Next Labour leader must find a way to communicate with voters direct without the press mediating

Whoever becomes Labour leader should pin up the Sun front page from the last election in a place where it will act as a daily reminder of the destructive power of the press. That front page was dominated by a grotesque - and familiar - picture of Ed Miliband. The Sun’s message to its millions of readers was that this man could not be trusted with the country. This assertion was not based on Miliband’s words or deeds but on the evidence of how he once ate a bacon sandwich. There is no doubt that that message - repeated in the press many times - was effective.

In elections, perception is more important than reality. Even if they prove to be a brilliant leader and they go into the next election with excellent policies, the new Labour leader will lose unless they can find a way to communicate with voters without the press distorting and undermining their message.

Most political information does not come direct to voters from politicians but - even in the internet age - it comes to them mediated by the national press and broadcasters.  To a great extent it is the press who set the political agenda in the UK and the broadcasters - most importantly the BBC -reflect that agenda. Ownership of the press in the UK is dominated by a handful of billionaires and the papers are overwhelmingly pro-Tory and anti-Labour.

Many people scoff derisively at the idea that the press has a powerful influence in shaping people’s political views.This is odd. After all, no one doubts the power to influence behaviour of the billions spent annually on advertising and PR. Essentially, the same process is at work.

On issue after issue at the last election, Labour saw their messages distorted by the press - from their repeated denials that “Labour overspending” caused the global financial crash, to their promotion of popular policies on zero hours contracts, the rental market, ending non-dom status and reimposing the 50p tax rate. As the press twisted and fabricated, Labour was left frustrated and unable to effectively get their messages across to the voters.

The new Labour leader needs to find a way to deal with the press which is different from how either Tony Blair or Ed Miliband did so.

Blair dealt with the press very effectively but at a price. Rupert Murdoch and others knew Blair was no threat to their power or that of the so-called 1% more widely. The new Labour leader is unlikely to agree to such a bargain.

Miliband’s approach was the opposite to Blair’s. He took on Murdoch and the Mail and other rich and powerful forces. Unfortunately, his approach, whilst certainly bold, also now seems foolhardy. In a head-on fight, the press will always win.

Miliband’s successor needs a comprehensive strategy to ensure their messages reach voters direct, without being distorted by the press. There are a number of ways this could be done. I set out the outline of just one of those ways.

The leader should appear on a monthly live TV programme. It would come from a different area of the UK each month. For every episode, ten members of the public from that area would be selected, by an independent company, to form a representative sample of all potential voters in the area. The Labour leader would then meet the ten individually. Each would have a five minute one-to-one conversation with the leader on live TV.

The programme would give a platform to people who are currently invisible in the national political debate - such as 18 and 88 year olds; and those struggling with illness, poverty pay or unemployment. A representative sample of the electorate would include supporters of all parties and also those who feel apathetic or alienated from politics. Viewers would see two people sat as equals, no chairperson, no audience, no set agenda. The members of the public would raise whatever issues matter to them.

The programme would be a mix of Reality TV and a traditional political interview. It would be the antithesis of the micromanaged sterile 2015 election campaign where politicians never risked an unscripted encounter with a member of the public.

The format would allow the new Labour leader to have proper conversations with a great variety of people from across the UK - not just the middle-aged, well-off, London-based types who so dominate the national political conversation.

There would be some bruising encounters and that would be no bad thing. It would be good to see Jeremy Corbyn, for example, engaging with diehard Tories.

People would see the Labour leader listening and engaging with people like themselves and at the same time the leader would get their own messages across - direct and unmediated to the viewing public.

Truth about BBC bias

Shortly after the election, on the day that John Whittingdale was appointed as the minister with responsibility for the BBC, a Telegraph leader quoted a Downing Street source as saying Whittingdale would “sort out” the BBC. We are beginning to see what that might mean.

The BBC has powerful enemies and chief among them are the press barons. For decades now the newspapers they control and their political ally the Tory Party have kept up a constant attack on the BBC, alleging that it is a giant left-wing conspiracy. As any advertiser, PR professional or, indeed, totalitarian government knows, if you repeat something enough times, people will come to believe it and ignore the evidence to the contrary.

The evidence shows that the BBC is biased towards the right.

