial of the municipal left. It framed the run-up to the by-election campaign in terms of whether Labour would choose a ‘loony’ candidate or not, followed by news that it had 260

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(Labour’s candidate, Deirdre Wood, had been a member of the left-wing Inner London Education Authority). This was capped by reports of Kinnock’s dismay over the decision. ‘What a disaster it is for poor Mr. Kinnock’, mocked the Sunday Express (15 February 1987), while the News of the World reported him as saying ‘Oh God, not Deirdre’ (15 February 1987). The response of Labour managers was to keep Deirdre Wood on a tight rein, and attempt to shift the political agenda to unemployment and welfare issues. Their efforts were unavailing partly because the ‘loony left’ was constantly featured in the tabloid press. The Liberal/ Social Democrat Alliance and, initially, the Conservative Party also made the ‘loony left’ a central theme of their by-election campaigns. When the Alliance candidate, Rosemary Barnes, duly won the Greenwich by-election, not only the right-wing press but also most of the media hailed her victory as a public repudiation of the new urban left. ‘The sins of the GLC’, declared the BBC’s political editor, John Cole, ‘have been visited upon the Labour Party’.18 ‘The lesson of Greenwich’, according to the pro-Labour Daily Mirror (27 February) was that ‘the voters don’t share the excitement of the zealots’. In reality, Deirdre Wood’s political profile approximated more to that of a ‘traditional’ Tribune supporter than of the new urban left.19 And although Labour had held Greenwich for forty years, its loss was not quite the bolt out of the blue that it was widely represented to be. Greenwich had become increasingly gentrified, and its politics had consequently changed. Labour had only won the constituency with 38 per cent of the vote in the 1983 general election, making Greenwich one of Labour’s twenty most marginal seats. Labour’s by-election defeat was in fact less due to a decline of its vote (down 4 percentage points compared with 1983) than to a collapse of the Tory vote (down 24 percentage points). Rosemary Barnes was an early beneficiary of tactical voting. However, these complexities were lost in the febrile atmosphere of the contemporary Labour party. On the night the by-election result was announced, right-wing Labour MPs called for ‘desperate remedies to prevent a national disease for the Labour party’.20 Their appeal was taken up the next day by London trade unionists demanding ‘a cleanup’ of the London Labour Party in order, in the words of Brian Nicholson, National Chairman of the Transport and General Workers, ‘to reassure our traditional supporters that Labour is not a party of 261

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lunatics’.21 Similar views were expressed by Labour’s former chief Whip, Michael Cocks, in the Sunday Times (21 March 1987), while BBC’s London Plus (22 March 1987) reported ‘an eleventh hour fight back against the hard left’ by party ‘moderates’. The Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, lent his authority to this growing hue and cry. Speaking on BBC radio, he said that embarrassment was too ‘mild’ a word to describe his reaction to some left-wing activists in his party. In a formal statement of dissociation to the press, Kinnock declared that ‘people at the fringe of our movement will have no influence, and get no influence on the leadership, our policies or the direction of the party’.22 These denunciations were levelled at unidentified left-wing activists. Those whom Kinnock had in mind were pinpointed in a confidential letter written by Patricia Hewitt, Kinnock’s press officer, to Frank Dobson, Chairman of the London Group of Labour MPs, which was leaked to the Sun (6 March 1987). The letter seemed to vindicate the campaign against the ‘loony left’ by implicitly acknowledging that tabloid newspapers were voicing the concerns of ordinary voters. Though this letter has featured earlier, one small excerpt is worth requoting in which Patricia Hewitt concludes: It is obvious from our polling, as well as from the doorstep, that the ‘London effect’ is now very noticeable. The ‘loony Labour’ left is taking its toll: the gays and lesbians issue is costing us dear amongst the pensioners; and fear of extremism and higher rates/taxes is particularly prominent in the GLC area. The media interpreted the leaked letter as the opening salvo in a civil war: ‘Kinnock war on lefties’ (Star, 6 March 1987); ‘Kinnock tackles the loony left’ (Daily Mirror, 6 March 1987); ‘Gay left scares Kinnock (Daily Mail, 6 March 1987). ‘A statement from the opposition leader’s office’, reported BBC TV’s Six O’Clock News (6 March 1987), ‘insisted that Mr Kinnock would make it crystal clear to a London Labour meeting that the few whose antics attracted sensational attention – in other words the loony left – had no influence . . .’. Speaking later in the programme, a flustered Neil Kinnock said ‘I won’t tolerate the nonsense that goes wrong – er, on – in and around the edges of the Labour Party’. The leaked letter led to an orgy of public recrimination within the Labour Party. The Labour MP, Frank Field, appeared on television to 262

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say that the party had come close to becoming unelectable and unworthy of being elected. He declared on BBC2’s Newsnight (6 March 1987): Either we face the appalling prospect of the press picking them [the left] off between now and the election so that the electorate does not vote for them, and that means we do not have a Labour government. Or they get in under the cover of moderation, and totally transform the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] in the next parliament. Both prospects are pretty appalling. This interview was followed by a studio debate between Jo Ashton, Labour MP and Daily Star columnist, and Russell Profitt, a left-wing parliamentary Labour candidate and race adviser to Brent council. Ashton angrily declared ‘we are seething up in the north’ because the London ‘loony left’ was paving the way for another Conservative victory. ‘It is no good blaming the media’, exclaimed Ashton. ‘It is not the media who says you have got to ban Baa Baa Black Sheep . . . and all the other nonsense’. Profitt replied that he was misinformed, and the exchange between them became increasingly acrimonious with each person raising his voice and interrupting the other. ‘What chance have you of winning the election’, asked the bemused programme presenter, Adam Raphael, ‘if you carry on in this kind of vein?’ Despite behind-the-scenes attempts at peacemaking, conflicts simmered within the Labour Party for the next two months, and were widely reported in the press. Just the day before the announcement of the general election, Labour’s left and right were still publicly blaming each other for the party’s disappointing May local election results. Attacks on the ‘loony left’ from within the Labour movement even rumbled on during the general election campaign itself. Paul Gallagher, president of a leading trade union (EETPU), publicly blamed Labour’s poor showing in the polls to: the perception that far too many people had of the Labour Party [as] a party dominated by fanatics, committed to extreme policies, catering exclusively to the most bizarre ‘representative’ minority causes, the advocacy of homosexuality, of inverted racism, of discriminatory feminism, of liaisons with terrorist organisations.23

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The Conservative press stoked the embers of internal party conflict with a steady flow of ‘loony left’ stories: the alleged banning of ‘wife jokes’ by Camden Council, subsidised holidays for black pensioners in Lewisham, Bernie’s ‘barmy jobs for crooks’, a proposal for condom machines in council children’s homes.24 These ‘revelations’ were sometimes presented as being part of a bigger story in which the leader of the Labour Party was vainly trying to control the party’s lunatic elements. This added a new dimension to the tabloid representation of the ‘loony left’. It came to symbolise not only left-wing excess, but also the party’s internal turmoil, its weak leadership, its continuing extremism, and total unsuitability for public office. The final phase of the ‘loony left’ campaign, during the May–June general election campaign itself, had an almost ritual quality. Some journalists argued that the ‘loony left’, and its allies, were poised to take over the national leadership of the Labour Party, just as they had done at County Hall. Attention was focused in particular on two ‘loony’ parliamentary candidates, Bernie Grant and Ken Livingstone: they were among the five most photographed Labour politicians in national dailies during the election campaign.25 The ‘loony left’ also featured in the Conservatives’ opening poster campaign, a party political broadcast and numerous candidates’ election addresses.26 But by then, this hardly mattered. The Conservatives had won the 11 June general election even before the official campaign had begun.27 This campaign against left-wing borough councils was different from the GLC campaign in three important respects. First, there was no fightback. The ‘loony left’ boroughs lacked the resources of the GLC, and were never able to turn the tide of public opinion. Second, television and radio did not provide a shield against tabloid attacks, in the way they had for County Hall. Broadcasters initially ignored the ‘loony left’ boroughs with the result that they were not given an opportunity to defend themselves and advance an alternative agenda to that of the tabloid press. This benign neglect then turned into attack, when broadcasters reported the McGoldrick story in a way that was rather similar to the press. Television tended also to concur with the press, during the aftermath of the Greenwich by-election, in portraying the ‘loony left’ as an electoral albatross around the Labour Party’s neck. Third, the ‘loony left’ campaign triggered a low intensity civil war inside the Labour Party in marked contrast to the latter phase of the anti-GLC campaign when the entire Labour movement (including its privately critical leadership) 264

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rallied behind County Hall. In short the press ‘loony left’ campaign was, unlike the GLC battle, an unmitigated disaster for the Labour Party.

Latent Misgivings The ‘loony left’ campaign contributed to the pre-election decline of the Labour Party. As we have seen, this campaign lifted off in November 1985, and reached its dislocative zenith in the aftermath of the Greenwich by-election. This coincided with the downturn, and then collapse, of the Labour vote (see Table 9.1). Labour’s support started to crumble in November 1986, and haemorrhaged in March and April 1987. In just seven months, those intending to vote Labour declined by a quarter. There was no recovery from this collapse. Labour’s poor showing in the June 1987 general election – coming second with 31 per cent of the poll – was a direct consequence of this pre-election decline. Table 9.1 Decline of Labour Party Support 1986–7 Month: % Lab:

1986 Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 37

39.5

40

38

36

1987 Jan Feb Mar April May (1–14) May (ave.) G.E. 38

36

32

30

30

32.5

312

Source: Monthly averages of MORI, Harris, NOP, Marplan and Gallup polls. 2 D. Butler and G. Butler, British Political Facts 1900–2000, 8th edn, (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000), p. 239. The general election was held on 11 June 1987.

That this connection between the ‘loony left’ campaign and Labour’s pre-election decline was no coincidence is seemingly corroborated by the way in which perceptions of the Labour Party changed during this period. Some facets of the party’s public image – for example its ‘dangerous’ defence policy – remained relatively stable. But images of the party that connected to the ‘loony left’ campaign changed rapidly. Thus, between October 1986 and April 1987, the proportion thinking that Labour was ‘too extreme’ increased by 15 percentage points, while those who said the party was ‘too divided’ rose by 12 percentage points (see Table 9.2). Those concluding that Labour was poorly led rose by 24 percentage points, while those thinking that Labour was the ‘only party that can turn out the government’ dropped by 31 per cent. The period of most pronounced deterioration in Labour’s image was in the immediate 265

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aftermath of the Greenwich by-election when the party was convulsed by mutual recrimination. To understand why the ‘loony left’ campaign had such a strong impact, it is necessary to take account of pre-existing attitudes towards the Labour Party. Labour’s result in the 1983 general election – following its extended civil war in 1979–1981, the 1982 Falklands War, and recollections of industrial strife and economic crisis during the Callaghan Labour government (1976–9) – had been abysmal. Labour won a smaller share of the vote per opposed candidate in 1983 than at any time since 1906, and came third or lower in 292 constituencies.28 The party’s own private research during the 1983 general election highlighted its crisis: it was widely judged to be economically incompetent, and was criticised on numerous other counts (including being both unprincipled and extreme). It seemed to be surviving perilously as a political force only because it was viewed as the party of the working class and the welfare state.29 Following Neil Kinnock’s election as Labour leader in 1983, the party sought to reassure the electorate that Labour had become a more moderate party. This electoral strategy was pursued through symbolic changes, supported by some shifts of policy (most notably in relation to the European Union). For a time, it seemed as if this strategy was working. There was a gradual, if chequered, recovery of Labour’s position in the polls after 1983 until the winter of 1984–5,30 when television showed recurrent – and influential31 – images of picket-line violence during a bitter miners’ strike. However, when the strike ended, Labour’s recuperation gradually resumed and seemed to gather momentum in 1986. This recovery only faltered and went into reverse when the ‘loony left’ campaign took off in November 1986. This campaign was effective because it activated latent misgivings about whether Labour had really changed. Negative images of Labour had receded during 1983–4, revived during the 1984–5 miners’ strike, were allayed again in 1985–6, and then were greatly strengthened by the ‘loony left’ assault. This assault thus did not create doubts about the Labour Party, but brought to the surface and crystallised doubts that already existed. This is why the campaign was so effective. Thus, the high proportions of people who viewed the Labour Party as extreme, divided and badly led in April 1987 – shortly before the general election – were in fact very similar to those saying the same thing in January 1985, during the height of the bitter national miners’ strike (see Table 9.3). Past doubts returned. 266

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Table 9.2 Perceptions of the Labour Party 1985–7 Jan ’85 Jan ’86 % % Too extreme Too divided Poor leadership Economy worse under Labour Lab. defence policy Dangerous Looks after working class Not clear what Labour stands for Only party that can turn out government

Sept ’86 %

Oct ’86 Jan ’87 April ‘87 % % %

65 75 65 46

60 63 51 44

49 67 53 46

52 61 45 48

53 56 53 41

67 73 69 55

70

57

62

62

60

66

41

47

38

44

45

39

72

63

57

57

59

67

53

39

49

59

53

28

Source: Gallup

Campaign’s Relative Significance A number of factors contributed of course to the 1987 election outcome. These other factors need to be taken into account – in a necessarily condensed way – in order to have a sense of the relative importance of the ‘loony left’ campaign. The Conservative election victory of 1987 was not pre-ordained as a consequence of some underlying trend. The three overarching theories advanced to account for the Conservative ascendancy of the 1980s – the contraction of Labour’s base, the decline of class, and growing ideological domination – have all come under sustained and telling attack.32 The most persuasive of these, the claim that Thatcherism was a hegemonic ideological force,33 is strongly qualified by survey evidence revealing the continuing strength of social democratic values, support for welfare policies and state economic intervention, and the emergence of an anti-authoritarian backlash.34 That Conservative victory was not assured is corroborated by the polls. The Conservatives were in political trouble during part of the period 1983–7, in marked contrast to mythologising accounts of their commanding position during the 1980s. Indeed, most polls put the 267

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Conservative Party in third place in early 1986, and behind the Labour Party for most of that year. But if there was no invisible motor powering the Conservatives to victory, the party had one crucial advantage that was the main reason why they won the 1987 general election. They were widely judged to be the best managers of the economy. This reputation was partly an inherited asset. It was strengthened by the way in which the government expanded the economy at full throttle in the run-up to the election, inducing a shift from pessimism to optimism about the economy’s future.35 During the 1987 general election campaign, 54 per cent rated the Conservatives best on inflation compared with only 23 per cent who favoured Labour.36 In key Conservative–Labour marginal constituencies, the Conservatives were considered by a margin of 50 per cent to 27 per cent to be best at managing the economy compared with Labour.37 But perhaps the single most telling survey result was that relating to prosperity. The Conservatives were judged by 55 per cent to 27 per cent as more likely to promote living standards.38 This commanding lead was based partly on a widespread perception of Labour incompetence. Fifty-six per cent thought it likely that there would be an economic crisis under a Labour government,39 and 49 per cent predicted in effect that they would be worse off financially under Labour.40 The second reason why the Conservative Party won the 1987 general election was those opposed to it were split. The opposition accounted for the majority of the country: the Conservatives gained only 42 per cent of the poll in 1987. But this opposition vote was divided between Labour and the centrist Alliance of the Liberal and Social Democratic Parties. In Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the Conservatives’ minority share of the vote was sufficient to produce a landslide victory in terms of parliamentary seats. The ‘loony left’ campaign played a crucial part in deepening the division of the anti-Tory majority. It undermined the main electoral alternative to the Conservative Party – the Labour Party – by reactivating negative perceptions of the party. However, support for the party also eroded for other reasons. Labour was identified with union militancy: its leader, Neil Kinnock, was viewed critically; and Labour’s commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament was unpopular (causing the Conservatives to be judged by a margin of 54 per cent to 23 per cent to have the best defence policies).41 Despite some perceived strengths 268

