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A New Party and a New Leader: A Study of the British Press Presentation of the Labour Party and Tony Blair in the Election Campaign of 1997 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This article by Anna Kosz is based on her MA thesis from Professor Irmina Wawrzyczek's Seminar in Cultural Studies at the Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skeodowskiej. The article will also appear in a forthcoming publication, a collection of MA papers, entitled Studying "New" Britain: Popular Culture and Ideology, and edited by Professor Wawrzyczek and Dr. Zbigniew Mazur. Introduction
The aim of my project is to show how
two British national newspapers, The
Times and The Independent
participated in the construction of a new image of the Labour Party and its
leader Tony Blair in the period preceding the general election of 1997. I
intend to describe the effect achieved by a skilful combination of the visual
and textual techniques and strategies employed by both newspapers in order to
influence the British electorate in favour of the Labour Party. As newspapers are products of popular
culture, their critical analysis will ultimately lead to conclusions about the
role of the Press in general in shaping British political culture. The Times came into being in 1785 as an
independent daily newspaper, politically right of centre. In 1981 it was bought
by News International Company, owned by the Australian-born press tycoon Rupert
Murdoch. His purchase marked the beginning of a shift in the paper’s political
stance from the centre towards a more right-wing position. On the surface, The Times disguises its political
opinions and its journalists never use we
or us with reference to any
party. Typically, its leading slogan in the coverage of the election campaign
of 1997 was ‘Principle not party.’ Rather than openly support the Conservative
Party, “it advised readers to vote for Eurosceptic candidates, most of whom
were Conservative, although a few were Labour and Liberal Democrat dissidents.”[1] The
Independent was established in 1986 as a politically independent newspaper
owned by the International Newspaper Publishing Group. It seized the centre
ground vacated by The Times after its
swing to the right. The Independent’s
outlook is politically autonomous, slightly right of centre in economic matters
and slightly left of centre in social concerns. Faithful to its title, The Independent did not back any
particular party in its coverage of the election campaign. As described by
Butler and Kavanagh, “it balanced criticism and praise of all major parties and
its leaders, columns offered refreshing and original perspectives on the
campaign.”[2]
Although these two newspapers claim to be politically independent, they
nevertheless participated in the creation of a new and more favourable image of
the Labour Party and its leader Tony Blair while reporting the election news in
a seemingly neutral way. The
research material for the analysis comes from 104 issues of The Times and The Independent published between March and May Day 1997, the day
of the general election. In addition to newspaper texts, two of Labour’s
election manifestos from 1992 and 1997 will also be employed to demonstrate how
the new programme of the party was evolving. The
methods applied in the analysis of the collected material come from various
disciplines since cultural and media studies have always been
interdisciplinary. An attempt has been made to examine both the verbal and the
visual side of the research material by employing discourse analysis, content
analysis and semiotic interpretation. As explained by Graeme Turner, semiotics
“allows us to examine the cultural specificity of representations and their
meanings by using one set of methods and terms across the full range of
signifying practices.”[3]
Hence it can be also used productively for researching the press. Discourse analysis,
understood as interpretation of “socially produced groups of ideas or ways of
thinking that can be tracked in individual texts or groups of texts and demand
to be located within wider historical or social structures or relations,”[4]
seems particularly appropriate for the study of newspaper articles aiming at
revealing prevailing topics, schematic forms, style and rhetoric. Much of the
gathered evidence comes from language analysis, performed with the help of the
linguistic concepts and procedures of critical linguistics defined and
practically applied by Roger Fowler in Language
in the News.[5] Content
analysis, “designed to produce an objective, measurable, verifiable account of
the manifest content of message,”[6]
and particularly productive in media analysis, was used here for the
quantitative presentation of evidence. Four dominant press strategies of
constructing a new image of the Labour Party and Tony Blair were identified in
the analysed texts: contest of candidates, celebrity endorsement, unmasking
Tories' negative campaigning and switchers' acknowledgement. These techniques
proved to be effective in attracting the voters' attention since their
combative flavour broke the monotony of politics and made it more entertaining
to the reader. They provided a framework for giving attractive insight into the
candidates' private lives and thus facilitated the reader's identification with
distant political figures. 1. Contest of candidates A very
effective strategy of projecting a favourable image of the Labour Party and
Tony Blair was the contest of candidates, i.e. contrasting the leaders of the
two main British political parties. This form of competition was developed and
is now used especially in the United States, where “the parties use their leaders
as vehicles to project the party as a whole”[7]
and where “the personal image of politicians, the set of characteristics
associated with them in the public mind – is a central element of
electioneering.”[8] Recently
also in Britain a number of surveys indicate that “most voters’ comments on the
party leaders are concerned more with their personal qualities – than with
their policies.”[9] This is
because few voters study the political programmes of the parties, even during
the election campaigns, but many have a lot of opportunities to see the leading
political figures thanks to the media coverage. Besides, people show a general
tendency to judge others by various physical attributes, such as posture,
gestures, clothes, hairstyle, accessories, and so on. Consequently, politicians
are often ascribed such important qualities as competence, authority, strength,
dynamism, and compassion mainly on the basis of how they look. Thus, this way
of political marketing based on the image promotion helps to attract voters’ attention
and improve the chances of one’s own candidate, while depreciating other
contestants at the same time. Tony Blair was presented in the analysed material
as a young, energetic and popular politician superbly suited for leadership.
