Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
PM doing his Darth Vader impression
With his attack on The Sun today, PM shows himself to be even more shameless than I thought. He condemns the paper for its reporting of the Jamie Janes letter row and accuses it of striking a deal with the Conservative Party to support them in the election in return for favours.
It’s funny that he should mention that because this is exactly what Labour did in 1997 with The Sun. Since then News International has benefitted from deregulation of the media and steered the government’s line, against Tony Blair’s better judgement, away from European Monetary Union. They were Labour’s favours to The Sun – along with leaks aplenty about everything from government policy to general election dates.
The architects of the 1997 switch? Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair and PM himself. But he seems to have forgotten that.
As for the issue, the PM’s scrawled note was hardly the Bixby letter but I’m not going to criticise him for writing it. It was appallingly calligraphed and spelled but that’s not really the PM’s fault either given his sight problems.
What I think is a problem is that he clearly needs help in this department to convey the dignity onto such a sensitive circumstance that the office of Prime Minister befits – yet he is too proud to ask for it. Either this, or the fact he doesn’t believe he needs help, is to me another worrying sign of a Prime Minister with very little self-awareness and a poor understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses.
Mandelson suffers from no such problems and has a very clear understanding of both. But I think he will find that the harder he pushes News International, the harder they will push back. Mr Murdoch doesn’t like being on the losing side but he and his papers need to understand that political times have changed and their support for the Conservatives needs to be eloquent, subtle and nuanced.
The Conservatives are not here to make deals with newpapers. I am sure that ceasation of powers going to Europe, reform of the BBC and other things are probably on the cards – but these are things that need doing anyway and whether or not The Sun supports them, I certainly do.