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(especially in relation to welfare issues), Labour did not have a cushion of high regard to fall back on. One consequence of the ‘loony left’ crusade was to brand Labour as extreme. More people viewed Labour than the Conservatives as extreme in 1987 – a reversal of the situation before the campaign took off. Indeed, more people viewed Labour as extreme in 1987 than in 198342 – a remarkable result revealing that Labour’s entire post-1983 election strategy, based on the cultivation of a moderate, reassuring image, had failed. The image of extremism alienated support. No less than 42 per cent of Labour defectors in the 1987 election gave the party’s extremism as a factor that had influenced their decision to withdraw support from the party (compared with 25 per cent in 1983).43 Among the public as a whole, 27 per cent cited extremism as a disincentive for voting Labour, again up on 1983.44 Another post-election survey45 found that dislike of the ‘loony left’ was the aspect of the Labour Party that repelled the highest proportion of non-Labour and ex-Labour voters alike. Among the latter crucial group, 42 per cent agreed with the statement that the ‘ ‘‘loony left’’ would gain too much influence’, and 29 per cent of them said that Labour was ‘too dominated by the unions’. These results must be viewed with a certain degree of caution since retrospective self-assessments do not always provide a reliable guide. Indeed, they probably inflate the importance of the ‘loony left’ campaign because they offer ‘acceptable’, publicity-generated reasons for deserting Labour. The need for caution is reinforced by another post-election survey46 that once again gives prominence to Labour’s extremism as a deterrent among Labour’s ‘potential voters’. But when this group was asked about how Labour might increase its support, the largest proportion (42 per cent) said that Labour needed to convince that it would maintain their living standards. This probably represented the paramount concern of many voters. The issue of economic competence and Labour’s public face cannot of course be surgically separated. The spectacle that Labour presented to the electorate in the aftermath of the ‘loony left’ Greenwich by-election – introspective, divided, its members at its each others’ throats – can have done little to convey the impression of economic competence. But while the ‘loony left’ campaign and negative perceptions of Labour’s economic competence weakened Labour, they did not destroy the party. What happened was that some support merely ebbed away from Labour, 269

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and was diverted to another weak challenger, the Alliance. The Alliance lacked a distinctive class base; its vote was difficult to consolidate because its supporters’ views diverged on many issues; its dual leadership blurred its political identity; and, as the third force in politics, it was vulnerable to the charge that it represented a ‘wasted vote’. The Alliance wounded Labour but lacked the strength to replace it. Of course, a number of different factors influenced different sections of the electorate, and in this sense the causes of the election outcome were complex.47 But if the Conservatives’ greater credibility as economic managers was the main reason why they won, the ‘loony left’ campaign also played a significant part. It helped to divide the opposition, and force a wedge between its two main sections. It was a key factor in creating an ‘anti-Labour majority’ in 1987, and inhibiting the development of anti-Conservative tactical voting. It was only ten years later, when there was greater good will between Labour and Liberals, that tactical voting was to play a part in bringing Conservative rule to an end.

Labour’s Lepers The urban left became a scapegoat for Labour’s failure in the 1987 election. Leading members of the Labour right blamed the ‘loony left’ for Labour’s defeat. This view was also expressed by the Kinnockite leadership, and was duly amplified by political correspondents. As the BBC’s political editor, John Cole, put it: ‘I have no doubt that he [Kinnock] would believe that it’s the London Labour Party and people like it have got Mrs Thatcher’s majority’.48 But more significantly, a number of leading members of Labour’s left joined this chorus. For example Tom Sawyer, Deputy General Secretary of the left-wing National Union of Public Employees (and a pivotal figure within the left who had been part of the inner group who had organised Tony Benn’s deputy leadership bid in 1981 and the anti-Falklands War campaign in 1982) publicly rounded on the London left: ‘I think we lost the election in November 1986. We were leading the Tories in the opinion polls. Then there was a case called the McGoldrick case’. He added bleakly, ‘the politics of gender and politics of race are dynamite, and they have got to be handled carefully. Unless we learn that lesson Labour might never be elected to government again’.49 In Labour’s post-election inquest, much was made of the fact that the 270

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Conservative Party’s share of the vote rose 2 per cent in London, whereas it fell in most regions. This was taken to be tangible proof that the London left had been rejected by the public, and damaged the party. In this discourse of blame, the ‘London effect’ became a code word. It signified the London left’s disproportionate defeat, Labour’s alienation from the people, and the need for the party to ‘re-connect’ to the concerns of the public. The London left became lepers almost without friends. It was attacked by other sections of the left for wanting to deviate from class politics. According to Derek Hutton, former Deputy Leader of Liverpool council and a leading figure in the Trotskyist Militant Tendency, ‘the London Left are more concerned about black mayors and gay rights than about building homes’ and ‘more concerned that we called . . . a manhole cover a personhole cover, than they ever were about real issues’.50 ‘People as a whole – especially older Labour voters’, wrote a Scottish trade unionist in a rank-and-file paper, ‘become anti-Labour when they see councils in London . . . subsidising all kinds of odd activities’.51 During this period of extended recrimination, some members of the urban left publicly confessed their sins, and expressed contrition. Graham Smith, a radical Ealing Councillor, wrote in Tribune: ‘I plead guilty. I put my hand up . . . We have to admit we were wrong’.52 Margaret Hodge, leader of left-wing Islington council (from whose Town Hall a red flag had once fluttered), argued that the urban left needed to leave behind the politics of gesture.53 Public repentance was followed by a humble seeking of absolution. Camden Council, explained its press officer Jonathan O’Neil in 1991, had learnt the error of its ways. ‘This tag as a loony left authority’, he explained, ‘is one we’re trying very hard to shake. It refers to nearly ten years ago with a very different [Labour council] administration’.54 ‘We don’t do gesture politics now’, echoed Camden’s new leader, Julia Fitzgerald, ‘which wasn’t always the case three or four years ago’.55 The London Labour Party, concurred its senior organiser, Terry Ashton, had turned its back on the errors of the past.56 Labour’s critics were not convinced. Further manifestations of the ‘loony left’ virus were detected in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and new health warnings continued to be issued. Typical of these was the caution issued by Sunday Times political correspondent, Andrew Grice, in 1992. ‘Labour’s ‘‘loony left’’ wanders in the wilderness’ he wrote but then added ominously but ‘for how long?’57 In this extended period of almost universal denigration of the ‘loony 271

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left’, memories tended to be revised. The GLC had been widely praised, none more so than by Martin Jacques who wrote in 1986 that it was ‘the greatest achievement of the labour movement since 1979’ (original emphasis) and had advanced ‘a new set of priorities – gender, race and sexuality – which will surely be a central part of the agenda of the 90s’.58 Writing in 1991, Martin Jacques expressed misgivings about ‘gesture politics’ and ‘high-profile stances on racism and sexism’, although he recalled the GLC’s cheap fares policy with approval.59 Others were more acerbic. Ros Coward, a prominent feminist, scoffed at those who remembered ‘Red Ken’s rule [at GLC) as the heyday of the democratic left’. On the contrary, she declared in 1997, ‘I remember it as the time the lunatics took over the asylum’.60 In the context of this new received wisdom, it struck the journalist, Polly Toynbee, in 1997 as refreshingly odd that a senior Labour politician, Chris Smith, should praise what she called ‘the old reviled GLC’.61

Mythologising the ‘London Effect’ The tabloid campaign against the ‘loony left’ was thus mediated within the Labour party in a highly selective way. The ‘loony left’ became a symbol of electoral failure, and of the need for the party to adapt and change. Central to this discourse was unquestioned acceptance that there was a ‘London effect’, offering conclusive proof that the London left had been emphatically rejected by the public. The concept of the ‘London effect’ had been first publicly advanced in Patricia Hewitt’s leaked letter reporting that it was ‘obvious’ from the party’s own research that fear of extremism was ‘particularly prominent in the GLC area’.62 In fact, this was very far from obvious. The relevant survey, commissioned by the Labour Party,63 reported that 3 per cent more Londoners than the national sample said that a future Labour government would be ‘too left-wing/communist’. This difference was no greater than the statistical margin of sampling error. Furthermore, there was no consistent difference in the responses of Londoners and the country as whole, in relation to issues like education and rates, where a ‘London effect’ should have operated. What in fact the party’s polling evidence suggested, in an inconclusive way, was the possibility of a weak effect – not at all what Patricia Hewitt claimed. The actual 1987 election results do not suggest that there was a strong ‘London effect’. It is true that there was a modest 2 per cent increase of 272

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the Conservative share of the vote in the capital, against the national trend. However, the Conservatives also increased their share of the vote in the south-east by the same amount. Both results could be mainly attributed to the disproportionate growth in the prosperity that took place in London and the south-east during the 1986–7 economic boom. What most people also failed to notice was that Labour’s share of the vote also rose by 2 per cent in London in the 1987 general election. It was the Alliance, not Labour, which fell back in the capital. The erosion of the centrist vote was not what people had in mind of course when they talked of the ‘London effect’. There was also no systematic voting trend against ‘loony left’ candidates and those standing in ‘loony left’ boroughs Some left-wing candidates, like the former GLC councillor Tony Banks, did exceptionally well, as did some candidates in ‘loony’ boroughs, like Islington’s left-wing Jeremy Corbyn. Conversely, some right-wing Labour candidates standing in right-wing Labour boroughs, like Newham’s Nigel Spearing, did badly. However, seven left-wing candidates in London under-performed. This could be attributed to a number of factors other than their politics. Four were black in an election where non-white candidates in general fared worse than average. Certain results could also have been influenced by sub-regional differences of swing within the metropolitan area (since Labour did better in south than in north London). Furthermore, the adverse swings experienced by some radical candidates were not enough in most cases to win or lose a seat. The best available inference, derived from a very careful sifting of the evidence, is that – at most – the ‘London factor’ helped the Alliance to retain one seat (Greenwich), and the Conservatives to win another (Walthamstow).64 In short, what the ‘London effect’ amounted to was the possibility that it affected the outcome of just two seats. Of course, the damage that the ‘loony left’ campaign inflicted on the Labour Party extended across the country, including London. But this damage was made worse by the way in which the Kinnock team mishandled the tabloid assault. It first tried to ignore it – something that proved unsustainable. Labour’s leadership then implicitly endorsed the attack, reinforcing its damaging impact. Only in the final phase, shortly before the general election, did the Labour leadership opt for the strategy that it should perhaps have adopted in the first place. It attacked some ‘loony left’ stories as lies, and sought to play down the whole issue as overblown.65 But by then, it was too late. 273

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Effect on Labour’s Political Development Even if the ‘London effect’ was largely a myth, and the Kinnock team was less than adept in deflecting attacks, the ‘loony left’ campaign still influenced the political development of the Labour Party. Indeed, the way in which tabloid attacks were mediated within the Labour Party is central to understanding the nature of press influence. The Labour left was already in decline by 1987. Its seeming strength in 1979–81 had been partly an illusion, based on championing the cause of activist democracy, and expressing widely shared activist disappointment with the Callaghan administration (1976–9). By 1982, the left was in a minority in all three major power centres of the party – the parliamentary party, the trade union movement and the National Executive Committee – and lacked electoral support for some of its most fervently held policy commitments. It had also split during Tony Benn’s bid for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981 (when the left had come within 0.8 per cent of winning). This split led to a realignment of forces within the party, based on a new alliance of the centre-left and centre-right, that underpinned Neil Kinnock’s election as party leader in 1983. However, the balance of forces within the Labour Party was still fluid in the mid-1980s. There had been a formidable activist revolt against the parliamentary leadership. The left that organised this revolt still had considerable support in constituency parties and some trade unions. The existence of this support acted as a sheet anchor limiting the movement to the right that leading figures within the party felt was necessary. Moreover, the coalition of the centre-left and centre-right that Kinnock, and his allies, had constructed was still fragile. Some members of the right-wing Solidarity group within the Parliamentary Labour Party were critical of Kinnock in the lead-up to the 1987 general election, privately calling him a ‘windbag’ and viewing his commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament as an electoral liability. Conversely, some members of the centre-left were alarmed by what they viewed as Kinnock’s increasing capture by the Labour right. The two ends of the coalition thus pulled against each other, threatening to jeopardise its future. The ‘loony left’ campaign helped to stabilise this coalition in a variety of ways. It was a personally traumatic experience for the relatively young team – Neil Kinnock, Charles Clarke, Patricia Hewitt and Peter Mandelson – who were in the front line attempting to defuse its 274

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consequences.66 They found themselves powerless to prevent Labour’s pre-election collapse, culminating in the party’s third successive election defeat. This collapse reinforced, in their view, the need for a fundamental transformation of the party that research and their own personal experience of failure indicated was necessary. Labour shifted much further to the right after the 1987 general election, and this helped to reconcile the Labour right to Kinnock’s continued leadership. The third piece in the jigsaw was that prominent figures in the then centre-left – notably, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Tom Sawyer (who became General Secretary of the Labour Party) – supported Labour’s rightwards drift. They successfully opposed the recreation of the broad left within the party and union movement, and blocked the revival of a combined Tribune–Campaign, broad-left slate of candidates for election to the shadow cabinet. The tabloid assault on the urban left also widened fault lines within the Labour left itself. It promoted a rift between the new urban left and the traditional, class-based left, and between these two squabbling groups and the defecting centre-left. When Tony Benn stood for the leadership of the Labour Party in 1988, it was at the head of a disunited, demoralised and fragmented left, and resulted in his resounding defeat. This weakening of the left made the subsequent transformation of the Labour Party much easier. The ‘loony left’ was also explicitly invoked to legitimate the continued rightwards movement of the Labour Party under Tony Blair’s leadership, from 1994 onwards.67 The phrase ‘loony left’ endured as a symbol of the left’s dislocation from ordinary life, and became part of the vocabulary of British politics. It came to signify a time when Labour lost touch with the public, before it ‘reconnected’ and became electable. The tabloid demonisation of the ‘loony left’ was one of the paving stones that led to the national redefinition of the Labour Party.68 This resulted in an electorally successful party – winning landslide victories in 1997 and again in 2001 – that was committed to neo-liberal, law-and-order, immigration control and Atlanticist politics, while retaining a strong social democratic commitment to public spending on the welfare state.