This image contrasted favourably with that of the weak, inflexible and
incompetent John Major, who “has been even unable to keep a couple of hundred
would-be MPs in line”[10]
in the election campaign. Both Blair and Major were trying to
endear themselves to voters through numerous meetings and walkabouts held in
March and April. In the articles concerning such events, Tony Blair was
presented as an admired pop star, both in appearance and behaviour. His arrival
in Brighton was described in the following words: “Tony descended, linked up
with Cherie, and went walkabout. The crowd formed a square round like a little
paddock, around which he strolled and autographed and laughed and joshed, a
thoroughbred schmoozer.”[11]
During these meetings there was usually a lot of noise and confusion caused by
the fans and reporters gathering to see their idol. People were shouting,
waving hands, reporters were taking pictures. There were also some jocular
moments during such encounters: “ ‘Tony, what are you going to do for British
rock music?’ asked a 22-year-old groover. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,’
grated Blair, ‘I’m never going to play in a rock band again.’ ”[12]
Even the weather during his walkabouts was favourable: “under blue skies and
blazing sun, the crowds in Northampton witnessed a bravura performance.”[13]
In contrast to Blair’s enthusiastic
meetings with voters, John Major’s encounters with the public were presented as
complete disasters, which indicated his unpopularity as a politician.
“Surrounded by a hostile crowd largely made up of chanting students from Luton
University, he was heckled with shouts of ‘you’ll be on the dole, John.’ An
empty drink can was thrown as the scrum, with the Prime Minister in the centre,
careered along the high street.”[14]
Moreover, “one man shouted obscenities”[15]
during the meeting with Major and the crowd “changed its chant: ‘Get your soup
and slippers, Major, you’re boring.’ ”[16]
Such presentations of Major’s public appearances undoubtedly emphasised his
inability to communicate with ordinary people and predicted his failure in the
election. At the same time, the reports of the Prime Minister’s campaigning
misfortunes were extremely entertaining to the readers, and their scandalising
tone broke the dullness of the political establishment. Tony Blair was often presented as a
young, dynamic and vigorous leader. According to The Independent’s database, he was connected with the word young 471 times during the election
campaign, while John Major had just 379 links. Mr Blair and the word modern were paired 169 times, while the
Prime Minister and the same word – only 124 times. “Passion, too, is the
territory of Labour in the 1997 campaign. Mr Blair and passion were mentioned together 45 times, while Mr Major was
clocked up just 22 mentions.”[17]
Meanwhile, the most frequently quoted words of John Major – danger, conflict, drift, surrender –
show him as a defensive politician afraid of his rival rather than someone
offering a positive alternative. Table 1. The most
common words and phrases used by Tony Blair and John Major in the coverage of
the election campaign.[18]
Major’s attacks,
threats and accusations contrasted unfavourably with Blair’s rational election
speeches and cast bad light on the Prime Minister’s political vision and
skills. Blair’s lead over Major was also
emphasised by the table with opinion poll results presented in The Times on 27 March 1997. It concerned
both favourable and unfavourable things that had been said about the two
leaders and showed how the same description was matched by votes with Major and
Blair in February 1992 and in March 1997. Table 2. Major and
Blair: How They Compare.[19]
The table
presented Tony Blair in a highly positive light. He emerged from it as a
capable, honest and flexible leader who understood British problems and was
capable of sound judgement. Blair’s rich personality was used to disqualify the
Conservative Party leader as an appropriate candidate for the premiership. The
real aim of this allegedly statistical comparison was to improve the electoral
image of the Labour Party and its leader. The contest of candidates strategy
was used also in the case of photo opportunities, which were extremely
