A brief history of Labour and News International
Posted on Wednesday 30 September, 2009
Filed Under New Labour
I NEVER did quite share the visceral contempt in which almost all lefties seem to hold The Sun, although I certainly understand where it’s coming from. The vicious personalised red-baiting in the Thatcher years, the bitterness generated by the Wapping dispute, and the way the bastards stitched up Kinnock all take some forgetting.
But I reckon that at least some of the loathing is down to snobbery. The Currant Bun is not Britain’s best-selling newspaper for nothing, and most of the people that read it are, well, you know, a bit … working class.
And although the red top doesn’t quite pull off the trick as well as once it did, the secret of its success has been the brilliance with which it has been able to articulate the concerns and prejudices of its readership.
When on form, it is as much the authentic voice of the Diamond Geezer as the Daily Mail is the precise ideological expression of the Middle England Chelsea tractor mum.
The Sun was the newspaper I was used to seeing about the house when I was growing up. After all, it contained as much news as my old man could ever use, in as much depth as a Labour-voting trade union stalwart railwayman who wasn’t much interested in anything that happened beyond Calais could ever want.
Throw in full perm plans for doing the pools, the most successful racing tipster in Fleet Street, and teenage girls getting their kit off, and it is entirely obvious why circulation peaked at four million.
After I got involved in politics, I made a point of reading the tabloid every day, in the same way I made a point of reading the Financial Times and Socialist Worker. Each of them, albeit after a different fashion, told you something you needed to know about how certain layers of society were thinking.
Until the early 1990s, The Sun – as well as the rest of the News International stable – formed an integral part of what socialists used to call ‘the Tory press’. Out and out hatred for the titles was de rigueur for Labour activists. Indeed, after Wapping, it was party policy for MPs to refuse interview requests from News International publications.
As late as 1992, Labour’s manifesto carried a commitment to a Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry into the concentration of press ownership. The provision didn’t mention Murdoch by name; then again, it didn’t have to.
New Labour changed all that, and quickly, too. As soon as it was clear that he would become the next prime minister, Blair flew to Australia at Murdoch’s expense, clocking up 50 hours flying time to address a conference of News International executives.
Reports at the time suggested that Murdoch and Blair came to an arrangement that would deliver endorsement from the Sun and neutrality from The Times, in return for the sort of favours that New Labour was only too anxious to do for leading businessmen anyway.
That’s never been proven, but concession after concession to the company were seen to follow. For many years, News International kept its tax bills below 2%, even as it railed against people that sponge off the state. Somebody please tell that scam has not been allowed to continue.
New Labour helpfully overturned in the Commons a Lords attempt to outlaw loss-leader promotions from The Times, a tactic clearly designed to kill off the Indie, which was struggling then as now. Blair even personally chatted up Berlusconi when Murdoch’s BSkyB wanted to buy controlling interest in Italian TV station.
But the ability to deliver favours not fairness necessitates being in office, and the present government seems unlikely to be in office a year from now.
In short, New Labour came to power on the back of a more or less explicit deal with the Murdoch empire. It’s going it some to argue that loss of support from the Sun will bring about its downfall, but the decision symbolises a watershed in British politics, nevertheless.
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20 Responses to “A brief history of Labour and News International”
It may be watershed for Brown, but for the election? There’s hardly much kudos in backing a favourite against a bunch of nags with spavined limbs – as a tipster like Dave should know.
Correction due here: the Sun does a good job of ventriloquising some diamond geezers (the kind you would not want near your table down the pub because they can’t hold their drink).
The issue now is what’s going to become of the Labour Party.
Poor old modernisers.
I suspect we’ll see some talk of Party Primaries before long – or so some still there are pushing.
You could also add the disgraceful way it reported on Hillsborough. You could also add the false reports on Muslim extremism eg the attacks on soldiers houses in Slough, the bus driver who stopped his bus for prayers etc.
As for being authentic diamond geezers Kelvin Mackenzie was educated at a posh private school in Dulwich.
No doubt if we sat down and thought about it, we could expand the list indefinitely, Matthew.
But the point is, The Sun is only a newspaper. It’s just tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper. Tehre are bigger evils for the left to get worked up about.
Dave, I assume you have read ‘Stick It Up Your Punter’ ?
The Sun is only a newspaper. It’s just tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper. Tehre are bigger evils for the left to get worked up about.