Effect on Radical London Councils Mass circulation newspapers devoted considerable space to exposing, in unsparing detail, the ‘daft’ things that London borough councils did 275

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with the ratepayers’ money. It would seem reasonable to assume therefore that disclosure of these ‘lunacies’ would be followed, at the first opportunity, by electoral retribution. An angry public would hound left-wing councillors from office. Borough council elections in London were held in May 1986, when the tabloid ‘loony left’ campaign was already under way. Elections were held again four years later, by which time the full facts of left-wing ‘excess’ had been widely publicised. Those who had escaped the wrath of the electorate in 1986 would surely be sent packing in 1990. However, this is not what happened. In 1986, the London borough councils that the tabloid press had singled out for special attack before May 1986 – Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, and Islington – all remained under Labour control. With one exception, Labour’s share of the vote in these ‘loony’ boroughs actually increased – in two cases by a margin of 10 percentage points or more.69 The exception was Islington, a borough where the majority of the Labour group on the council had defected to the SDP in the early 1980s. This established a strong SDP presence in Islington, and provided the foundation for a pro-Alliance swing in 1986, though not one strong enough to win the council. The results in the 1990 local election were mixed. By then, the tabloid press had branded some ten London councils as ‘loony’. There were swings to the Conservatives, of between 4 and 7 per cent, in three of these boroughs, at a time when there was a 0.5 per cent swing to the right in London as a whole. Two of these (Brent and Ealing) were lost to Labour, though not the third (Waltham Forest). As against this, there were swings to Labour, against the trend, in seven ‘loony left’ boroughs – Camden, Greenwich, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth and Lewisham.70 These mixed results can be explained away partly on the grounds that local elections did not coincide with the peak of the ‘loony left’ crusade, and left-wing local councils had an opportunity to make a new pitch to the electorate in 1990. Even so, the fact that so many ‘loony left’ councils did so well in both the 1986 and 1990 local elections requires some explanation. There was local distrust of national media. For example, a survey in Camden found that national newspapers were nominated as the least reliable source of information about their local council.71 This localism reinforced already existing scepticism about the reliability of the tabloid press. In 1988, only 12 per cent thought that tabloids like the Sun were truthful, and only 25 per cent said the same of middle-market tabloids 276

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like the Daily Mail. By contrast, television and radio were thought to be much more reliable.72 In addition, people had ready access to a variety of different local sources of information about their town hall. In local surveys, the three most often cited sources tended to be local councils themselves, the local weekly press, and friends and neighbours. By contrast, the Londonwide and national media were mentioned by relatively few people.73 Selectively drawing upon these different sources, often with only a limited degree of interest in municipal politics, people tended to vote according to prior party allegiances. However, some council administrations were more politically vulnerable than others. Surveys in Lewisham, Islington and Waltham Forest provide a glimpse into the dynamics involved. The left-wing administration in Waltham Forest was politically inexperienced, and pushed for rapid change (including a very large rate increase) in a community without a long tradition of radicalism. It got a frosty reception reinforced by hostile national press coverage. Thirty-five per cent complained in 1987 about excessive rate charges which, in the words of the MORI report, ‘is an extremely high response to an unprompted question’. The areas where respondents were most inclined to think that savings could be made had all been highlighted in press criticism: services/advice for ethnic groups, entertainments and events, and services/advice for women.74 In these circumstances, it is not surprising that there was anti-Labour swing in the borough in 1990. By contrast, there was no rates rebellion in Islington. This was partly because rates, though high, had been increased incrementally over a period of years; and partly because Islington, then still one of the poorest boroughs in the country, had a significant number of people on low incomes who were exempt from paying. Unlike Waltham Forest, Islington also had a long history of radicalism and a sizeable socialist minority. This was reflected in survey responses: in 1987 41 per cent (and the majority under the age of forty-five) said they supported higher rates/taxes in order to try to reduce poverty in the borough. The Islington administration was also a battle-hardened group who won strong approval by introducing neighbourhood offices. Despite being a target of tabloid attacks a substantial and, over the period 1984–7, increasing number of residents said that they were satisfied with the council.75 The 1990 swing in favour of the Labour council in Islington comes therefore as no surprise. 277

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Lewisham provides a striking contrast to both these councils. Although it was also a target of tabloid attack, and sustained a modest reduction of relatively high approval between 1984 and 1987, ‘loony left’ issues seem not to have greatly concerned local residents.76 There was, however, great deal of public indignation on the subject of poor road and pavement maintenance. In Lewisham, it seemed to be politics as usual in a strong Labour area unruffled by tabloid journalism. But if the electorate in radical areas were often unmoved by the national press, this was very far from the case with the local political elite. Once again, it was the political class rather than the public that seems to have been most influenced by tabloid naming and shaming. During the later 1980s, radical councils in London shifted from the politics of the new urban left to the ‘managerial left’.77 This was partly because rate-capping and the limits of creative accounting (with no Labour government in sight) meant that left-wing councils no longer had the financial resources needed to take major new political initiatives. But it also had something to do with the personal reactions of ‘volunteer’ politicians unused to being in the full glare of ferocious press publicity. Some concluded that their attempt to change community attitudes through symbolic politics had backfired, and was not worth pursuing. Others were concerned that they might lose grassroots support. Misgivings gave rise to furious factional fights among some left council administrations. In the fallout that followed, some radicals – like Linda Bellos, leader of Lambeth council, who had been deeply upset by the way in which she had been stigmatised in the press as a ‘black lesbian’78 – left municipal politics altogether. Survivors like Margaret Hodge, whose leadership of Islington council was regularly linked to ‘judo [or ‘gym’] mats for lesbians’,79 stressed service delivery as a way of securing imperilled political support.80 The anti-‘loony left’ campaign worked by intimidating the ‘loons’.

Effect on Governmental System During the 1980s, ten major statutes reduced the functions, resources or discretion of local councils and had the cumulative effect of greatly extending central government control.81 Thus, the financial autonomy of local councils was curbed through the introduction of rate-capping, poll tax and the centrally determined business rate. Local authority responsibility for housing and education was reduced through the right 278

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to opt out of local government control, the introduction of the national curriculum, and the creation of new agencies such as Housing Action Trusts. Local power to regulate and subsidise public transport was also curtailed. Above all, competitive tendering for key local government services was first introduced in 1989, and extended under John Major’s administration. These reforms were part of an enduring revolution in which the role of local government was greatly reduced.82 The climactic moment of this change was the later 1980s, when the emasculation of local government was greatly accelerated. This emasculation was justified partly on the basis of the need to curb the ‘loony left’, and address the underlying malaise that had allowed left-wing extremists to flourish. Councils were unrepresentative, it was argued, because they were elected on low turnouts. They were unaccountable because low-income voters, exempted from paying the rates, could vote for profligate councils, and be insulated from the financial consequences of their actions. Council services were often inefficient due to local union domination and the absence of competitive market forces. Above all, some council administrations were going beyond what they government thought should be their central remit – delivering essential services in a cost-effective way. As Margaret Thatcher complained, a ‘whole batch’ of Labour councils were engaged ‘not in crime prevention, but in police prevention’, insisting on gay propaganda ‘being forced on innocent children’, and ‘banning’ competitive games.83 Yet, an impassioned and sustained attack on seemingly unpopular councils failed to win consent for the restructuring of local government. Although the poll tax was initially welcomed by a slim margin of 4 per cent in June 1987, it soon became unpopular. Two-thirds of the public opposed it by late 1987, and almost three-quarters by early 1990.84 The government’s plans for compulsory tendering of local government services, though welcomed in principle by many in 1987, also encountered opposition. A Gallup survey found that by 1988 the large majority opposed the subcontracting of their local council services. Indeed, even the majority of Conservative supporters in this survey believed that their council would do a better job than private enterprise or central government in administering all but one service.85 Local MORI studies during this period suggest that people opposed privatisation of local council services for three main reasons: they feared that prices would rise, quality would decline and community control would be reduced.86 279

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Groups given the chance to escape from the incompetent town hall commissars of tabloid legend showed little enthusiasm for doing so. In nine local studies between 1987 and 1989, the proportion of councils tenants wanting to retain council management ranged between 69 and 94 per cent.87 Although parents supported, in principle, the right for schools to opt out of local authority control, they were opposed to it in practice. Successive polls in 1987–8 showed that those wanting their schools to opt out were in a small minority.88 Numerous surveys also registered lack of support for increased centralisation. For example, in 1987, only 15 per cent said that councils should be controlled more by central government.89 The large majority, to judge from a survey in 1986, believed that increased government control over local council spending would result in worse services and reduced local accountability.90 Two reforms – council house sales and the introduction of the national curriculum – won enduring public support. But what is striking is how little public acceptance there was for most of the measures that eroded local democracy in the 1980s. Given the outpouring of official justifications for these measures, and the scale of negative coverage of left-wing councils legitimating reform, this lack of public enthusiasm requires an explanation. One reason was that many people were not as disenchanted with local government during the 1980s as critics on the right (and also on the left) imagined. The Audit Commission survey of local government in England and Wales in 1986 found that 53 per cent were satisfied with the way in which their council ran their area, compared with 26 per cent who were dissatisfied.91 Dissatisfaction with central government (52 per cent) was in fact twice as extensive as it was for local government.92 The level of satisfaction with local councils was also higher in 1986 than it was in 1981.93 In short, there was no consensus that local government needed to be ‘fixed’. The second reason was that the nature of the ‘fix’ – greater market provision and increased central control – did not accord with contemporary public attitudes. In the 1980s, the majority disapproved of the privatisation of British Gas, British Telecom, electricity and water supply.94 This absence of a neo-liberal consensus helps to explain why so many people were opposed to privatisation of local government services. There was also significant distrust of the extension of central government control. In 1987, only 5 per cent thought that government had too 280

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little power, compared with 48 per cent who said that it had too much.95 Surveys in the 1980s register growing disapproval of government heavy-handedness.96 Local government had also been long defended in Britain as an agency accountable to local communities that functions as a check on central power. These different attitudes all help to explain why many people said in surveys that they opposed increased central control over local government. The third reason why many local government reforms lacked support was that they were presented, especially in the later 1980s, as a way of curbing ‘problem’ councils. Reform did not seem relevant therefore to many people as a way of improving the unproblematic council in their area. But if the public did not approve of the revolution in government that was inaugurated in the 1980s, the political class took a different view. Kenneth Baker, then Education Minister, talked confidently about the ‘tremendous consensus we have got to be moving down this road [of local government reform]’.97 Asked why Labour had major gains in ‘notorious’ Haringey in the 1990 local elections, Baker registered bafflement. ‘Possibly in Haringey’, he suggested, ‘they are more insulated to the extravagances of Labour authorities than elsewhere’.98 The government’s advocacy of local government reform was regularly echoed by a supportive press. This extended beyond partisan Conservative newspapers to include some distinguished liberal voices. For example Alan Watkins wrote of Margaret Thatcher: ‘She has removed two fears, even hatreds, from the lives of working people: of trade unions and of Labour local authorities’.99 Sustaining this illusion of public approval for local government reform was a cumulative crisis of opposition. The defence of the GLC had brought into a being in 1983–5 a formidable political alliance in defence of local democracy, extending from liberal Conservatives such as Edward Heath and Conservative constitutionalists like Geoffrey Rippon, through to the mainstream of the Labour and Liberal Parties, and extending to the radical left, represented by Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone. This coalition fell apart in 1985–6. It became politically difficult for Conservatives to rally to the cause of local democracy when it was embodied by the pariahs of mid-1980s politics, the ‘loony left’ in London and the Trotskyist Militants in Liverpool. It also became inexpedient for Labour to make too much fuss about creeping centralisation when this invited media identification with ‘indefensible’ 281

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zealots. The late 1980s and early 1990s campaign against the poll tax provided an opportunity to recreate a political coalition in defence of local democracy. However, a tactical decision was taken by Neil Kinnock to concentrate almost exclusively on the regressive nature of the poll tax. Emphasising that it also weakened local democracy was not thought to be an argument that resonated with the public.100 Local councils were forced to depend on their resources in defending local democracy. However, local authorities split along party lines, and failed to present a common front. The municipal left itself split over ratecapping, and failed to adopt a coherent strategy of opposition. In radical areas, they had significant support in principle. For example, 36 per cent of Islington residents wanted in 1985 their council to refuse to set a lower rate ‘even if this means breaking the law’ and a further 37 per cent wanted the council to resign in protest and call a special local election, while only 21 per cent wanted the council to set a lower rate demanded by the government.101 In neighbouring Southwark, 56 per cent wanted their council to break the law over rate-capping.102 However, left-wing councils in the 1980s did not have a mass labour movement to call upon, unlike the organisers of Poplarism in the 1920s.103 They also lacked significant support in parliament and the media. There was really not very much that they could do to arrest the increasing centralisation of government. In short, the right-wing press played a significant part in the 1980s erosion of local government autonomy and responsibilities. The press did not win public support for these changes. But it played a cheerleading role, encouraging government ministers to think that they had public support. The press also weakened cross-party resistance to the erosion of local government, and made the Labour opposition wary of doing anything that associated it with political ‘zealots’. Once again, the press mattered principally because it influenced the political elite rather than the general public.

Generational Change The leader of the new urban left, Ken Livingstone, was elected to parliament in 1987. He became an isolated and marginalised figure in the Commons. Unrepentant and unreconstructed, refusing to sing from the New Labour hymn sheet, he slipped into the shadows of an out-of-favour backbencher’s existence. However, he was given the 282

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opportunity to return to his old stamping grounds when the government decided in 1998 to establish a directly elected London Mayor and Greater London Assembly. The leadership of the Labour Party did everything it could to stop Livingstone from being chosen as the official candidate for Mayor. Livingstone was first subjected to a lengthy inquisition by a pre-selection panel which agonised over whether to exclude him from the shortlist. Reluctantly, his name was allowed to go forward for election by a party electoral college. However, this college was constituted in a form that would deliver a candidate approved by the leadership. Votes were weighted strongly in favour of MPs and against individual party members, while unions were not required to ballot their members as they had been in the election of Labour Party leader in 1994. In the event, Livingstone won 60 per cent of party members’ votes and won in those unions that balloted their members – and still lost to the approved candidate, Frank Dobson.104 What Tony Blair and his colleagues had not anticipated was that Livingstone would then publicly question the legitimacy of the party’s rigged election, and risk political suicide by standing as an independent candidate (with the inevitable consequence of being expelled from the Labour Party). Throughout the twentieth century, there were numerous attempts by independent candidates to challenge the party system, the overwhelming majority of which failed ignominiously.105 This seemed to suggest that only political parties had the organisation, resources, command of public loyalties and privileged media access needed to mobilise large numbers of people to the polls. Yet, Livingstone gambled against the odds, and stood as an independent in the 2000 London mayoral election. He led on the first count, and won outright on the second with 58 per cent of the vote. The Conservative candidate came second, and the Labour candidate a very poor third. Livingstone’s victory in 2000 was not just the triumph of a charismatic celebrity in a new kind of election. Livingstone had been the public face of the new urban left during the 1980s, and remained an unapologetic exponent of its politics. The fact that he could beat the party system by creating and mobilising a progressive cross-party coalition106 indicated that something had changed. Quietly and unobtrusively, the ‘loony left’ agenda of the 1980s was beginning to become the acceptable politics of the 2000s. The urban left had argued in the 1980s that an abstract commitment to 283

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equal opportunities was not enough, and that ethnic monitoring of employees, targets for increased ethnic minority recruitment, and training courses were needed to overcome the effects of racial discrimination and disadvantage.107 Although this position had been denounced in the 1980s as ‘inverted racism’, it had become almost conventional two decades later. For example, the Metropolitan Police, troubled by how unrepresentative it was of multiethnic London and disconcerted by the damning criticisms of police failings in the Macpherson Inquiry Report, established in 1999 targets for increasing recruitment of Black and Asian officers.108 The fire, immigration, probation and prison services followed suit the same year.109 In 2000, the BBC’s new Director General, Greg Dyke, called the corporation ‘hideously white’ (a remark that would have led to his stigmatisation as ‘loony’ in the 1980s) and introduced targets for ethnic minority recruitment. These were met both at a senior management level, and in the corporation as a whole, three years later.110 Large numbers of commercial organisations, with a social responsibility orientation, also adopted ‘positive action’ policies on race. For example, the great majority of premiership and first division football clubs in the early 2000s ethnically monitored their staff, sought to recruit from minority communities, and opposed with growing success racism in football.111 In 2004, the Football Association decided to ‘fast-track’ ethnic minorities on its decision-making bodies at both national and local level.112 Gender was another area where the ‘loony left’ agenda made advances. The urban left in the 1980s incorporated more women at the heart of policy making, became more oriented towards the concerns of women in terms of public policy, and sought to retain, and promote to senior positions, more women in council jobs. This approach became almost conventional in the subsequent period. In the tradition of leftwing councils’ ‘women’s committees’, the Labour Party introduced women-only shortlists for the selection of parliamentary candidates in some constituencies after 1992. This caused the number of women MPs to double to 120 (out of a total of 659 MPs) in the 1987 general election.113 The women-oriented approach of the urban left in the 1980s had made childcare and nursery education a local spending priority. This became a national priority with an enormous expansion of nursery provision in the 1990s and early 2000s. The women-friendly employment policies of some left-wing councils in the 1980s – such as cre`ches, flexible working hours, job-share posts, in-service training, multiple 284