important in forming the public image of the politicians and parties. “The
result now is that the leaders’ election tours are largely structured around
photo opportunities. Great care is taken to find suitable settings months in
advance of the campaign.”[20]
Both Tony Blair and John Major realised that pictures had a greater impact and
were more memorable than words. As Martin Rosenbaum put it, “Whatever the words
say, the visual image still makes the point.”[21]
That is why they were both photographed while visiting hospitals, talking with
ordinary people, sitting with the family, etc. Table 3. The
number of photographs of Tony Blair and John Major in The Times and The Independent
(1 March – 1 May 1997)
The photo opportunities also resembled the presidential style of the
contest in America, since the leaders themselves dominated all the photographs.
Undoubtedly, Tony Blair was the winner as far as the number of the published
photographs is concerned. Very often he was shown as sitting alone in his
living room and working. Such photographs suggested that readers could see him
as he ‘really’ was, busy but happy in his domestic environment. At the same
time, through angle and eye contact with the camera, he was brought down to the
viewer’s level. The photographic construction of Blair as a private person, as
someone ‘just like us,’ aimed at facilitating the reader’s identification with
the otherwise distant political figure. The contest of candidates strategy
extended also to astrology in order to forecast Tony Blair’s success in the
election and to predict the failure of his political opponents. Neither in The Times nor in The Independent were horoscopes a regular column before, so when
they appeared to tell the readers which candidate the stars took side with in
this ‘battle,’ they certainly functioned as one more instrument of support.
John Major’s horoscope of 29 March 1997 predicted his failure in the coming
election. According to Nicholas Campion, the president of the Astrological
Association of Great Britain, “election victory is not [...] written in his
stars” and that he should take an opportunity to “say goodbye to old friends.”[22]
Also, Russell Grant, a tabloid astrologer, believed that “John Major will lose
because he did not call an April poll,” which meant that “he will experience a
life-changing event. Perhaps a fundamental change in his professional life.”[23]
Jonathan Cainer, another astrologer, emphasised the fact that Major’s failure
in the election would be the result of not having taken astrological advice
when setting the election date. He added that “both Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan took astrological help when making important decisions, and the
longevity of their political lives show this was hardly a foolish thing to do.”[24]
In contrast to the pessimistic
verdict of the stars for Major, the horoscope for Tony Blair showed him as the
winner and assured the readers of his likely success in the election. “The
stars are shining bright on the Labour leader at the moment. Venus the ruler is
in his star sign, and so is Mercury, the planet of communications and commerce
... Unless the stars are wrong, it will be a Labour government leading Britain
into the new millennium.”[25]
In other words, even the stars were employed to convince the public that Mr
Blair was destined for victory and that the year 1997 was a turning point in
the Labour Party’s history. The horoscope, normally a tabloid genre, employed
in a quality paper to promote Tony Blair may have been perceived by most of the
readers as a joke. However, the horoscope language, with its excessive use of
modal verbs conveying certainty, (such as will), and the use of Simple Present verb
forms, served the paper as a form stating its political preferences. The discussed strategy of the
contest of candidates is an extremely vital and effective element in the media
coverage of modern electioneering. First of all, it makes the presentation of
politicians more entertaining to ordinary people and adds combative flavour to
the routines of politics. Secondly, the contest form provides numerous
opportunities to promote one’s own candidate and disqualify the others. The
confrontational character of such coverage is achieved by various means.