The only substantial academic research into BBC bias in the last decade or so was that published by Cardiff University in 2013. Its conclusion was clear – “The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, pro-business version of the world, not a left-wing, anti-business agenda.”

Robert Peston, the BBC’s Economics editor said last year that BBC News is “completely obsessed” by the agenda set by newspapers and too often follows the lead of the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph – this means, of course, following a Tory agenda.

A significant amount of prime BBC airtime is given over to “what the papers say” and to the views of Fleet Street journalists. At the election, over 71% of national newspapers (measured by readership) supported Tories or UKIP. Only the Guardian and Mirror supported Labour.

In the election campaign itself, the BBC favoured the Tories in a number of ways including

·         Excessive coverage of “threat” of a Labour-SNP deal. This was to the exasperated fury of Labour and the Lib Dems because this was precisely the issue that the Tories wanted the BBC to concentrate on.

·         Insufficient analysis of Tory claims such as that Labour over-spending caused 2008 Crash or that last-minute Tory billion pound spending pledges were properly costed

·         Failure to press and highlight the fact that Tories £12 billion promised welfare cuts were completely unspecified

The BBC’s pro-Tory bias is part of a wider bias, which might best be called Establishment bias. Examples of this would include

·         How little coverage there is of issues of importance to the 13 million people living in poverty in UK

·         Lack of coverage of the highly significant issues arising out of the Snowden revelations

·         Scant coverage of tax-dodging by the super-rich and multinationals. (Consider the respect the BBC gives to Taxpayers Alliance compared to UKUncut or Occupy)

·         Absurdly sycophantic coverage of the Royals

There are, I think, a number of possible explanations for the BBC’s right wing bias.

Whereas many BBC employees may consider themselves on the liberal left, many of those in senior positions in the BBC are Tories. However, it is probably wrong to put too much stress on this as a cause of bias; hopefully, these people do their professional best to put aside their own personal political views.

More significant, I believe, is the unconscious bias that exists at the BBC due to the fact that the relevant people are in the main drawn from the same narrow slice of society – middle-aged, middle-class, well-off and often privately educated and/or Oxbridge or Russell Group university. Whereas the top rate of tax or the threat of a Mansion Tax are of personal interest to this group, the pressing issues facing the millions in poverty are not.

More significant still, in my view, is the frankly depressing way in which the BBC follows the agenda set by Fleet Street. I have quoted Robert Peston on this above. It is, in fact, easy to observe this happening almost every day. Jim Messina, the Tory’s US election guru has commented on how much it is the papers who set the political agenda in the UK.

Too often the BBC seems to think that the front pages of the newspapers reflect public opinion whereas often, on the contrary, the papers are trying to shape public opinion.

Douglas Beattie, a former BBC journalist, has written – “Senior editors plough their way through bundles of the day’s papers before ever committing themselves to covering a story and often end up reflecting what has already been printed, not only in the Mail, but the Times, Sun and Telegraph too.”

There also seems to be an element of what looks like a kind of bullying taking place. The press excoriates the BBC if it dares to stray too far from what they consider an acceptable agenda.

Finally, there is the possibility that the BBC is biased towards the Tories in order to try and appease them and so stave off a threat from them. It is true that the Tories pose a real threat to BBC’s continuing existence in anything like its current form, whereas Labour do not.

The Guardian has reported – “Senior Tories piled pressure on the BBC, during the election campaign by commenting on its coverage and on its future as it approaches negotiations over its next charter.”

A number of Labour sources have alleged that the Tories threatened the BBC with dire consequences during the election campaign. Nick Robinson reported that David Cameron threatened to close the BBC down after the election. He said he was unsure whether it was a joke or a threat but says it was “yet another bit of pressure” on the BBC. He said that it was interpreted by BBC staff as a veiled threat. Cameron was essentially saying “don’t forget who’s boss here.”

Over the decades the BBC’s independence and integrity have been challenged many times and most notably by the sacking of Alasdair Milne, the Hutton Report, the bruising 2010 settlement and now the events since the election in May.

The Tories and the press will find may sticks to beat the BBC with. The BBC should not allow the allegation of left wing bias to be one of them. It is not true.

This is not to say that the BBC’s right wing bias is acceptable. It is absolutely not.