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points of entry, new routes for career progression – are now common practice in numerous organisations from the National Health Service to the Halifax Building Society. The urban left sought to end discrimination against gays and lesbians, and lessen hostility towards them. This got short shrift during the AIDS terror of the mid-1980s when there was fear of contagion through nonsexual means, and gays were blamed for visiting a plague upon an ‘innocent’ population. But the urban left’s active stance against homophobia and discrimination subsequently became less controversial, and was embodied in a spate of new legislation in the early twenty-first century. In 2000, the age of consent for gay sex was lowered to sixteen, in line with the heterosexual age, while the ban on lesbians and gay men in the armed forces was lifted. In 2002, equal rights were granted to lesbian and gay couples applying for child adoption, something that would have been utterly inconceivable twenty years earlier. In 2003, ‘section 28’ (see the discussion in Chapter 7) was repealed, and discrimination at work on grounds of sexual orientation was made illegal. All these changes came about as a consequence of a shift of underlying social attitudes. Hostility towards sexual minorities declined markedly. Thus, in 1985, 70 per cent said that homosexuality was always or mostly wrong. This had dropped to 47 per cent by 2001.114 Although there were indications of a modest increase of racism after 2001 in response to growing public controversy over asylum seekers, the trend – sustained for over a decade – was for overtly racist attitudes to decline markedly.115 In 1987 39 per cent said that they were prejudiced against people of other races, compared with a much lower 25 per cent in 2001.116 The position of women in society also changed significantly during the last two decades. Between 1989 and 2002, the proportion of women with a child under school age staying at home fell from 62 per cent to 48 per cent.117 Criticism of mothers with young children going out to work also declined. ‘The last few decades of the twentieth century’, conclude the authors of a major longitudinal study, ‘saw a fundamental shift in gender role attitudes’.118 During the same period, media representations of women also became less negative.119 The drive to accommodate and progress women in the workplace, and to respond to domestic concerns, was a response to wider changes in society. Another trend, which the new urban left anticipated, was the greening of politics. From the early 1990s onwards, there was increased 285

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awareness of the human causes of global climate change, and of its devastating consequences. Environmental concerns were also reinforced in London by the capital’s growing transport crisis. Public transport deteriorated, while congestion on London’s roads grew steadily worse. Ken Livingstone’s GLC administration had won plaudits for reversing the declining use of public transport by subsidising fares during the early 1980s. Transport was again Livingstone’s flagship policy as Mayor. By introducing a controversial congestion charge in central London, Livingstone reduced traffic jams. This was accompanied by improved bus services, and increased investment in London’s tubes and trains. The success of Livingstone’s transport policy – made more prominent by the ferocity of press attacks on it – won him political support. When it became increasingly clear that Livingstone would be re-elected as Mayor, Labour warmly embraced him as Labour’s official candidate. Livingstone was duly re-elected in 2004, gaining 55 per cent of the vote. The main impetus for change in the politics of race, gender, sexuality and the environment came from a new generation that came of age during the 1960s. This new generation first placed its feet on the lowest rung of political power by taking control of local town halls, and inaugurating policies that were denounced at the time as lunatic. However, twenty years later this same generation was running many of Britain’s leading public and private institutions. People like Jack Straw in the Home Office ordering targets for ethnic recruitment, Greg Dyke doing the same thing in the BBC, Lord Stephenson at Pearson and Halifax promoting the careers of talented members of ethnic minorities and women (including Marjorie Scardino, the first chief executive of a FTSE 100 company) were in their late fifties. Although not especially left-wing, they were the products of sixties’ rethinking about race, gender and sexuality and were unobtrusively advancing a ‘loony left’ agenda. This draws attention to a curious feature of contemporary British politics. It is a commonplace to say that the left was defeated and marginalised in the post-cold-war period of the 1990s. New Labour perpetuated the pro-market policies inaugurated by the new right, while class inequalities increased during Blair’s premiership.120 But while the left was defeated in the economic sphere, it was much more successful in the social sphere. This was because in Britain – unlike America – progressives were winning major battles in an unacknowledged culture war. 286

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Notes 1. J. Curran, Media and Power (London: Routledge, 2002). 2. This reassessment is particularly well illuminated by the work of Shanto Iyengar. See S. Iyengar and D. Kinder, News That Matters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); S. Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); S. Iyengar, ‘Media effects: paradigms for the analysis of local television news’, in S. Chambers and A. Costain (eds), Deliberation, Democracy and the Media (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). 3. For a good overview of this tradition, see J. Tulloch, Watching Television Audiences (London: Arnold, 2000). 4. Belief in the brainwashing power of the media is based partly on irrational fears and discontents. See M. Barker and J. Petley, Ill Effects, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2001) and L. Blackman and V. Walkerdine, Mass Hysteria (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). 5. K. Young and P. Garside, Metropolitan London (London: Edward Arnold, 1982). 6. K. Young, ‘The conservative strategy for London, 1880–1975’, London Journal, 1 (1975); K. Young and J. Kramer, Strategy and Conflict in Metropolitan Housing (London: Heinemann, 1978). 7. A. Forester, S. Lansley and R. Pauley, Beyond Our Ken (London: Fourth Estate, 1985); K. Young, ‘Metropolis, R.I.P.?’, Political Quarterly, Jan–March, 1986; B. Pimlott and N. Rao, Governing London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 8. Young and Garside, Metropolitan London (1982). 9. B. O’Leary, ‘Why was the GLC abolished?’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (1987); B. O’Leary, ‘British farce, French drama and tales of two cities: reorganizations of Paris and London governments 1957–86’, Public Administration 65, (1987). 10. The significance of this issue is played down by Brendan O’Leary, in his two insightful essays cited in note 9, on the grounds that the GLC’s abolition was unnecessary as a financial control in the context of rate capping. However, what he fails to appreciate is that the government was not sure that rate capping would work back in 1983. 11. Department of the Environment, Streamlining the Cities (London: HMSO, 1983), p. 4. 12. Interview with Lord Jenkin (Patrick Jenkin) by the author. 13. Ibid. 14. Part 3 of this book. 15. See Chapter 7. 16. Conservative Research Department, ‘Red-print for Ruin: The Labour Left in Local Government’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986); ‘Labour in Power: Profiles of Municipal Militancy’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986); ‘Labour in Power: More Profiles of Municipal Militancy’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986). 17. The Times, 18 November 1986. 18. BBC TV, Six O’Clock News, 27 February 1987. 19. Deirdre Wood differed from the new urban left by being steeped in trade union

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

politics. She had been actively involved in organising support for the miners’ strike in 1984–5, and was married to a union activist who had played a prominent role in the 1978–9 winter of discontent. Her political views (such as support for the Palestinian cause) were typical of a contemporary Tribune supporter. Daily Mirror, 27 February 1987. Guardian, 28 February 1987. The Times, 8 March 1987. Guardian, 2 June 1987. The tone of these stories is typified by the Sun, 13 May 1987. M. Harrop, ‘Press’, in D. Butler and D. Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1987 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), Table 8.3, p. 169. Butler and Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1987 (1988), pp. 212, 222–3 and 241. W. Miller, H. Clarke, M. Harrop, L. Leduc and P. Whiteley, How Voters Change (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). D. Butler and D. Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1983 (London: Macmillan, 1984). MORI private polling on behalf of the Labour Party, May–June 1983. Its devastating findings were succinctly summarised in internal memoranda by Adam Sharples. D. Butler and G. Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts 1900–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p. 275. G. Philo, Seeing and Believing (London: Routledge, 1990). The best assessment seeking to quantify the consequences of structural change is provided by A. Heath, R. Jowell, J. Curtice, G. Evans, J. Field and S. Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), and, in greater detail, A. Heath, R. Jowell and J. Curtice, ‘Trendless fluctuation: a reply to Crewe’, Political Studies, 35 (1987). For an empirical investigation documenting the continuing cultural significance of class during this period, see G. Marshall, D. Rose, H. Newby and C. Vogler, Social Class in Britain (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989). S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (London: Verso, 1988). The first five volumes of British Social Attitudes (1984–88/89), each published by Gower; I. Crewe, ‘Has the electorate become Thatcherite?’ in R. Skidelsky (ed.), Thatcherism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1988); and J. Curran, ‘The crisis of opposition: a reappraisal’, in B. Pimlott, A. Wright and T. Flower (eds), The Alternative (London: W. H. Allen, 1990). MORI ‘State of economy’ poll, 1983–7. Pessimists outnumbered optimists in every quarter save one between the 1983 election and the end of 1986. Gallup, 8–9 June 1987, cited in Butler and Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1987 (1988). Harris Research, May 1987. BBC Gallup Survey, 10–11 June 1987, cited in Butler and Kavanagh (1988). MORI Labour Party private poll, 28 May 1987. Cited in Butler and Kavanagh (1988), p. 258.

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The Political Impact of the Media 41. Gallup, 8–9 June 1987, cited in Butler and Kavanagh (1987). 42. ‘Labour and Britain in the 1990s’, a presentation to Labour’s National Executive Committee in November 1987. 43. BBC Gallup Survey, June 1987. 44. Ibid. 45. IFF Post Election Survey, 1987. 46. Potential Voters Survey, Harris Research, September 1987. 47. Butler and Kavanagh, British General Election of 1987 (1988); Miller et al., How Voters Change (1990); Heath et al., Understanding Political Change (1991); W. Miller, Media and Voters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 48. Election ’87, BBC1, 12 June 1987. 49. John Lloyd and John Rentoul, ‘Londoner’s Diary’, New Statesman, 10 July 1987. 50. Derek Hatton, ‘Kinnock kicks me out’, The Sunday Times, 14 February 1988. 51. John Connell, ‘Open letter to Tony Benn’, Voice of the Unions, October 1987. 52. Graham Smith, ‘Why Labour lost in Ealing’, Tribune, 18 May 1990. 53. ‘Capital service’, New Socialist, August/September 1990. 54. Guardian, 5 August 1991. 55. Ibid. 56. Tribune, 11 May 1990. 57. Sunday Times, 26 January 1992. 58. Beatrix Campbell and Martin Jacques, ‘Goodbye to the GLC’, Marxism Today, April 1986, pp. 8–10. 59. Martin Jacques, ‘From gesture to realism’, The Times, 2 May 1990. 60. Ros Coward, ‘Now we are all children of the revolution’, Guardian, 31 March 1997. 61. Polly Toynbee, ‘Interview’, Independent, 3 June 1997. 62. Sun, 6 May 1987. 63. ‘Public Opinion and Choices’, MORI, 23–7 January/6–10 February 1987, conducted on behalf of the Labour Party. 64. For an incisive review of the relevant evidence, see John Curtice and Michael Steed, ‘Appendix 2 Analysis’ in Butler and Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1987 1988. 65. Neil Kinnock interviewed on The London Programme, Thames Television, 18 May 1987; Denis Healey debating with Shirley Williams in World in Politics, Channel 4, 15 May 1987; Jo Ashton, ‘Nailed – myth that cost votes’, Star, 1 June 1987. 66. Interviews with Charles Clarke, Patricia Hewitt and Peter Mandelson by the author (JC). 67. See Chapter 7 in the present volume. 68. For the variety of influences contributing to this redefinition, see among others R. Heffernan and M. Marqusee, Defeat from the Jaws of Victory (London: Verso, 1992); C. Hughes and P. Wintour, Labour Rebuilt (London: Fourth Estate, 1990): E. Shaw, The Labour Party Since 1979 (London: Routledge, 1994); S. Driver and L. Martell, New Labour (Cambridge: Polity, 1998). 69. London Borough Council Elections 6 May 1982 (London: Greater London Council, 1982), Table 3; London Borough Council Elections 8 May 1986 (London: London Residuary Body, 1986), Table 3.

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Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 70. C. Rawlings and M. Thrasher, ‘London council voters see beyond poll tax’, The Guardian, 29 May 1990. 71. Public Opinion in Camden, MORI, 1985. 72. Gallup Political Index, April 1988. 73. Public Opinion in Camden (1985) among others. 74. Waltham Forest Community Consultation, MORI, 1987. 75. Public Opinion in Islington, MORI, 1984; Service Provision and Living Standards in Islington, MORI, 1987. 76. Public Opinion in Lewisham, MORI, 1987, which also cites MORI’s 1984 survey. 77. See in particular G. Stoker, The Politics of Local Government (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), 2nd edn; S. Lansley, S. Goss and C. Wolmar, Councils in Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989); J. Gyford, S. Leech and C. Game, The Changing Politics of Local Government (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) 78. Interview with the author (JC). 79. This image continued to be repeated even in friendly papers. See for example, J. Cunningham, ‘Big sisters under the skin’, The Guardian, 4 June 1990. 80. Interview with the author (JC). 81. These were 1980 Housing Act; 1982 Local Government Finance Act; 1984 Rates Act; 1984 Housing and Building Control Act; 1985 Transport Act; 1985 Local Government Act; 1988 Local Government Finance Act; 1988 Housing Act; 1988 Education Reform Act; and 1989 Local Government Act. 82. K. Young and N. Rao, Local Government Since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); G. Stoker, Transforming Local Governance (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2004). 83. Sunday Times, 22 March 1987. 84. D. Deacon and P. Golding, Taxation and Representation (London: John Libbey, 1994), Table 7.1, p. 190. 85. Gallup Survey, April 1988. 86. For example MORI surveys undertaken for Bristol Council (1987) and Nottinghamshire (1988). 87. Cited in Brian Gosschalk and James Curran, ‘A hostile awakening’, Local Government Chronicle, 8 September 1989, p. 18. 88. Gallup Survey, October 1987; Marplan Survey, February 1988; MORI, November 1988. 89. John Curtice, ‘One nation?’, in R. Jowell, S. Witherspoon and L. Brook (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 5th Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1988), Table 8.2, p. 147. 90. Attitudes to Local Authorities and Their Services, Audit Commission/MORI, May 1986. 91. Attitudes to Local Authorities, Audit Commission/MORI, 1986. 92. Ibid. 93. Attitudes to Local Government, Association of Metropolitan Authorities/MORI, 1981. 94. I. Crewe, ‘Has the electorate become Thatcherite?’ in Skidelsky (ed.), Thatcherism (1988), Table 4, pp. 41–3. 95. Curtice, ‘One nation?’ (1988), p. 93. 96. Crewe, ‘Electorate’ (1988), Table 4, p. 43.

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The Political Impact of the Media 97. Cited in Brian Gosschalk and Chris Game, ‘Mrs. Thatcher’s local revolution’, unpublished ESOMAR Conference paper, February 1989. 98. The Guardian, 7 May 1990. 99. A. Watkins, ‘Mr. Kinnock has still to find his big idea’, The Observer, 31 December 1989. 100. Interview with Patricia Hewitt, formerly Press Secretary of the Leader of the Opposition by the author (JC). 101. Public Opinion in Islington, MORI, 1985. 102. Public Opinion in Southwark, MORI, 1984. 103. N. Branson, Poplarism 1919–1925 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1979). 104. B. Pimlott and N. Rao, Governing London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 95. 105. This was true even of many MPs fighting to retain their seats as independent candidates. See Butler and Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts, 1900– 2000 (2000), pp. 256–7. 106. Pimlott and Rao, Governing London (2002), p. 91. 107. My thanks go to Richard Smith for help in obtaining information for this last section of this chapter. 108. Guardian, 10 November 2004. 109. Guardian, 5 July 1999. 110. Guardian, 26 January 2004 111. Guardian, 20 May 2004. 112. Guardian, 11 February 2004. 113. Butler and Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts, 1900–2000 (2000), p. 261. 114. G. Evans, ‘In search of tolerance’, in A. Park et al. (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 19th Report (London: Sage, 2002). 115. C. Rothon and A. Heath, ‘Trends in racial prejudice’, in A. Park et al. (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 20th Report (London: Sage, 2003). 116. Derived from Table 9.2 in Rothon and Heath, ‘Trends in racial prejudice’ (2003), p. 194. 117. R. Compton, M. Brockman and R. Wiggins, ‘A woman’s place . . . Employment and family life for men and women’, in A. Park et al. (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 20th Report (2003), p. 163. 118. Ibid., p. 163. 119. M. Macdonald, Representing Women (London: Arnold, 1995). 120. Focus on Social Inequalities (London: Office of National Statistics, 2004).