Firstly, the reports of the meetings with voters may exaggerate the reactions
to candidates and distort the prevailing perception of the ordinary people by
selective quotations. Hence, Tony Blair emerged from the reports as an admired
and dynamic politician, whereas John Major came across as weak and unpopular,
unable to communicate with the crowd. Similarly, The Times opinion poll, an example of the manipulative use of
statistics, created the picture of the Labour leader as someone more popular
and positive than Major. Finally, the type of photo opportunities and unequal
allocation of photograph space worked in favour of Blair and his entourage.
Even the contrasted verdicts of the stars assured the British voters that the
winner and the next Prime Minister would be Tony Blair. 2. Celebrity endorsement Another
effective strategy of constructing a positive image of Tony Blair and his party
was the celebrity endorsement. In other words, the candidate’s public image was
created by comparing him to, or associating him with, people already popular,
famous, successful and respected. Such presentations of support for the Labour
candidate, aimed at telling the readers that he was regarded as the most
suitable for the PM’s office, came from well-known people from various walks of
life. The research done by the advertising agency Bates Dorland shows that
“with the two main parties sounding so alike, endorsements by a favourite star
can count.”[26] The
engagement of the well-known people in the campaign adds glamour to
electioneering and helps to get good publicity as well as attention. “… the
parties hope to borrow for themselves some of the celebrity’s popularity or
credibility, and to associate their cause with the values which the celebrity
represents.”[27] According
to The Times and The Independent, Tony
Blair was supported during the election campaign, by big names from politics,
business, and show business, such as Lord Attenborough, Bianca Jagger, Mick
Hucknall – the leader of Simply Red, Mel
C of the Spice Girls, Lady Smith –
the wife of the late John Smith, Gerry Robinson – Granada Group chairman, Alec
Reed – Sun Life chairman and Alan Shearer – a football player. Adrian Hadland,
one of The Independent’s journalists,
remarked that “the Blair endorsement list remains impressive. By contrast, John
Major’s support among movers and shakers looks ... well, shaky.”[28]
During the election campaign all
Blair’s backers were reported as appearing at rallies or while delivering
endorsements in broadcasts, ads, leaflets; posing for photo opportunities with
Blair and engaging the attention of the public on walkabouts. Interestingly,
the pattern of support by well-known people threw some interesting sidelights
on the broader patterns of political support. Labour performed better in the
1997 election campaign, according to The
Independent, in the fields of entertainment (Lord Attenborough, Bianca
Jagger, Mick Hucknall, Mel C) and business (Gerry Robinson, Alec Reed), while
the Conservatives scored well in sport (Frank Bruno, former boxer; David
Seaman, goalkeeper and Michael Atherton, cricketer). Sometimes celebrities swap
sides. In 1992 Sir Richard Attenborough had switched to support Labour. During
the 1997 election campaign he was described by The Times as “Labour’s latest secret weapon, who decided to make
the campaign a full time job.”[29]
His determination to back Tony Blair was quite dramatic. He was reported
saying: “I think I will die this time if we don’t win. I shall feel like going
abroad if Labour loses, but I won’t because I couldn’t live anywhere else. I
nearly left when Margaret Thatcher won.”[30]
The strategy of creating the picture of a famous person highly motivated to
vote Labour aimed at boosting the popularity of the Party and Tony Blair among
the potential voters. Apart
from Richard Attenborough, some other well-known stars were reported to give
their endorsement to Tony Blair and the New Labour. Richard Wilson, the star of
the comedy One Foot in the Grave;
Michelle Collins and Ross Kemp from East-Enders
as well as Coronation Street performers
lent their names to the campaign under the headline “What are the stars saying
about Labour?” Mick Hucknall, the Simply
Red pop group singer, was quoted saying that “my father told me again and
again as a child that under the Tories the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer. I still think it’s true. If you want to make a change, you have to vote
new Labour.”[31] Presenting
such personal confessions coming from “the mouths of people who are perceived
as individually important or at least interestingly characterizable”[32]
is the example of personalisation in discourse. Its purpose is to evoke the
feelings of empathy, identification and approval. As people, especially the
young, often identify with their idols, Hucknall’s deep belief in New Labour
was likely to improve the political image of the party and its leader among his
fans. Just two days before the polling day
Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, the widow of John Smith, the former Labour
leader, was reported appealing to “the Scottish people to vote Labour and
complete her husband’s ‘unfinished business.’”[33]
Baroness Smith, who had gone abroad to escape the general election campaign,
delivered a message to Scottish voters in a letter to Gordon Brown, the Shadow
Chancellor, the fragments of which were reprinted in The Times. She wrote that
“there is nothing more important now than a Labour victory. I know this is what
John wanted and worked for. And a Labour victory allows us to complete what
John called unfinished business, the creation of a Scottish parliament.”[34]
In other words, she urged Scotland not to waste their votes since, in her
opinion, Labour was the only party that could defeat the Conservatives. Such
convincing words, which were regarded as support from beyond ‘the tomb’ from
the man who had devoted his life to Labour Party modernisation, indubitably
helped Blair win the election. Quite unexpectedly, at the beginning
of the election campaign, the papers brought the news about Blair’s being
backed by Baroness Thatcher, the former Conservative PM of the United Kingdom.
