Who loves you, baby! (1995)

TV Review from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

This last month has been enlivened by the government's recent attempts to shoot the messenger, alias the media. For not content with alienating a normally docile and compliant press, the Conservative Party hierarchy has now turned its attentions to television and, in particular, the BBC— the newly christened Blair Broadcasting Corporation. The most immediate result was unexpected. A temporary thaw in relations ensured between the Tories and the BBC as they joined forces to protest at the Prime Minister being banned from BBC television in Scotland by the ruling class’s own judges, who accused the BBC of misconduct during a local election campaign.

Jonathan Aitken, a man who knows a thing or two about how to manipulate the media, and Jeremy Hanley—a man who despite his theatrical connections evidently doesn't—have been in the forefront of attacks on alleged BBC bias against the government. Their onslaught has been assisted by Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, who is responsible for such matters. With Hanley acting like a demented cheerleader at a Cup Final Aitken and Howard have alleged that BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys adopt an overly-aggressive manner when interviewing government ministers, so much so that the BBC's own supremo John Birt has seen fit to give them a public warning. In particular, Humphrys occasioned Conservative wrath for chairing an allegedly “anti-government” education rally debate in Westminster (although the Tories neglect to mention that a government spokesman was invited to participate and that Humphrys was paid for taking part) and this was compounded by an incident which led to Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark to be officially censored for using a "hectoring tone" in an interview with the absurdly coiffured Michael Portillo.

This all tells us something. Not that the BBC really is biased against the government, for all governments think that, especially ones that are going through a rough time. What it does tell us is that somewhere in the twisted minds of the Tory party leadership plans are being made for a General Election.

There are many historical precedents for this sort of behaviour. In the late 1960s Harold Wilson, who had previously enjoyed a rather convivial relationship with the television media, launched a series of attacks on the BBC and ITV for biased news reporting as he made plans to renew Labour's mandate. Throughout her long reign Thatcher did the same for the Conservatives, most famously and successfully under the direction of Norman Tebbit. He set up a monitoring unit before the 1987 election to keep an eye on precisely the amount of coverage each of the main parties were getting and to ascertain the percentage of that coverage which was positive, neutral or damaging.

It would appear that the Tory leadership is now again in General Election mode, and they don't want unduly favourable coverage of Blair and his cohorts at the expense of their own boys and girls.

Bong!

It was thought for many years—and not just in the Tory Party—that the BBC had a rather pro-left wing bias in its news reporting and current affairs coverage and that ITN, under the guidance of that cringeworthy Tory Alistair Burnett, veered in the other direction. In the 1992 election, there were signs that the roles were reversed, perhaps as a result of political pressure and memories of the 1987 campaign with Tebbit’s attack on the BBC and Labour’s counter-attack on ITN.

In reality, the major capitalist political parties have little to fear. Coverage of them is remarkably neutral between them most of the time in Britain— unlike say Spain or Italy, where news channels are dominated and even sometimes owned by the major political parties, or the US. where the size of your campaign chest speaks loudest. The real losers, especially in Britain, are those organisations that currently represent "minority opinion", unable even to receive a five-minute Party Political Broadcast unless they have the funds and desire to stump up enough money for fifty parliamentary candidates. Between elections coverage is little better. Just how many smaller parties get represented on Question Time or other current affairs programmes? Are we really to believe that they have nothing interesting to say or is it that the news corporations simply dance to the collective tune of the mainstream political parties and the values they represent? They are, after all, values which largely coincide with their own.

And finally . . .

Let us know how you feel, for one thing is certain. If socialists are not to be marginalised on the fringes of the political process television news coverage is vital and so is access to current affairs programmes where the upholders of the capitalist system can be directly challenged. If political intervention on the subject of television coverage is left to the Peter Mandelsons and Jonathan Aitkens of this world, we will only have ourselves to blame—although admittedly our task is much harder than theirs. We, after all, cannot bank any assistance from the sharp-suited executives at Broadcasting House or the doughty old buffers in dusty wigs. Through the strength our ideas if not presently force of numbers we can but try. and try until we succeed.

Dave Perrin