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Chapter 10

Influences on the British Media

Introduction

L

ooking back on almost a quarter of a century of reporting of the London left provides a useful vantage point from which to offer a brief retrospect. What light does this extended case study shed on the influences shaping the media? The first observation it prompts is that understanding of the British media is bedevilled by the importation of inappropriate theory from the United States. Classic American studies of news organisations concluded that journalists are relatively free from control by media owners, and that this journalistic independence is sustained by a strong commitment to professional norms.1 Their analysis was transplanted to the United Kingdom, and faithfully reproduced as a description of the British media.2 However, these seminal American studies mostly related to the 1960s and 1970s when television was dominated by just three networks. More recent research mostly concludes that the autonomy of American journalists has been weakened by the increasing marketisation of the American media system, in the context of growing competition.3 When belief in journalistic autonomy is being questioned in the United States, it is surely time that we questioned its binding applicability to the British media. Understanding of what influences the British media has also been overshadowed by nineteenth-century thinking that bears little relationship to contemporary reality. The conception of the press as the ‘fourth estate’ derives from mid-Victorian theorising which argued that the 292

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press had become an independent institution that held government to account on behalf of the people. This argument has been expounded in British press editorials ever since, and has come to colour journalists’ perception of themselves. This heroic self-estimation is in need of critical scrutiny. The third point which becomes clear from this case study is that, especially when discussing political reporting, it is highly misleading to talk about ‘the media’. British newspapers are free from the impartiality regulations which govern British broadcasting, and this gives them the freedom to be as partisan as their controllers choose, and to conduct the kind of campaigns analysed in this book. Television and radio distanced themselves from the press attacks on the GLC, Labour London boroughs, and London’s first directly elected Mayor, although there were clearly moments (as in the McGoldrick affair) when there was some degree of convergence. The media are not a monolithic entity.

Media Ownership and Regulation Although the British national press has a large number of competing titles, these have long been controlled by a small number of publishers. In 1983, seven out of ten popular national papers (daily and Sunday) were controlled by Murdoch, Matthews and Rothermere, while twenty years later eight out of eleven were controlled by Murdoch, Desmond and Rothermere. During the 1980s, there was a close link between the Thatcher government and right-wing publishers and editors that strongly influenced the direction of much of the press. In particular, right-wing popular newspapers took the lead in attacking left-wing local authorities (which the pro-Labour Mirror press group largely ignored). Their assault on radical town halls was motivated partly by a desire to embarrass the Labour Party, and damage its electoral prospects. However, their attacks had sometimes an angry, even shrill tone which indicated that more than routine partisanship was involved. The cue for the first (anti-GLC) phase of the tabloid crusade was when Ken Livingstone was accused of abusing his authority as a civic leader to ‘speak up’ for the Brixton rioters in 1981; and the trigger for the second (‘loony left’) phase was when Bernie Grant was deemed to have done the same thing after the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. These ‘provocations’ encouraged the popular press to uncover further examples of what they viewed as 293

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the municipal left’s deviant politics: its presentation of homosexuality as an acceptable alternative to heterosexuality, its ‘inverted racism’, its criticism of the police, its financial support for ‘fringe’ groups, and other perceived transgressions. Right-wing newspapers thus initiated a Kulturkampf because they believed that traditional values were being attacked by a new political force that was misusing the resources of the local state. The full weight of the right-wing popular press was thrown behind this crusade. This was greatly facilitated by the hierarchical structure of power within the popular press. The editorial direction of papers was defined by senior managements, and this in turn influenced the selection and treatment of news stories. Journalists who delivered what was required were rewarded with good assignments, high exposure, peer group esteem and promotion. Those who resisted invited escalating sanctions. As the late Anthony Bevins (who, in the course of a distinguished career, had worked in the Mail, Express and Murdoch stables) wrote in 1990: It is daft to suggest that individuals can buck the system, ignore the pre-set ‘taste’ of their newspapers, use their own news-sense in reporting the truth of any event, and survive. Dissident reporters who do not deliver the goods suffer professional death. They are ridden by news desks and backbench executives, they have their stories spiked on a systematic basis . . . It is much easier to pander to what the editors want.4 It was not only directly employed journalists who were exposed to pressure. In addition to news agencies, the national press drew upon a casualised work force of stringers, freelancers, and also journalists employed on local papers (who sometimes passed on stories to Fleet Street for payment and the hope of a career break). These journalists were in the business of selling stories. They judged what was wanted from what was being published. The partisanship of the popular press was constrained, to some degree, by professional norms. These held that stories should be accurate; that they should conform to certain specifications (‘who, what, where, when and how’); that news and features should be separate; and that news reports of controversial issues should include comments from opposing groups. However, these norms weakened most notably 294

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during the 1980s.5 The press responded to the sharpening of political antagonisms that followed the ending of corporatist governance in 1979, after some forty years of government-mediated conciliation. During the 1980s competitive pressures in Fleet Street also intensified in response to the emergence of new titles in a declining market. For these and other reasons, less care was taken than before in upholding accuracy; the distinction between fact-based and opinion-based journalism began to blur; the selection of news stories became still more partisan; and statements in news reports opposing the editorial line of the paper tended to be placed in more subordinate positions. The other major constraint on partisanship was the market. Large numbers of readers did not share the right-wing enthusiasms of press magnates, yet needed to be persuaded to buy their papers if these were to be profitable. The gap that opened up between press and public opinion can be illustrated by the general elections that took place in the 1980s. The Conservative national daily press accounted for respectively 78 per cent and 74 per cent of national daily circulation in the 1983 and 1987 general elections, but on both occasions the Conservative party secured only 42 per cent of the vote.6 The press was thus much more right-wing than its readership. The difficulties this created were negotiated by filling popular papers with entertainment, and by making political coverage ‘entertaining’. The London left was extensively covered because it made ‘good copy’ (and was conveniently located in the city where the national press was based). According to Fleet Street folklore, readers like to be made angry: eliciting indignation sells newspapers. The London left had stepped outside the prosaic world of local government service delivery and ‘normal’ Labour politics to tread none too sensitively in the high voltage areas of sexuality, gender and race. This opened up a rich vein of pleasurable outrage. Thus the story about Haringey council banning black bin-liners out of a desire not to offend black sensibilities, analysed in Chapter 4, appears to have originated from a joke made by a storeman that was ultimately relayed by a freelance journalist to the Mail on Sunday. The story was so perfect – so calculated to engender anger and ridicule – that it was too good not to publish, even though it had not been properly checked. This and similar stories illustrate how, in the 1980s, the tabloid press moved towards something more approximating the genre of stand-up comedy than national organs of information. 295

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Thus, two things – usually in tension – came together to shape national tabloid coverage of the London left: the intense right-wing partisanship of national popular press controllers and the market imperative to be entertaining. Burlesque coverage of the ‘loony left’ provided a way of squaring the circle, combining right-wing politics with fun. This was in contrast to the reporting of broadsheet papers (which accounted for about 20 per cent of national newspaper circulation in the 1980s). While partisanship was reflected to some extent in their story agendas, they offered a much more serious treatment of the municipal left. This was mainly because traditional journalistic norms were more embedded in the broadsheet press where journalists enjoyed greater autonomy than their tabloid counterparts. The broadsheet press was also less exposed to economic pressures to entertain since over twothirds of its revenue came from advertising, secured through reaching an affluent minority readership. These differences were especially apparent in reporting of the GLC. Right-wing tabloids usually featured County Hall only if there was something negative to report, whereas broadsheets reported the GLC more extensively, in both positive and critical ways. The right-wing tabloid representation of the GLC was dramatic, simple and consistent; the representation by broadsheets a complex mosaic built up by divers, independent hands (such as arts, local government, transport, parliamentary and other correspondents). However, this contrast diminished over time. There was a greater similarity in popular and quality newspaper reporting of London Labour boroughs in 1986–7, and in their reporting of the congestion charge issue in 2002–3, than there had been in relation to the GLC in 1981–6. One reason for this was that The Times and the Sunday Times became more partisan in their news reporting as a consequence of the cumulative influence exerted by its publisher, Rupert Murdoch. Another reason was that the broadsheet press became more populist in response to increasing competitive pressures generated by the successful launch of the Independent and a prolonged price war. This turn towards populism was symbolised by the physical conversion of several ‘broadsheets’ into tabloids in the early 2000s. As indicated earlier, terrestrial television and radio differed from the press in that it was required to fulfil certain objectives laid down by parliament. Crucially, this entailed an obligation to inform the public, and to report and comment on controversial issues with ‘due 296

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impartiality’. This resulted in a selection of stories that sought not to be partisan: one reason why even regional television tended not to report ‘loony left’ stories about London borough councils in the mid-1980s, even though they were given prominence in the national popular press, was that many of these stories were thought to be unreliable and to reflect a politically partisan news agenda.7 The commitment to impartiality also resulted in the municipal left being given more of an opportunity to present its case in radio and television than in the national popular press. This sometimes meant a greater opportunity to reply within an essentially hostile discursive framework. But it could also take a more significant form in which the left’s terms of reference were pitted against those of the right. Thus, numerous television programmes transmitted in 1984–5 about the controversial plan to close down County Hall juxtaposed the tabloid framing of the GLC as a left-wing threat with the GLC’s preferred framework centring on local democracy and its service to the community. Different forms of media ownership, regulation and market structure thus gave rise to different patterns of coverage of the municipal left. However, differently owned media sometimes converged with each other in their reporting of the municipal left. There were also significant differences over time in how the London left was reported. These variations cannot be explained adequately in terms only of political economy. For further illumination, we need to turn elsewhere.

Media Sources The second key influence on reporting the municipal left was news sources. One way in which news organisations respond to a variety of pressures – to ‘discover’ the news, to report on numerous topics without expert knowledge, and above all to cope with the constant pressure of time and finite resources – is to stay in regular contact with institutions and groups that generate news and are important sources of information. These accredited sources influence in turn what is reported, and how it is reported.8 Some news sources carry more weight than others. An absolutely crucial difference between the GLC and left-wing borough councils during the period 1981–7 was that the former obtained very much more favourable broadcasting coverage. This was partly due to a difference of status. The GLC represented London, and what it did and said was 297

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therefore thought to be important in the eyes of journalists working for regional television, and also for talk-based ‘local radio’ (which, in the 1980s, meant ‘London radio’). By contrast, local borough councils were relegated to the category of parish-pump local news, and tended to be ignored. Belatedly recognising this, Labour London borough councils banded together in 1987 and undertook a number of joint news initiatives aimed primarily at gaining greater broadcasting attention. This met with only limited success; and by then anyway, the media die had been cast. The difference in broadcasting coverage of the GLC and local borough councils in London also arose from their disparity of resources. Local borough councils in London in the 1980s had tiny public relations units, geared primarily to dealing with local weekly newspapers and communicating directly to the public. They lacked the staff needed to develop a counter-attack through broadcasting – something that would have been inherently difficult anyway, though perhaps not impossible. By contrast, the GLC had a well-staffed publicity department; its diverse activities and substantial investment in research generated large quantities of information which could be ‘spun’; it was run by full-time politicians always available for television and radio interviews; and it had a sophisticated public relations strategy. GLC publicists generated on a daily basis a flow of stories, sometimes packaged as exclusives, to regional television and local radio. In effect, a rich local authority offered an ‘information subsidy’ in order to secure coverage of its activities. There was thus a source ‘pecking order’ among institutions and groups, arising from their status, resources and perceived usefulness to journalists. However, the biggest disparity of media access lay between the organised and disorganised. One of the reasons why the London Mayor’s proposal to introduce a congestion charge was so systematically attacked in 2002–3 was that it was assailed by organisations representing road users – the AA, RAC and Freight Transport Association – that had well-developed contacts with motoring correspondents who wrote many of the most critical articles. There was no equivalent high-profile organisation representing the general public who stood to gain potentially from the introduction of the congestion charge, and better bus services. In addition, dire warnings of ‘gridlock chaos’ issued by motoring organisations helped to lift a prosaic story into the sphere of drama – the wavelength frequency, by the 2000s, of much broadsheet as well as tabloid reporting. 298

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How sources interacted with each other also influenced reporting. When important representative groups clash over an issue or topic, they render it an area of legitimated controversy that has, in terms of the norms of traditional journalism, to be reported in a balanced way, with space allowed for contending viewpoints. The most important of these representative groups are political parties (usually meaning in practice their leaders and official spokespersons). Clashes between political parties not only designate an area as contested but also generate cover for other actors engaged in the same area of controversy. These other actors also have to be reported, in principle, in a balanced way. This cover was partly withdrawn from left-wing London borough councils and the radical Mayor of London. For example, leading opposition politicians made clear in 1986–7 their disapproval of Brent Council’s suspension of Maureen McGoldrick, and in effect joined the government in criticising the council over its handling of the issue. This put Brent Council out on a limb. It became open season to attack it (despite the complexities and unresolved issues that the McGoldrick affair raised). This was a key reason why, contrary to the general trend, some broadcasting coverage of the McGoldrick saga was almost as partisan as that of the press. Similarly, in the aftermath of the 1987 Greenwich by-election, the leadership of the opposition publicly echoed the view of government ministers that the London left was an electoral liability for the Labour Party. This came to be reiterated not just in the Conservative press but also on television and radio. One reason for this convergence was that the claim ceased to be contentious and had become, in terms of prevailing news conventions, ‘uncontroversial’ because it reflected a senior bi-partisan political consensus. Sometimes the issue of what constitutes a legitimated area of controversy, requiring balanced reporting, becomes blurred. For example, when Ken Livingstone decided as London’s Mayor to introduce a congestion charge in 2003, he advanced without political covering fire. Conservative GLA councillors opposed it, while Labour and Liberal GLA councillors were, at best, equivocal and for the most part oppositional. The congestion charge was thus not an issue of clear political difference requiring in traditional terms balanced reporting. This reinforced the slanted way in which it was reported. A further complication is created when sources cross the floor, so to speak, in an area of inter-party contest. This seemed to make a disproportionate difference to some news reporting (perhaps because it 299

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had the news value of being unexpected, and because it implied that an official party position was not fully representative of its supporters’ views). In particular, television current affairs programmes covering the battle to save the GLC in 1983–5 gave considerable time and prominence to Conservative dissidents who opposed their government’s plan to abolish the council. The absence of an equivalent group on Labour’s side during this period helped to skew debate in some television programmes in favour of the GLC. Something rather similar happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the emergence of Conservative critics of the poll tax, attacking their own government, contributed to critical media coverage of the measure.9 Similarly, briefing by Labour members against their own party leaders’ attempt to block Livingstone from standing as mayor generated a number of positive media reports of Livingstone in 1999–2000. What different accredited sources said at any given time made a significant difference to how the municipal left was reported. The fact that so many sources – including, crucially, the leadership of the major political parties – were hostile to the municipal left contributed to its negative media coverage. On the rare occasions when media coverage of the municipal left was favourable, this was usually because the left had mobilised support among news sources used by the media. This was most notably the case in television and radio coverage of the debate about the GLC’s abolition, when a large cast of interviewees – dissident Tory MPs and councillors, vociferous representatives of the arts lobby, ‘experts’ from the broadsheet press and universities, Liberal, Social Democrat and Labour politicians, members of community groups of all kinds (including the London Chamber of Commerce) – thronged the television and radio studios to support the GLC. Of course, it would be misleading to assume that the media merely responded passively to the disposition of news sources, as if they were pieces of different rank in a chess game, and reproduced the balance of advantage within the news source environment. The right-wing tabloid press actively sought out information that would discredit the municipal left. For example, the Daily Mail assigned full-time a skilled investigative journalist, Richard Holliday, to dig up dirt on Livingstone. He visited Livingstone’s mother, passing himself off as a market researcher, and quizzed Livingstone’s friends and opponents to discover whether he was homosexual or had a Communist past – something that he did without a great deal of enthusiasm.10 His editor, Sir 300

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David English, became so caught up in the excitement of the chase that he attempted to plant a question at a GLC council meeting about Jewish opponents of the Soviet Union in order to catch out the council in an inconsistency over race.11 The right-wing popular press also selectively plugged into and amplified sources hostile to the GLC administration. These ranged from opposition councillors (a regular source about ‘deviant’ organisations funded by the GLC), interest groups (like the Police Federation, a good source of eloquent anti-GLC statements), right-wing agencies like the Freedom Association, indefatigable GLChaters like the traditionalist Conservative MP, Sir Rhodes Boyson, to miscellaneous hostile sources typified by a headteacher complaining about the cost of the GLC’s maintenance department. The GLC, and sources friendly to it, were not excluded but were generally accorded a subordinate position in tabloid news reports of its activities. The same selective orientation towards hostile and critical sources underpinned the right-wing popular press’s coverage of left-wing borough councils in London in 1985–7 and the decision by Ken Livingstone to introduce a congestion charge in central London in 2003. There was thus a complex relationship between media control and source influence. While the nature of source environment significantly influenced the reporting of the media, this was more true of television and radio than it was of the press. Indeed when the press was in campaign mode, it tended to turn selectively to sources that would feed its campaign. Finally, no discussion of sources would be complete without consideration of how media organisations routinely rely on each other for stories. Numerous ‘loony left’ and ‘gridlock chaos’ stories discussed in this book appeared in several papers. This does not mean that they were necessarily true. It was simply an example of Fleet Street’s herd instinct (as well as of its magpie tendencies). Journalists tend to hunt as ‘competitor-colleagues’ in packs, and form group judgements about what constitutes a story, and how it should be interpreted.12