The article entitled “Thatcher lined up to be Blair’s ambassador in Washington”
read that “Thatcher has already told friends that she admires Mr Blair’s
disciplined determination.”[35]
In the quoted article from the Daily Mail
of September 1996 she was reported saying: “He knows exactly what he wants and
how to go about achieving it.”[36]
Quoting such an opinion expressed by Mrs Thatcher, regarded as a political
celebrity in Britain, albeit controversial, and a person who had weakened the
Labour Party by her anti-union policy, obviously improved the electoral image
of Tony Blair. In another article, Baroness Thatcher was reported saying added
that she “privately believes that Britain will be safe in Mr Blair’s hands,”[37]
the statement which, as a matter of fact, blew a massive hole in Tory election
slogan “a leap in the dark with Labour.”[38]
Paul Johnson, a Thatcherite commentator, stated: “I suspect that to Thatcher
[...] Blair is the ‘good’ son she never had.”[39]
In fact, Margaret Thatcher was later reported backing John Major and presenting
him as the continuator of her politics, but her positive attitude towards Blair
reported earlier eliminated to some extent possible doubts of the floating
voters about the new Labour government and helped Blair win more votes. 3. Unmasking Tories’ Negative Campaigning One of
the strategies of constructing the positive image of the Labour Party and Tony
Blair employed both in The Times and The Independent was monitoring the
Tories’ negative campaigning. Since “voting is a choice between certain fixed
options, and is often motivated not by liking for one party, but by dislike for
the others,”[40] it is not
surprising that parties try hard to draw public attention to political and
personal defects of their opponents. As Nicholas J. O’Shaughnessy put it, “a
process of public humiliation is now an integral part of the electoral system”
and is “reinforced by the prominence of negative advertising.”[41]
This strategy is an extremely effective strategy of attracting voters because
“negative information has more impact on our thinking, is more easily
remembered and is a more powerful motivating force than positive information.”[42]
This is so despite the fact that in opinion research people claimed that they
did not like negative campaigning. It was John Major whom The Independent presented as starting a
negative campaign against the Labourites and Tony Blair. On 1 March 1997, while
announcing the election struggle, he was reported “warning the country that it
risked the midsummer nightmare of a Labour landslide, opening the way for Tony
Blair to overturn Tory success with the policies of full-blooded Socialism.”[43]
Donald Dewar, Labour’s Chief Whip fresh from the triumph of the Wirral South
by-election, replied immediately in the same newspaper saying: “Major seems to
have lost the plot. It is clear that John Major has been up all night, and
what’s more, his morale has hit rock bottom.”[44]
And Tony Blair was quoted pronouncing: “arrogant, out of touch, squabbling
already about who should be the next leader, that is today’s Conservative
Party.”[45]
In this way The Independent informed
the readers that it was John Major who launched a negative campaign against the
Labour Party and used his best energies to show that the opponent was unfit to
rule. In result, the Labour Party was reported to resort to the same tactics
since, according to The Independent,
Tony Blair and other party members were not given much choice by the Tories. Another example of Tory negative
campaigning unmasked and denounced by The
Independent was a series of texts devoted to the election advertisement
presenting a lion shedding a red tear. This image had been created by Maurice
Saatchi, the Conservatives advertising specialist, and meant to symbolise the
fears of having a new Labour government. However, some senior Tories “were
reported to have been dismayed that the advertisement failed to roar the
party’s message to the electorate and boost its image by rising doubts over
Labour.”[46] Also, two
experienced and well-known advertising experts were reported to criticise the
lion advertisement as pathetic. In the article “Tories’ tearful lion...” they
described the Conservatives effort in the following words: “The Conservatives
are not a fashionable brand. It’s like trying to sell a cheap pair of jeans
when people really want Levi’s. Levi’s is new Labour and there is very little
the Tories can do to solve that.”[47]
After a few days, The Independent’s
polling showed that this style of campaign was unpopular and unconvincing. In
this situation John Major called in Charles Saatchi to write some slogans for
the poster campaign, such as ‘Britain Is Booming. Don’t Let Labour Blow It.’