Facts about UK newspapers - owned by billionaires & supporting the Tories

In the words of A J Liebling, renowned American journalist - "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one". So it is worth noting that: -

1. 47.5% of combined print & online press is owned by just two billionaires - Rothermere and Murdoch

2. 75.1% is owned by just six billionaires

Billions of pounds are spent on advertising and PR annually because they are powerful tools to change behaviour. The same equally applies to newspapers and voting. So it is also worth noting that:-

1.  71.5% of combined print & online press supported Tories, Tory-led coalition or UKIP at election

2. 21.3% supported Labour

(Contrary to the Tory mythology about the BBC, it amplifies rather than  counteracts the political bias of the press.  As Robert Peston has said, BBC News is "completely obsessed by the agenda set by the newspapers....If we think the Mail and Telegraph will lead with this, we should. It's part of the culture.")

Below are three tables compiled from publicly available information.

UK national paper(s)	Average weekly print readership NRS	Website only Comscore	Combined print and website (removing duplicates) % of total	Effective owner/s	Info about owner/s	Political support General Election 2015
Daily Mail & Mail on Sunday	8,724,000	5,691,000	13,255,000  17.6%	Lord Rother-mere	Billionaire.Lives in France. Non-Dom. Alleged tax avoider.	Tories
The Sun & Sun on Sunday	10,344,000	339,000	10,602,000  14.1% (Scotland alone estimate 1.2%)	Rupert Murdoch	Billionaire. Lives in US. Alleged tax avoider.	Tories except in Scotland where SNP
Metro	7,315,000	992,000	8,108,000  10.8%	Lord Rother- Mere	Billionaire. Lives in France. Non-Dom. Alleged tax avoider.	Tories
Mirror & Sunday Mirror	5,346,000	2,222,000	7,329,000    9.7%	Trinity Mirror plc	Public Limited Company.	Labour
Guardian & Observer	2,349,000	5,171,000	6,998.000    9.3%	Scott Trust Ltd	A company with purpose to secure Guardian’s independence	Labour
Telegraph & Sunday Telegraph	2,709,000	4,277,000	6,577,000    8.7%	David and Frederick Barclay	Billionaires. Live on private island near Sark. Alleged tax avoiders.	Tories
London Evening Standard	3,801,000	649,000	4,340,000     5.8%	Alexander & Evgeny Lebedev	Alexander is a billionaire, ex-KGB and lives in Russia. His son, Evgeny lives in UK	Tories
The Independent & Independenton Sunday & i	2,034,000	2,479,000	4,316,000 (Indy alone estimate   2,500,000)   5.7% (Indy alone estimate   3.3%)	Alexander & Evgeny Lebedev	Alexander is a billionaire, ex-KGB and lives in Russia. His son, Evgeny lives in the UK	Indy -Tory/Lib-Dem Indy on Sunday & i - no endorse-ment
The Times & Sunday Times	3,540,000	239,000	3,748,000   5.0%	Rupert Murdoch	Billionaire. Lives in US. Alleged tax avoider.	Tories
Express & Sunday Express	2,298,000	849,000	. 3,110,000   4.1%	Richard Desmond	Billionaire pornographer. Alleged tax avoider	UKIP
Star &  Star on Sunday	2,171,000	567,000	. 2,722,000   3.6%	Richard Desmond	Billionaire pornographer. Alleged tax avoider	No endors-ment
Financial Times	2,200,000 (PwC Nov 2011)	285,000 subscribers	2,485,000 Estimate   3.3%	Pearson PLC	Public limited company	Tory/ LibDem
Daily Record & Sunday Mail	1,326,000	451,000	1,724,000     2.3%	Trinity Mirror plc	Public limited company	Labour
TOTAL			75,314,000

Effective Owner(s)	%  of combined print and online
Lord Rothermere	28.4
Rupert Murdoch	19.1
Trinity Mirror plc	12.0
Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev	11.5
Scott Trust	9.3
David and Frederick Barclay	8.7
Richard Desmond	7.7
Pearson plc	3.3

Political Support at General Election 2015
Tory	60.8%
Tory led coalition with Lib Dems	6.6%
UKIP	4.1%
Labour	21.3%
SNP	1.2%
No endorsement	6.0%