Cultural Influence The third key influence that shaped reporting of the municipal left was cultural. When political journalists report, they draw upon assumptions, images, associations of ideas, and a vocabulary (with shared shorthand and commonplace phrases) that shape their work. Where does this cultural input come from? 301

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One conventional answer would be that it derives from the ‘common culture’ of society, conceived as the sum of its social interactions and expressing its consensus. Reporting of the municipal left would be conditioned, in this view, by the shared ideas and agreed values of society circulating like pollen in the air that reporters breathed. However, such a perspective captures only a partial truth. In particular, it pays insufficient attention to the asymmetry of power within society, resulting in some groups having more influence than others in shaping the ideas and values of society. It also pays inadequate attention to ideology: the way in which ideas can serve and legitimate group interests. Indeed, an alternative view would be that journalists occupy a privileged position in society, are themselves members of a dominant social group, rely heavily on power-holders and legitimated holders of knowledge for their sources of information, and internalise their understandings and perspectives.13 Thus, one view sees the media as being shaped by the shared culture of society, while the other sees the media as being conditioned by the dominant culture of society. One is grounded in a consensual view of society, the other in a view of society as being controlled. One central difficulty with both these approaches is that they pay insufficient attention to conflict in society. By contrast, this case study documents the complex ways in which the media were caught up in conflict, influencing its outcome. In other words, it views the media system in the context of contending cultures. Thus, in the early and mid-1980s, journalists working for tabloid newspapers with close ties to government, drew upon and renewed a partisan conservative culture, and sought to win acceptance for it within the wider culture of society. They started with a partisan cultural identikit of the left – ‘hard’, authoritarian, doctrinaire, Marxist, Moscow-oriented – that was derived from the Cold War and adversarial party politics. They then updated this delegitimating image in a form that registered, and interpreted, the rise of a new kind of left that was more concerned with minority than class politics. The recombinant identity that emerged was that of the authoritarian, fringe, unbalanced, ‘loony left’. This theme was sustained by drawing upon different images and networks of ideas that were immediately accessible to journalists in the early 1980s. Reporting of the 1981 Brixton riots – the event that marked the real beginning of the crusade against the new municipal left – drew 302

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upon an inherited stockpile of imagery and ideas derived from 1960s and 1970s moral panics about youth deviance, utilised the metaphors of an earlier imperial age, and even invoked images of the ‘mob’ and outside agitators that extended back to the eighteenth century.14 The stigmatisation of the urban left then became underpinned by a projection of gays and lesbians, ethnic minorities and feminists as alien, deviant ‘others’. This tabloid campaign thus articulated different themes to characterise and explain a new kind of left that was crystallised in the phrase ‘loony left’. This phrase passed into Britain’s political vocabulary in the mid-1980s. It was supplemented by a key new coinage – ‘political correctness’ – imported from the United States, that designated a humourless, authoritarian, disproportionate concern with social respect for others. The phrase, ‘political correctness’, came to prominence in British newspapers in the late 1980s. It became a much used phrase in the press in the early 1990s: its use peaked in the Daily Mail in 1995, with 701 mentions.15 This rhetoric was an extension of the 1980s campaign against the urban left, and consolidated its success. The naturalisation of a highly partisan vocabulary – the widespread use of phrases like ‘loony left’ and ‘politically correct’ in everyday speech – registered an important moment of transition when a partisan conservative definition of a new phenomenon became incorporated into the general culture of society. It marked the point when a limited and particular meaning became transmuted into a general and shared meaning, part of a ‘common culture’. It was then that a cross-over was completed, and the language, repertoire of ideas and images that had been developed by traditionalist politicians and journalists in partisan newspapers to signify a new political trend was absorbed by other social groups and assimilated by the media as a whole. The right thus registered two major cultural victories – its triumphant assault on the municipal left, and its follow-up campaign against the race relations ‘industry’, personnel departments, school classrooms, social work offices and other cells of ‘political correctness’. However, this traditionalist advance was ultimately undermined by the effects of generational change. The assault on the municipal left had been initiated in the early 1980s primarily by middle-aged conservatives, people then in control of government and the higher reaches of the right-wing press, whose outlook had been shaped mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. Their attack on the ‘loony left’ had been a belated attempt to turn the tide of 303

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the 1960s cultural revolt, and to symbolically destroy its political representatives: young radical councillors who ‘misused’ public funds to promote an ‘extreme’ and ‘permissive’ political agenda. However, these defenders of social traditionalism proved much less successful than their counterparts in the more God-fearing, conservative culture of the United States. Underlying public attitudes in Britain became more liberal during the 1990s and 2000s.16 This was also reflected in contemporary changes in popular culture. For example, representations of gays, lesbians, independent women and, to a lesser extent, ethnic minorities became less negative than they had been during the 1980s.17 Important aspects of the municipal left’s agenda were also advanced by leading institutions during the early 2000s,18 while the municipal left’s leader, Ken Livingstone, was elected by Londoners as their first directly elected Mayor, and then re-elected. The culture of society was thus not permanently remade in a more socially conservative mould.

Retrospect In short, the three main influences shaping the media were their political economy, news sources and the cultures of society. Thus, right-wing popular newspapers tended to report in a hostile way the municipal left because they were subject to centralised control by conservative managements, and drew upon news sources and cultural values deeply antagonistic to municipal radicalism. They maintained a tabloid jihad against the municipal left for much of the 1980s, and attempted to reheat the invective of the ‘loony left’ against Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2002–3. However, Britain’s media system is not homogeneous. It includes a minority broadsheet press significantly – but decreasingly – influenced by norms of ‘objectivity’, and public service television and radio with a legal obligation to be impartial and to inform – a significant factor in the build-up to the introduction of the London congestion charge. This created an opening for the municipal left to gain a hearing, something that was reinforced by a contested political culture and contending news sources. Indeed, there was one historic moment when the municipal left turned the tables on its tabloid persecutors. During 1983–6, the left-wing GLC administration used television, radio and the broadsheet press to deflect tabloid attacks, something that was reinforced by its successful 304

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mobilisation of news sources and its skilful appeal to core democratic values. What this episode illustrated was the tractability of Britain’s media system, the potential for a section of it to be swayed in certain circumstances by the left as well as by the right.

Fourth Estate Mythology As a coda, it is worth adding one concluding note about national newspapers. During the 1980s, much of the national press was an ally of government. This was frankly acknowledged by some of the principal people involved. For example, the right-wing journalist Woodrow Wyatt records in his diary a revealing conversation with Margaret Thatcher: ‘Rupert [Murdoch] has been magnificent’, he informed the Prime Minister, and ‘had rung saying how much he admired what she had done. She commented [in turn] on The Times and the Sun giving ‘‘wonderful support’’ ’.19 A ‘one nation’ member of the first Thatcher cabinet, Sir Ian Gilmour, was less enthusiastic about this wonderful support, complaining that the press ‘could scarcely have been more fawning if it had been state controlled’.20 Collusion between government and the press reached its zenith in the winter offensive against the ‘loony left’ in 1986–7. Conservative Central Office issued a series of research briefings against the municipal left that consisted mostly of press cuttings.21 The statements of ministers responding to these were then given prominence in the right-wing press. This flow of information was entirely circular. The cheerleading role of the press in the 1980s changed into one of growing criticism of the Major administration (1990–7), culminating in a significant section of the press switching its support to New Labour in 1996–7. This was partly a consequence of disaffection with the new Conservative leadership which was viewed as dissipating or even betraying Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. It was also a response to New Labour’s market-friendly, law-and-order politics, and the evident strength of its electoral position. It resulted in New Labour commanding unprecedented press support in the 1997 and 2001 general elections. But while some leading newspapers like the Sun and for a time the Daily Express changed their tribal political loyalty, they retained right-wing positions on most issues. Moreover, their relationship to Blair’s government was pragmatic and critical, unlike the affair of the heart that had bound the right-wing press to the Thatcher administration during much of the 1980s. 305

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Throughout the period under review there was a loose alliance between opponents of the left within the Labour Party and a significant section of the press. Right-wing Labour councillors were a source of a number of anti-‘loony left’ stories published in the tabloid press during the mid-1980s. Kinnock’s criticisms of the ‘loony left’, and those of his ‘modernising’ allies, were also given prominence in the press during this period. In the 1990s the ‘loony left’ saga was invoked in newspaper articles as a cautionary tale: the story of how Labour was disconnected from the public before it was reconnected under Blair’s leadership. The press should thus not be viewed as an independent watchdog, overseeing power in a disinterested way on behalf of the public. During the 1980s, the right-wing popular press functioned as a Rottweiler in print, serving the alliance of Thatcherite publishers/journalists and the dominant Thatcherite faction within the Conservative Party. A section of the press was also involved in, and influenced, the transformation of the Labour Party into New Labour during the 1980s and 1990s. These are examples of ‘coalitional journalism’ produced by alliances between informal groups of publishers/ journalists and factions within political parties.22 Only the spell cast by ‘fourth estate’ rhetoric has prevented researchers from exploring more adequately the nature of these alliances, and their effect on both the politics of the press, and the politics of Britain.

Notes 1. The best known of these is H. Gans, Deciding What’s News (New York: Pantheon, 1979). 2. This was true both of critical studies like S. Hall, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke and B. Roberts, Policing the Crisis (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1978) and of celebratory studies like A. Hetherington, News, Newspapers and Television (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985). This consensus developed not only on the basis of American research but also a pioneer study that investigated elite journalists during an untypical period, the late 1960s: J. Tunstall, Journalists at Work (London: Constable, 1971). Jeremy Tunstall has since modified his view of power within newspaper organisations, in J. Tunstall, Newspaper Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 3. A valuable synthesis of this more recent work is provided by J. Hamilton, All the News That’s Fit to Sell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). 4. A. Bevins, ‘The crippling of the scribes’, British Journalism Review, 1: 2 (1990), p. 15. 5. J. Curran and J. Seaton, Power Without Responsibility, 6th edn (London: Routledge, 2003); R. Greenslade, Press Gang (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2003); P. Chippendale and C. Horrie, Stick it up Your Punter! (Heinemann: London, 1990).

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Influences on the British Media 6. D. Butler and G. Butler, Twentieth-Century British Political Facts 1900–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p. 537. 7. This was a recurring theme of interviews with six journalists working in regional television and local radio during the mid-1980s, conducted by James Curran. 8. For good critical reviews of this literature, see M. Schudson, The Sociology of News (Norton: New York, 2003) and P. Manning, News and News Sources (London: Sage, 2001). 9. D. Deacon and P. Golding, Taxation and Representation (London: John Libbey, 1994). 10. M. Hollingsworth, The Press and Political Dissent (London: Pluto, 1986), p. 97. See also K. Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It (London: HarperCollins, 1987), pp. 157–60. 11. The Conservative councillor, George Tremlett, refused to act as Sir David’s stooge. Hollingsworth, The Press and Political Dissent (1986), p. 97. 12. Tunstall, Journalists at Work (1971). 13. This is in essence the position taken in a celebrated study, E. Herman and N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon, 1988). 14. G. Murdock, ‘Reporting the riots: images and impacts’, in J. Benyon (ed.), Scarman and After (Oxford: Pergamon, 1984). 15. LexisNexis database. 16. These changes in public attitudes are closely tracked by the annual British Social Attitude Surveys (National Centre for Social Research) during the last two decades. Their data on changing attitudes towards gender, race and homosexuality are summarised in Chapter 9 of the present volume. 17. M. Macdonald, Representing Women (London: Arnold, 1995); T. Sanderson, Mediawatch (London: Cassell, 1995); R. Ferguson, Representing ‘Race’ (London: Arnold, 1998); L. Gross, Up from Invisibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 18. See Chapter 9 of the present volume. 19. S. Curtis (ed.), The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt vol. 1 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), p. 125. 20. Ian Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma (London: Simon and Schuster, 1993), p. 23. 21. Conservative Research Department, ‘Red-print for Ruin: The Labour Left in Local Government’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986); ‘Labour in Power: Profiles of Municipal Militancy’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986); ‘Labour in Power: More Profiles of Municipal Militancy’ (London: Conservative Party, 1986). 22. Historians of the press seem more attuned to this phenomenon than sociologists. For a fascinating account of the alliance between the Chamberlain faction in the Conservative Party and a powerful group of publishers and journalists during the 1930s, see R. Cockett, Twilight of Truth (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989).

307

Index AA (Automobile Association), 234, 238, 243, 298 Abbott, Diane, 229 Afro-Caribbeans, 8–9, 11–12 AIDS, 15, 160–2, 175, 285 Akass, Bill, 97, 99 Akass, Jon, 127 Alexander, Andrew, 118, 119 American civil rights movement, 9, 11, 210 Amiel, Barbara, 232 Amnesty International, 16 Amory, Merle, 9, 150, 151 Anderson, Ron, 124–5, 146, 147, 148–9, 151 Annan, Noel, 15 anti-antiracism, 118–22, 125–34, 136–7, 139–56 antiracism, 11–13, 18, 210, 284 Ashton, Jo, 263 Ashton, Terry, 271 Asian Herald, 103 Asian immigrants, 8–9, 12, 210 Asian youths, 40 Associated Newspapers, 227, 248 asylum-seekers, 209 Baker, Kenneth, 22, 74, 100, 159, 281 Brent Council, 123, 128, 130, 132, 135–7, 140 on gay ‘propaganda’, 164–5, 169, 173 McGoldrick case, 141–2, 146 sex education, 165, 176–8 Bale, Tim, 189, 207 Banks, Tony, 10, 18, 273 Barker, Norman, 121 Barking, 8 Barnes, Rosie, 85, 261 Baston, Lewis, 192, 216 Bazalgette, Cary, and Simpson, Philip, 151–4 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 29 ethnic minority recruitment, 284, 286 Hutton Inquiry, 236 local coverage, 59, 69, 115, 117, 227, 249 ‘loony left’, 261, 262–3, 270 McGoldrick case, 146, 148–54 Real Lives programme, 63 Begg, Professor David, 243 Bell, Stuart, 198 Bellos, Linda, 9, 218, 278 Bellwin, Lord, 179 Benn, Tony, 39, 40, 187, 192, 270, 274, 275, 281

Bermondsey by-election (1983), 28, 160, 204, 260 Bevins, Anthony, 294 Biffen, John, 24 Biggs, John, 234 Billig, Michael et al., 121, 122 Birmingham Evening Mail, 95, 100, 103 Birmingham Post, 92, 100 Blair, Tony, 28, 187, 189, 191, 192, 215, 245, 275, 283 Clause Four, 207 Ken Livingstone, 218–19 ‘loony left’, 204 single parent benefit cuts, 217 and Thatcherism, 190 Blair government, 43, 305 Blakelock, PC Keith, 110 Blunkett, David, 275 Boase, Massimi and Pollitt (advertising agency), 64–6 Bond, Samantha, 234 Booker, Christopher, 23, 35n Bostock, Martin, 99–100 Boyson, Dr Rhodes, 23, 127, 176, 180, 301 Brent Council, 60, 86, 102, 105, 109, 182, 205, 263, 276 gay and lesbian rights, 168 ‘loony left’ press articles about, 93–4 ‘race spies’ story, 125–34, 148–9, 155 racial equality, 130–1 used to smear Labour Party, 143–5, 150–1; see also McGoldrick case Bristol, 28, 40 British Empire, 25 British Film Institute Education Department, 151 British Social Attitudes survey, 200–1 Brittan, Leon, 148 Brixton Council, 109 Brixton disturbances (1981), 9, 40, 41, 108, 118, 119, 293, 302 broadsheet press, 44, 58, 63, 72–3, 74–5, 226–7, 233, 296, 304–5; see also under individual titles Broadwater Farm disturbances (1985), 9, 92, 108, 109–16, 116–17, 154, 260, 293 Broadwater Farm Youth Association, 112 Bromley Council, 60–1 Brown, Gordon, 189, 215, 218, 275

