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Sultans of Spin: The Media and the New Labour Government
Book by Jones, Nicholas
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 12, 2023
This book takes on a fascinating, yet under-analysed subject - the media management or "spin" of the first New Labour government of Tony Blair, between the election in May of 1997 and the summer of 1999. Its focus is primarily on Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, but also the ministers in Tony Blair's first Cabinet, Labour press figures like David Hill, Tim Allan or to a lesser extent, Peter Mandelson. Most of it is spent on retelling the most well-known scandals of those years, such as the Red Lion affair, Bernie Eccleston's donation to the Labour party, Campbell's persuasion of Robin Cook to end his marriage, Geoffrey Robinson's wealth or Peter Mandelson's purchase of a house with a loan from Robinson.
The book has essentially three main arguments. Firstly, the New Labour publicity machine was set up (as was the New Labour project itself in the beginning) with the all-encompassing goal of winning elections and capturing attention, while continually beating the fledging Tory government of John Major in the media game. It was thus accustomed to being in opposition and moving into government pushing it into an obsessive control of the media coverage, overuse of special advisors (SpAds, the number of which went from 7 at the start of Mrs Thatcher’s government to 70 in 1997) and attempting to capture attention with "strategic communication" in a style of election campaigning.
Secondly, this constant campaigning led to, in Jones' view, a politicisation of departmental and government communication services. He overuses Campbell's statement that departmental information offices need to "raise their game" and shows both the departures of experienced heads of communications from various departments as well as the feuds between SpAds how the New Labour essentially lost control of its own spin. This must have been quite a change in the context of Britain, where for instance Margaret Thatcher's spokesman, Sir Bernard Ingham was a career civil servant, but from the perspective of 2023 and a country where all of the government communication is politicised, one can easily be unmoved.
Lastly, Jones repeats ad nauseam in the last third of the book how Alastair Campbell did not want to allow the broadcasting or taping of his lobby briefings, even though it is the standard practice in the White House or was during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the publicity of which Campbell managed and what the last chapter focuses on. I understand his point and appreciate why he makes it, but it just comes at the expense of a thorough evaluation of how Campbell's machine actually communicated, besides speeches, school visits and countless articles written by the publicity team at Downing Street with Tony Blair's by-line. Jones, from his position as BBC commentator always unloved by government communicators and spin doctors, tries to make a strong case that Campbell was courting the Sun and the Times, but one is not explained how this is actually so terrible. The same is with the Mountfield Review and the investigation of the House of Commons committee on Public Standard into the politicisation of government communications - we are presented with a description of the processes and how Campbell outwitted everybody, but not enough analysis of why it was inadequate.
While the topic of spin is definitely interesting and for someone who did not experience the events in real-time even the scandals are quite interesting, the book is written in quite a boring and confusing manner. There is definitely a lack of analysis of what actually the spin was and instead the reader is served with constant explanations of what did individual papers or journalists write about this or that scandal.
At the same time, it is interesting to read what good strategic communication felt like - Jones is very critical of Campbell, but he definitely respects his skills (and the same with Mandelson). This is especially in times and governments like the one I work for, where communications are, to say the least, messy and strategic communication is solely "fighting misinformation". From this perspective, I am left with admiration of Campbell's skill and strategic thinking, in times when Blair's government focused more on its own communication and keeping its official line than on arguing about other politician's untruthful arguments (which they did, but in a much more limited manner).
The book has essentially three main arguments. Firstly, the New Labour publicity machine was set up (as was the New Labour project itself in the beginning) with the all-encompassing goal of winning elections and capturing attention, while continually beating the fledging Tory government of John Major in the media game. It was thus accustomed to being in opposition and moving into government pushing it into an obsessive control of the media coverage, overuse of special advisors (SpAds, the number of which went from 7 at the start of Mrs Thatcher’s government to 70 in 1997) and attempting to capture attention with "strategic communication" in a style of election campaigning.
Secondly, this constant campaigning led to, in Jones' view, a politicisation of departmental and government communication services. He overuses Campbell's statement that departmental information offices need to "raise their game" and shows both the departures of experienced heads of communications from various departments as well as the feuds between SpAds how the New Labour essentially lost control of its own spin. This must have been quite a change in the context of Britain, where for instance Margaret Thatcher's spokesman, Sir Bernard Ingham was a career civil servant, but from the perspective of 2023 and a country where all of the government communication is politicised, one can easily be unmoved.
Lastly, Jones repeats ad nauseam in the last third of the book how Alastair Campbell did not want to allow the broadcasting or taping of his lobby briefings, even though it is the standard practice in the White House or was during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the publicity of which Campbell managed and what the last chapter focuses on. I understand his point and appreciate why he makes it, but it just comes at the expense of a thorough evaluation of how Campbell's machine actually communicated, besides speeches, school visits and countless articles written by the publicity team at Downing Street with Tony Blair's by-line. Jones, from his position as BBC commentator always unloved by government communicators and spin doctors, tries to make a strong case that Campbell was courting the Sun and the Times, but one is not explained how this is actually so terrible. The same is with the Mountfield Review and the investigation of the House of Commons committee on Public Standard into the politicisation of government communications - we are presented with a description of the processes and how Campbell outwitted everybody, but not enough analysis of why it was inadequate.
While the topic of spin is definitely interesting and for someone who did not experience the events in real-time even the scandals are quite interesting, the book is written in quite a boring and confusing manner. There is definitely a lack of analysis of what actually the spin was and instead the reader is served with constant explanations of what did individual papers or journalists write about this or that scandal.
At the same time, it is interesting to read what good strategic communication felt like - Jones is very critical of Campbell, but he definitely respects his skills (and the same with Mandelson). This is especially in times and governments like the one I work for, where communications are, to say the least, messy and strategic communication is solely "fighting misinformation". From this perspective, I am left with admiration of Campbell's skill and strategic thinking, in times when Blair's government focused more on its own communication and keeping its official line than on arguing about other politician's untruthful arguments (which they did, but in a much more limited manner).
March 20, 2011
Anyone remotely interested in politics, the media and 'spin' should read this. Fabulous!
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