There are few more pertinent or insidious evils to get worked up about that any brand of the oligarch owned/bourgeois staffed/domestic dissent-stifling/systemic inequality-obfuscating press.
The Sun was never ever ever okay (not even under Larry Lamb when it “respected” the Unions).
And it was a sign of Blair’s love affair with the Masters of the Universe, his abject fear of exclusion from the jet set, that Labour didn’t cut Murdoch off at the knees when they had several chances to do so.
Worse, it was naieve, it was unpolitical, it was suicide.
The Sun ain’t the rag it used to be. Back in the 80′s and 90′s it thrived in a political atmosphere that could be described as ‘engaging’ to put it mildly. That’s not the case any more.
I remember doing Meeja Studies at school circa 1984 and the question always asked was do newspapers, such as The Sun, tell people what to believe or simply reflect already existing opinions and prejudices. I was generally in the latter camp if for no other reason than my step-Dad read The Sun and the former camp seemed to believe that Sun readers were a bit thick and soft in the head (he wasn’t).
Clearly the World has moved on since then. On hearing that they’d transferred their allegiance to the Cameroons the first thought to pop into my head was “does anybody give a shit?”
Now if I say nobody cares what The Sun says anymore some Lefts out there may have reason to cheer and pour themselves a cool Stella. That’s genuinely understandable.
However may I tentatively suggest that this is not something to get cheerfully lagered about.
Why?
Because if nobody gives a shit what The Sun says then that, to me, indicates nobody gives a shit about anything of political worth anymore. The disengagement from political issues in this country is now far advanced. This can only be bad news for those who want to see a new Left movement taking centre stage. And good news only for those who wish to see a mass of the population yielding to apathy and the “couldn’t give a fuck” culture.
Good article dave
When my nephew was in prison, he took to reading the Sun just to fit in; and the habit has stayed with him.
The pint of the Sun is that it is a newspaper for people who feel they have very little infleunce on what happens in the world, so they are happy for the news to be presented as entertainment. In a way they are not wrong.
Talking about prison remimnds me of that marvellous line from a 1970′s Porridge when Fletch asks Lennie Godber to pick up a newspaper if he was going to the prison canteen ‘oh, and a copy of the Sun as well if there’s one going….’ – which i think sums up most people’s implicit view of that paper.
If I was Brown et al, I’d be far more concerned about the BBC which is now in full “contempt for losers” blood lust mode. Gutless enough to trade their future under Cameron for a limited security? Murdoch demands – We deliver
Hey, the Etonions are already in (political) deputy editorial place. And then there’s the Robinsonian former Chairman of the Young Conservatives, 1986. (a very good year).
I can remember reading an article in the Guardian by Martin Kettle where he tried to argue that cricket was superior to football because cricket was more mathematical.
This kind of snobbery is endemic in the do gooding middle classes.
Strangely the Sun operates on a much more subtle level.
But cricket is superior to football; that is factually correct.
Then why is football so much more popular?
Rory,
You seem to be missing the point. Whether one prefers cricket or football is irrelevant. It is claiming that cricket is superior because it is mathematical that is ridiculous and implies a greater intelligence is required to appreciate cricket than football, which is even more ridiculous.
More popular where?
Rory,
You are obviously mentally scarred by the fact that football is more popular than cricket, being a compassionate soul, I will allow you to live out your fantasy.
Funnily enough I have the same problem with the Sun, I pretend the morning star is the most popular paper on the market!
I was thinking of using the Morning Star / Sun analogy myself as well actually.
And far from being mentally scarred, England’s Ashes win and Essex’s promotion have me back in love with sport.
Whereas your (and my) football team’s current performances give your pro-cricket position further credence.
back to the topic
I seem to remember reading that in every election where the Sun recommended a vote Tory, a majority of its readers voters labour.
And generally IIRC the Sun has a higher concentration of labour voters reading it than the Guardian does.
The point that Andy Newman is missing, of course, is that the proportion of Sun readers that vote Labour is disproportionately low compared to the class composition of its readership. While some working class Sun readers buy the paper because they have strongly ingrained right-wing views, there are undoubtedly a certain proportion who are swung by their ‘propaganda’.
Plus, influencing voting is only part of the problem. The main influence of practically the whole print media is to debase opinion in society to the extent that left-wingers are willing to welcome even the most limp expressions of liberalism in newspapers because they give a rarely voiced point of view.