308

Index Bruinvels, Peter, 92, 176, 177 BTA (Brent Teachers’ Association), 123, 124, 150, 155, 156 Buckmaster, Viscount, 167, 178 Bulger, James, 106 Bullard, Brian, 88 Butler, David and Kavanagh, Dennis, 198, 208–9 Butt, Ronald, 118, 119 Callaghan government, 274 Camden Council, 8, 129, 144, 145, 161, 182, 263, 271, 276 Campbell of Alloway, Lord, 179 Cannon, Jim, 94, 95, 96 Caribbean Exchange, 93–4 Caribbean Times, 117 Carr, John, 11, 41 Cashman, Michael, 219 Castle, Barbara, 39 CBI (Confederation of British Industry), 52 Centre for Policy Studies, 118 Channel 4 television, 29, 115, 117, 146, 243 Chapell, Frank, 49 Charles, Prince, 75 Chelsea barracks bombing (1981), 44 Child Poverty Action Group, 16 childcare, 14, 48 city technology colleges, 136, 142, 159 Clark, Ross, 245 Clarke, Charles, 204, 215, 274 Clarke, Kenneth, 43 Clarke, Nita, 75 Clarke, Roger, 60 Clarkson, Jeremy, 228, 230 Cleese, John, 105 Clinton, Bill, 210, 212 Cocks, Michael, 262 Cohen, Stanley, 211 Cole, John, 261, 270 collectivism, 20, 22, 200, 201 Collins, Tim, 231 Communists, 42, 110 commuters, 226, 244, 245–6 Conservative Party, 3, 28–9 anti-antiracism, 120 congestion charge, 226, 244 core middle class support, 20 election victory in 1987, 267–8 GLC, 56, 64, 71, 76–7, 256–7, 300 law and order, 108–9 London Assembly, 234, 237, 248 ‘loony left’ campaign, 113–14, 147, 194–5, 209, 211, 260–5, 260–70, 268, 269 sex education, 165, 166, 167, 176, 180 Conservative Philosophy Group, 118 Cook, Robin, 275

Cooper, Davina, 170, 171, 172, 173–4, 181 Cooper, Tim, 96, 97, 99 Coopers and Lybrand (city consultants), 73 Corbyn, Jeremy, 181, 273 Cottle, Simon, 111 council houses, 12, 280 Coward, Ros, 272 Cox, Baroness, 112, 179 Crawley, Harriet, 147 CRE (Commission for Racial Equality), 44, 119, 120 Crewe, Ivor, 209 Crossman, Bob, 163 Cuba, 93 Cumberland Evening News, 95 Daily Express, 39, 40, 137–9 AIDS, 160 alleged ‘anti-police’ video, 112–13 anti-antiracism, 119, 120 Bernie Grant, 113, 114, 166 GLC, 63, 74 Ken Livingstone, 42, 45, 46–7, 50, 233 London congestion charge, 227, 235 ‘loony left’ references, 103–4, 105, 233, 260 loss of ‘Englishness’ fear, 210 McGoldrick case, 140, 141, 144, 145 race disturbances, 41, 110–11, 111, 116 ‘race spies’ story, 127 sex education, 176, 177, 178 Daily Mail, 23, 124, 134, 277 anti-antiracism, 120, 121, 132–3 Bernie Grant, 91, 114 Brent-as-microcosm-of-Labour-Britain, 145 Broadwater Farm disturbances, 112 Commission for Racial Equality, 119, 120 education, 135, 136, 137, 140–1, 159, 177 Gifford Report, 117 GLC, 47, 48–9, 70, 75 Ken Livingstone, 42, 45, 49–50, 233, 300–1 London congestion charge, 227, 232, 235 ‘loony left’ references, 91, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 143, 161, 208, 233, 262 loss of ‘Englishness’ fear, 210 Parent’s Rights Group, 169, 170 ‘political correctness’, 303 ‘the amazing Kenneth Baker’ eulogy, 141–2 Daily Mirror Bernie Grant, 113 congestion charge, 227, 228, 235, 245 Ken Livingstone, 50, 233, 239 ‘loony left’ references, 91–2, 95, 104, 106, 233, 261, 262 McGoldrick case, 142–3 Daily Star, 48, 50 AIDS, 160

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Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left Ken Livingstone, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 92, 95, 96, 97, 105, 143, 233, 262 race disturbances, 110 Daily Telegraph, 51 AIDS, 160, 175–6 ‘Assault on the young’, 174–6 Commission for Racial Equality, 119 congestion charge, 227, 230, 231, 232, 235, 245 education, 135, 136, 176, 179 on gay propaganda, 165 GLC, 44, 47, 63 Ken Livingstone, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 104, 233 McGoldrick case, 136–7 Positive Images campaign, 167–8 race disturbances, 110, 114 ‘race spies’ story, 127–8 Dampier, Phil, 90 Davenport-Hines, Richard, 182 Davies, Liz, 219 Delaney, Kevin, 242 Delsol, Stephen, 153 Denning, Lord, 61 Dimbleby, David, 148, 149–50 Disablement Action Group, 16 Diverse Reports (Channel 4), 115 Dobson, Frank, 197, 245, 262, 283 Donaldson, Sir John, 123, 140 Donoghue, Joseph, 144 Doran, Anthony, 100 Dormand, Jack, 198 DPRE (Development Programme for Race Equality), 130–1 Dubs, Alf, 181 Dulles, John Foster, 210 Dyke, Greg, 284, 286 Ealing Council, 129, 138, 161, 168, 182, 271, 276 East Anglian Daily Times, 93 East London Advertiser, 95 Economist, The, 103 Edgar, David, 122 education, 47, 86 gay and lesbian policy in, 15–16 multiculturalism, 12, 120 national curriculum, 138, 140, 279, 280 opt out schools, 280 ‘race spies’ story, 125–34, 148–9 sex, 158–9, 161–82; see also McGoldrick case Education Act (1944), 141, 176 Education Act (1986), 167 Eggar, Timothy, 92 Elizabeth II, Queen, 75 Engineer, Soonu, 152, 153 English, Sir David, 301

Englishness, 210, 211 environmentalism, 11, 17, 42, 60, 285–6 equal opportunities, 12, 14, 15, 123, 124, 130–1, 162, 189, 203, 216–18, 284 ethnic minorities, 11–12, 60, 124, 135, 210, 304 Evening News and Star (Carlisle), 101 Evening Standard, 29, 51 anti-antiracism, 124, 129 Bernie Grant, 113, 159–60 Brent Council, 137, 145 congestion charge, 227, 235, 236–8, 244–5, 246–8 Gifford Report, 117 GLC, 43, 58, 59, 62, 74 Ken Livingstone, 229–30, 233 London transport, 224 ‘loony left’ references, 94–5, 96, 106, 233 McGoldrick case, 139 misuse of quotations, 242–3 Parent’s Rights Group, 170, 179 race disturbances, 41, 109–10, 112 rail power lines collapse, 239 sex education, 177 traffic-lights ‘conspiracy’, 236–8, 248 Evening Star (Ipswich), 101 Eysenck, Hans, 175 Fabian Society, 202 Falklands War, 25, 28, 46 feminism, 6, 8, 11, 13–14, 27, 60 Field, Frank, 262–3 Fielding, Steven, 202–3, 207, 215 Financial Times, 195, 196, 227, 233 Finlayson, Alan, Making Sense of New Labour, 190–1 Fitzgerald, Julia, 271 Fleet Street News Agency, 95–6 focus groups, 211, 213–15, 255 Foot, Michael, 39, 52, 214 Football Association, 284 free distribution papers, 29–30, 69, 227, 229, 233, 235, 246, 247 Freedom Association, 301 Freight Transport Association, 234, 243, 298 Frendz (alternative magazine), 18 Friends of the Earth, 17 Gale, George, 23, 118, 160, 161–2, 163 Gallagher, Paul, 263 gay and lesbian rights, 11, 14–16, 48, 60, 139, 158, 159–82, 219, 285, 304 Gay Liberation Front, 9–10 Gay News, 160 GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), 63 gender equality, 27, 216–18, 284 Gifford Enquiry (1985), 112, 116–17 Gilmour, Sir Ian, 305

310

Index GLA (Greater London Authority), 17–18, 56, 77, 234, 237, 248, 299 GLC Abolition, The (London Weekend Television), 71 GLC (Greater London Council), 4, 6, 42, 77–8, 272, 281 abolition campaign, 56, 62, 218, 256–9 administration of, 40–2 alleged ‘anti-police’ video, 112–13 antiracism policy, 120 broadsheet/tabloid reporting, 296 community sector, 16–17, 42, 60, 67–8 democratic legitimacy, 61–2 environmentalism, 60, 69, 75 equal opportunities procedures, 12, 75 ethnic minorities, 60 festivals, 66–7 finance, 20, 258–9 gay and lesbian rights, 15, 42, 60 grants to minority groups, 47–9, 75 IRA, 44–5 job creation, 18–19, 42, 60, 75 leadership crisis in, 51 leading figures in the early 1980s, 10–11 media relations, 58–60, 68–9, 298, 304 media sources, 297–8 peace campaigns, 17 police accountability, 43–4, 75 right-wing tabloid press attacks on, 42–4, 47, 51–3, 58–9, 62, 68–9, 70–1 television programmes on, 71, 297, 300 transport policy, 60–1, 74, 257, 286 unpopularity of, 51–2 women’s issues, 14, 42, 60 GLEB (Greater London Enterprise Board), 18–19, 42 Gledhill, Ruth, 104 Good Friday agreement (1998), 44 Gordon, Paul, 118, 119 Gould, Bryan, 106 Gould, Philip, 192–4, 198, 200–1, 202, 203–4, 211–15 Grant, Bernie, 9, 209–10, 264 Baa Baa Black Sheep story, 103 Broadwater Farm riot, 111, 112, 113–15, 117, 260, 293 Caribbean dialect story, 88–9 gay and lesbian rights, 159–60, 166 Nicaraguan coffee, 90–1 ‘racist’ bin liner story, 87 Greater London Enterprise Board, 60 Greater London Training Board, 18 Greenberg, Stan, 211 Greenpeace, 17 Greenwich by-election (1987), 85, 195–7, 198, 204, 260–1, 266, 269, 299 Greenwich Council, 276

Greer, Germaine, The Female Eunuch, 8 Grice, Andrew, 271 Griffin, Daniel, 103–5 Griffiths, Eldon, 112–13 Gummer, John Selwyn, 49 Hackney Council, 94–100, 144, 145, 161, 276 Hackney Gazette, 96, 97, 98, 99 Hall, Stuart, 27, 31n, 115–16, 243 Halsbury, Lord, 178 Halsbury Bill, 179 Handsworth disturbances (1985), 108, 118 Hanna, Vincent, 195, 197 Haringey Advertiser, 88 Haringey Council, 15, 86, 107, 109, 138, 145, 154, 161, 181, 182, 276, 281 anti-heterosexist policies, 159–60 gay and lesbian rights, 166 Gifford Enquiry, 116 ‘looney left’ articles about, 87–93, 100–3, 295 Positive Images campaign, 164, 166–74, 178–9; see also Grant, Bernie Haringey disturbances (1985), 108 Haringey Independent, 171 Haringey Teachers’ Association, 170 Harman, Harriet, 217, 218 Harris, Bob, 169 Harris Research Centre surveys, 75 Hartmann, Paul and Husband, Charles, 154 Hastings, Max, 26, 41 Hatton, Derek, 187, 218, 271 HBA (Haringey Black Action), 172 Headd, Pat, 169, 170 Heath, Edward, 64, 281 Heathfield, John, 152 Heffer, Eric, 39 Heffer, Simon, 232 Heffernan, Richard, 192 Heffernan, Richard and Marqusee, Mike, 197 Help the Aged, 16 Hendon Times, 102 Heseltine, Michael, 22 Hewitt, Patricia, 197, 199–200, 204, 206–7, 212, 213, 215, 262, 272, 274 High Court, 123, 139, 146 Hill, David, 208 Hillgate Group, 118 Hillmore, Peter, 111 Hitler, Adolf, 102, 182n Hobsbawm, Eric, 31n Hodge, Margaret, 106, 216, 271, 278 Holliday, Richard, 45, 300–1 Home Office, 130, 131, 132, 148 homosexuality, 26–7, 285 Honeyford, Ray, 120, 148, 149, 150 Hornsey Journal, 166

311

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left 1987 general election, 198, 199, 201 party reform, 191, 192, 205, 215, 217 poll tax campaign, 282 Knight, Dame Jill, 179–80 Knight, Ted, 18, 218 Knitting International, 98

House of Lords, 61, 76, 123, 134, 178–80 housing, 12, 280 Housing Action Trusts, 279 Hughes, Colin and Wintour, Patrick, 193, 197, 198, 203, 217 Hume, Cardinal Basil, 168 Hurd, Douglas, 109, 113 Hutton Inquiry (2003), 236 Hyams, David, 163 identity politics, 19, 66–7 ILEA (Inner London Education Authority), 10, 20, 47, 69–70, 76, 138, 196 antiracism policies, 120 gay and lesbian issues, 15, 162, 164, 165 Ilford Recorder, 95, 98 immigration, 8–9, 24–5, 121, 209 Independent on Sunday, 233 individualism, 3, 11, 20, 200, 201 inflation, 268 Ingram, Sir Bernard, 74 Inquiry – the Police (Channel 4), 117 Institute of Directors, 52 Isledon Teacher’s Centre, 162 Islington Council, 8, 85, 103–6, 129, 161, 162, 260, 271, 276, 277, 282 Islington Gazette, 103, 104, 162, 166 ITV, 29, 115, 146, 227, 229 Jacobs, Eric, 144 Jacques, Martin, 272 Jardine, Jim, 43–4 Jarrett, Cynthia, 108 Jarvis, Fred, 146 Jeffery-Poulter, Stephen, 179 Jenkin, Patrick, 22, 63, 70, 73, 74, 259 Jenkins, Simon, 244, 247 Johnson, Paul, 118, 121, 141, 174–6 Jones, Anne, 60 Jones, David, 93 Jordan, Tom, 94 Joseph, Sir Keith, 22, 53n, 134–5, 159 journalists, 292, 294, 301, 302, 305 Junor, Sir John, 161 Kalfayan, Leif, 96 Kavanagh, Trevor, 231 Kerridge, Roy, 121 Kiffin, Dolly, 112 Kiley, Bob, 247 King, Chris, 104 King, Tom, 22, 73 Kington, Miles, 187–8 Kinnock, Neil, 28, 52–3, 103, 144, 145, 268 criticism from right of party, 274 ‘loony left’, 195, 198, 218, 260–1, 262, 270, 273, 306

Labour Herald, 18 Labour Party, 28 black activists, 124, 136 Brent Council used to smear, 143–5, 150–1 congestion charge, 226 election defeats, 3–5, 191–202, 208–9, 213, 264–7, 274–5 election victories, 216 feminists, 8 gay and lesbian rights, 160, 161 gender equality, 216–18, 284 and the GLC, 52–3, 57 Greenwich by-election, 260–2 London branches, 7–10, 33n London support, 78, 197, 201 ‘loony left’ campaign, 260–75, 299 Mayor of London election, 77, 283 media coverage, 305–6 1980s ethos of, 18, 192 Policy Review, 188, 202–4, 207 political development of, 274–5 race issues, 114, 127, 129 reform of, 188–91, 205–6, 215–16 rise of the left in the, 40–1 sex education, 165–6 trustworthiness, 212–14, 216, 266 working class support, 20, 210, 211; see also New Labour Lambeth Council, 8, 11–12, 18, 113, 161, 182, 205, 276, 278 Lane, Sir David, 131 Lansley, Andrew, 209 Lansley, Stewart, Goss, Sue and Wolmar, Christian, 155, 156, 171, 173 Lee-Potter, Lynda, 47 Leicester City Council, 92 lesbians, 14, 27, 47, 48 Levidow, Les, 166 Lewisham Council, 8, 14, 276, 277, 278 Liberal Democrats, 106 Liberal Party, 4, 31 Liberal/Social Democrat Alliance, 261, 268, 270, 273 Lightfoot, Liz, 89–90 Listener, The, 151 Littlejohn, Georgina, 247 Littlejohn, Richard, 232–3 Liverpool, 6, 28, 40, 271, 281 Liverpool Echo, 100, 101

312

Index Livingstone, Ken, 10, 24, 60, 70, 181, 264, 281 Brent East candidate, 198 broadsheet press on, 226–7 charm offensive, 75 congestion charge, 17–18, 224–49, 286, 299 gay and lesbian rights, 15, 46–7 as leader of GLC, 40–2 leadership crisis, 51 Mayor of London, 30, 56–7, 282–3, 304 and New Labour, 187, 189, 218–20 tabloid press on, 44–50, 233, 239, 300–1 unpopularity of, 52, 53 Lobenstein, Joe, 94–5 local broadcasting see regional broadcasting local government activist groups, 16–17 black representation, 9 cross-party coalition in support of, 71–2, 77, 78 education grants, 130, 132 equality agenda, 12, 130–1 gay and lesbian issues, 15–16, 160–1 media coverage, 297–8 and new right, 19–22 public perception of, 280–1 publicity departments, 298 rate-capping, 63, 75, 131, 189, 278–9, 282 services for women and children, 14; see also under individual councils Local Government Act (1966), 125–6, 128, 130 Local Government Act (1986), 179 Local Government Act (1988), 171, 178, 180–1 London, 7–8 congestion charge, 224–49, 286, 298, 299 elected Mayor, 30, 56–7, 77, 282–3, 304 ethnic mix, 210 gay liberation movement in, 9–10 immigrants in, 8–9 IRA bombings, 44 Labour support in, 197, 209, 219 multiculturalism, 12–13 race disturbances, 9, 28, 40, 41, 92 radicalisation of, 78 tabloid effect, 275–8 Trafalgar Square pedestrianisation, 238–9, 241; see also urban left London Assembly, 234, 237, 248 London Boroughs Association, 52 ‘London effect’, 219, 262, 271, 272–3 London Labour Briefings, 18 London Lesbian and Gay Centre, 48 London Plus (BBC), 69, 115, 117, 262 London Programme, The (LWT), 59, 117 London Tonight (ITV), 227, 229 London Transport, 60–1, 70 London Transport Users Committee, 244 Londoner, The (free publication), 69

Londoners, attitude to GLC abolition, 56–8, 63, 65–6, 69, 70, 75 ‘loony left’, 39, 50–1, 271, 275 congestion charge, 229–30, 231–3 Conservative campaign against, 194–5, 209, 211, 260–75 cultural influence and, 302–4 education, 136, 142, 143 gay and lesbians, 161 Labour Party modernisation and, 188–20 media campaign, 85–107, 260–78, 293–5 race issues, 109, 127, 129, 132, 136 television reporting, 146, 262–4 LWT (London Weekend Television), 59, 71, 117 McDonnell, John, 10 McGoldrick case, 86, 122–5, 133–4, 136–7, 139–43, 144–56, 145–54, 260, 299 McIntosh, Andrew, 40 MacKay, Dr Dougal, 50 Macpherson Inquiry Report (1999), 284 McShane, John, 91 Mail on Sunday congestion charge, 227, 231, 235, 240, 241–2, 245 GLC, 74 Haringey Council, 102 Islington Council, 85 Ken Livingstone, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 233 ‘race spies’ story, 125–7, 129–30, 131, 148–9 ‘racist’ bin liner story, 87–8, 295 ‘traffic lights’ conspiracy, 241–2 ‘West Indian dialect’ article, 89–90 Major, John, 210 Major government, 305 Manchester, 10, 102, 127, 139 Mandelson, Peter, 189, 193, 194, 198, 202, 204, 206–7, 215, 274 Marqusee, Mike, 192, 197 Marsh, Simon, 162–3 Marshall Inquiry (1978), 70 Marx Memorial Library, 48 Marxism Today, 4, 32n Marxists, 41, 42, 110 May the Force Be With You (Channel 4), 117 media, 21, 29–30 American study of, 292 cultural influence, 301–4 erosion of local government autonomy, 282 as ‘fourth estate’, 292–3 ‘loony left’ campaign, 85–107, 260–78, 293–5 negativity, 225–7 ownership, 293–7 partisanship, 293–6, 305 political impact of, 255–86 publishers, 196, 293

313

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left reliability, 276–7 sources, 297–301; see also broadsheet press; tabloid press; television; radio Men’s Wear, 102 Merseyside, 139 Metro (free distribution paper), 29, 227, 229, 233, 235, 246, 247 Metropolitan County Councils, 52, 258, 259 Metropolitan Police, 43–4, 109, 284 middle class, 5, 7–8, 20 Mikardo, Ian, 39 Miliband, David, 216 Militant Tendency, 6, 188, 189, 215, 271, 281 Mills, Ray, 118, 160 Millwood, Tony, 99 Morrell, Frances, 10, 165 Morris, Max, 150 motoring correspondents, 228 Mott, Gordon, 147 multiculturalism, 12–13, 120, 210 Municipal Journal, 95 municipal left see urban left Murdoch, Rupert, 296, 305 Murphy, Peter, 166, 168 Napolitano, Joe, 210–11 National Federation of Small Business, 234, 243 National Front, 11, 120, 121 National Women’s Aid Federation, 8 neo-liberalism, 28 New Labour, 28, 30, 188–90, 198–9, 207, 211–12, 215–20, 305, 306; see also Labour Party new right, 3, 19–22, 22–8, 31, 119–21 New Socialist, 4–5 Newcastle Journal, 93 Newham, 8 Newman, Sir Kenneth, 109 News at Ten (ITV), 146 News of the World, 41, 48, 100–1 AIDS, 161 congestion charge, 230 Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, 163–4 Ken Livingstone, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 233, 261 Newsnight (BBC 2), 263 Nicaragua, 90–1 Nicholson, Brian, 261 Noelle-Neumann, Elizabeth, 214 Norris, Steve, 247 Northern Ireland, 12, 44 Nottingham Evening Post, 95 NUT (National Union of Teachers), 122, 124, 146, 148, 149, 150, 170 O’Flaherty, Michael, 104 ‘Old Labour’, 189, 190, 211, 215

O’Neil, Jonathan, 271 Owen, David, 105–6 Panorama (BBC), 150–4 Parkinson, Cecil, 22 Parshotam, Nitin, 149, 150 Pearson, Geoffrey, 109 Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 95 police, 12, 13 accountability, 43–4 Gifford Report, 116–17 monitoring, 139 and urban violence, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115–16 Police Federation, 301 political advertising, 57, 64–6, 68 political correctness, 94–107, 216, 303 poll tax, 21, 278, 279, 282, 300 Poole, John, 148, 149, 151, 152 Portillo, Michael, 229 Powell, Enoch, 118–19, 148, 257 Press Council, 94, 104, 164 PRG (Parents’ Rights Group), 166, 169, 170, 173, 175, 179 Private Eye, 35n privatisation, 191, 279, 280 Profitt, Russell, 263 prostitution, 48 Public Finance Initiative, 189 public libraries, 165, 169 public transport, 60–1, 64, 70, 233, 238, 244, 257, 286 RAC Foundation, 234, 242, 243, 298 Race, Reg, 11 race disturbances, 9, 23, 28, 40, 41, 92, 108–9; see also under individual names race relations, 6, 11–13, 139 racism, 9, 24–5; see also antiracism racism awareness courses, 100–1 Radice, Giles, 146 radio, 29, 58, 60, 68, 262, 277, 293, 298 Rail magazine, 240 railways, 239 Rallings, Colin and Thrasher, Michael, 209 Raphael, Adam, 263 Rastafarian Advisory Centre, 48 rate-capping, 63, 75, 131, 189, 278, 282 Rees, Rebecca, 238 regional broadcasting, 29, 30, 58–60, 227, 249, 297 Reporting London (Thames Television), 59, 146–7 Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon, 180 Rice, Mervyn, 147–8 Richardson, Robin, 131 Ridley, Nicholas, 20, 22, 193, 260 Rippon, Sir Geoffrey, 77, 281

314

Index Robinson, Derek, 230 Robson, Barbara, 163 Rowbotham, Sheila, 11 Ruddock, Joan, 181 Rutherford, Mike, 228, 245 Sachse, Richard, 150, 151, 152 Salisbury Group, 118 Salisbury Review, The, 120 Saltourn of Abernethy, Lady, 179 Sanders, Sue and Spraggs, Gill, 181 Sands, Sarah, 232 Savery, Jonathan, 148 Sawyer, Tom, 270, 275 SCA (Shadow Communications Agency), 192–4, 202, 203, 204, 211, 217 Scardino, Marjorie, 286 Scargill, Arthur, 187, 218, 219 Scarman, Lord, 41 school governors, 136 Schools Inspectorate, 131, 135, 155, 159, 165, 167 Scruton, Roger, 118, 120 SDP (Social Democrat Party), 4, 40, 76, 105–6, 174, 197, 215, 261, 268, 276 Selbourne, David, 148 service sector, 7, 8 sexual liberation, 14, 158, 174 Shaw, Eric, 199, 206, 211 Sheffield council, 6 Shelter, 16 Short, Clare, 148, 149, 150 Shropshire Star, 89 Sikhs, 121 Silvester, Fred, 150 single parents, 27, 217, 218 Sinn Fein, 17, 52, 144 Six O’Clock News (BBC), 146, 262 Smith, Anna Marie, 180, 181–2 Smith, Chris, 171, 181, 272 Smith, Graham, 271 Smith, John, 28 Smithfield meat porters, 234 Social Affairs Unit, 118 Soley, Clive, 181 Solidarity group, 274 Southend Evening News, 95 Southwark Council, 8, 282 Spare Rib, 8, 48 Spearing, Nigel, 273 Spectator, The, 23 Springer, Alan, 151 Steele, Arthur, 153 Stephenson, Lord, 286 Stern, Chester, 87 Straw, Jack, 275, 286 Stubbs, Sir William, 164

Sun, 39, 276 AIDS, 160 Bernie Grant, 113 congestion charge, 227, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235 GLC, 43–4, 47, 48, 63, 75 ‘Hewitt letter’ leak, 197 Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, 163, 164 Ken Livingstone, 42, 45, 46, 50, 230, 231 ‘loony left’ references, 90–1, 93–4, 95, 97, 98, 104–5, 143, 233, 262 partisanship, 305 Positive Images campaign, 168 ‘race spies’ story, 128–9 sex education, 177, 178 ‘West Indian dialect’ article, 89 Sunday Express, 41, 47, 161, 233, 240, 261 Sunday Mercury, 101 Sunday Mirror, 46, 51, 74, 161–2, 163, 230, 231, 233 Sunday People, 85, 92, 100 Sunday Telegraph, 25, 95, 102, 121, 161, 167, 168, 233, 245 Sunday Times congestion charge, 228, 230 education in Brent, 136 Haringey Council, 102 Islington Council, 106 Ken Livingstone, 226–7, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 197–8, 233, 262, 271 McGoldrick case, 139–40 partisanship, 296 post-election analysis, 209 Sunday World, 97–8 Swinton, Earl of, 178 Szasz, Thomas, 175 tabloid press, 85, 275–8, 296 cultural influence on, 302–4 and GLC, 42–4, 47, 51–3, 58–9, 62, 63, 68–9, 70– 2, 74, 75, 259 Ken Livingstone, 44–50, 233, 239, 300–1 race disturbances, 109–13; see also under individual titles Tatchell, Peter, 160 Taylor, Hazel, 153 teachers, 23, 163, 166, 167, 170–1 black and Asian, 136 Brent, 122–5 gay, 47 pay disputes, 159 shortages, 147–8 Tebbit, Norman, 22, 23, 120, 193, 209, 260 Telegraph (Greenock), 93 television, 29, 262 Broadwater Farm disturbances, 115–16 GLC, 58, 59, 68, 69, 71, 300 impartiality of, 293, 296–7

315

Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left ‘loony left’ issue, 146, 262–4 McGoldrick affair, 145–54 policing debate, 117 reliability, 277 satire, 16, 35n terrorism, 17, 43, 44–5 TfL (Transport for London), 233, 238, 244 Thames Barrier, 58, 75 Thames Debates, 117 Thames Television, 59, 146–7 That Was the Week That Was (BBC), 35n Thatcher, Margaret, 3, 22, 27, 210, 281, 305 deposed by Conservative Party, 28 on the Falklands War victory, 25 on the GLC, 52, 71 on Halsbury Bill, 180 on IRA bombers, 44 on keeping politics out of the classroom, 137–9 on Labour councils, 279 on sixties permissiveness, 23 ‘swamped’ speech on immigration, 24–5, 209 and Tony Blair, 190 Thatcher government, 19–20 anti-antiracism, 122 and GLC, 62, 69–74, 76–7, 258 poll tax, 21 right-wing publishers and editors, 293 secret talks with the IRA, 44 Thatcherism, 5, 62–3, 267 The Times anti-antiracism, 119, 120 Broadwater Farm disturbances, 109, 110 congestion charge, 227, 235 Gifford Report, 117 Greenwich by-election, 196 Ken Livingstone, 220, 233 ‘loony left’ references, 105, 194, 233, 260 partisanship, 296, 305 pre-election analysis, 209 ‘race spies’ story, 131–2 sex education, 159, 179 The Times Educational Supplement, 90, 120, 136, 169 This Week Next Week (BBC), 148–50 Today, 88 education, 134, 159 on the Gifford Report, 117 Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, 163, 165 McGoldrick case, 144–5 ‘race spies’ story, 127 Tower Hamlets, 8 Toxteth disturbances (1980), 108 Toynbee, Polly, 272 trade unions, 18, 28, 63, 189, 192, 274, 275 Tribune, 271, 275 Trotskyites, 6, 42, 109, 110, 121, 127, 133, 150, 215, 271, 281

Turner, Derek, 230, 241 TV-Eye (ITV), 115 Two Kingdoms report (Brent Council 1986), 124, 130, 155 unemployment, 9, 20 unilateral nuclear disarmament, 193, 203, 268, 274 United States, 19, 304 urban left, 6, 30, 271, 283–6 and new right, 19–24, 27–8, 31 sixties radicalism legacy, 10–19; see also ‘loony left’ Vietnam War, 11, 17 Vincent, John, 118, 148 Virago publishing house, 8 Voice, The, 98–9 voluntary sector, 16–17, 42, 60, 67–8 Waddington, David, 49, 148 Wainwright, Hilary, 11 Walker, John, 107 Waltham Forest Council, 276, 277 Wandsworth Council, 16 Ward, Michael, 10–11 Ware, John, 150–4 Waterhouse, Keith, 50, 95 Watkins, Alan, 281 Watkins, Lord Justice, 61 Waugh, Auberon, 102 Weekly Herald, 89, 92 Weightman, Gavin, 71 Welch, Colin, 23 West Indian News, 103 White, Vivian, 148 Whitelaw, Willie, 22, 75 Wigmore, Bill, 147 Williams, Lynne, 93 Williams, Shirley, 93 Wilshire, David, 180 Wilson, Harold, 39 Wilson/Callaghan government, 3, 7 Wolmar, Christian, 240–2 Wolverhampton Express and Star, 92 Women’s Liberation Workshop, 8, 16 Wood, Deidre, 196, 261 working class, 20, 210, 211 World in Action (ITV), 115 Worsthorne, Peregrine, 25, 114, 118, 121 Wyatt, Woodrow, 161, 305 Yorkshire Evening Courier, 101 Yorkshire Evening Press, 100, 103 Young, Jock, 116–17 youth culture, 14, 22, 40

316