Gerry Moira, a creative director of the rival agency Publicis, commented on it in the following way: “the party is
bankrupt of ideas and it would seem its advertising agency is as well.”[48]
In the same article he stated that “both campaign’s advertising have been
disappointing and unfocused. No one’s imagination has been captured, we’ve just
been berated and threatened.”[49]
Blair’s response to these examples of negative campaigning exposed by The Independent was refocusing Labour’s
election strategy with “an attempt to lift the campaign on to more positive
issues.”[50] He wanted
the campaign to concentrate on issues rather than “tit-for-tat politics.”[51]
“People want to hear about the issues ... not just one set of politicians
knocking another set,”[52]
he said. That is why the Labour Party decided to be positive every time the
Tories were negative, since too much negative campaigning was turning the
voters off from the election. These examples show that Tony Blair appeared in The Independent’s articles as a calm and
reasonable politician respecting the rules of fair play. This image contrasted
favourably with the aggressive and incoherent John Major, whose style of
political fight revealed his poor ability of playing fair. The most aggressive poster campaign
commented on by the British press was a placard presenting Tony Blair with
wolf-like eyes which enlarged each week of the campaign. The Advertising
Standards Authority censored the poster describing it in The Times as “sinister and dishonest.”[53]
The posters was also criticised by the Bishop of Oxford and a handful of Tory
MPs. John Major allegedly agreed on the use of the placard despite “his
reported reluctance to engage in personal attacks or indulge in negative
campaigning.”[54] Such
attitudes and behaviour indicated Major’s double-dealing and proved his
inadequacy as a politician and Prime Minister. The atmosphere of the contest and
negative campaigning was reinforced in many articles by the stock of combative,
emotionally loaded vocabulary.[55] accused cynics straggling
band insecure war triumphant
entry failed fight enemy’s hands let
down fear hungry
for government denied hate self-imposed
chains disguised
risk imprisoned Unmasking Tories’ negative campaigning in order to point
out the weaknesses of the opponent party and warn against the consequences of
its victory was not a new press strategy. According to David Butler and Dennis
Kavanagh, “it has been a persistent feature of British party competition.”[56]
Surveys report that 47 per cent of voters think the Conservative Party has had
the most negative advertisements compared with 15 per cent for Labour. In the
analysed texts, various attitudes to negative electioneering were contrasted
with different qualities of the contestants. John Major was shown in The Times and The Independent as a relentless and incoherent politician whose
approval of an aggressive poster campaign pointed to his weak sense of fair
play. This image was juxtaposed to the calm and reasonable Tony Blair respecting
the fair play code and appealing for more positive forms of making political
statements. Presenting the two candidates through their attitude towards
negative campaigning worked in favour of Tony Blair, whose refusal to use the
weapon proposed by the Tories made him more honest and credible in the eyes of
the electorate. 4. Switchers’
acknowledgement The Times and The
Independent employed a very popular newspaper genre known as the human
interest story in order to create a new image of the Labour Party and Tony
Blair. Stories presenting ‘switchers,’ i.e. ordinary people who changed their
political opinions, proved to be an extremely effective strategy for promoting
the preferred candidate, at the same time depreciating the rival candidate. In
the human interest stories published in The
Times and The Independent in the
pre-election weeks John Major and his party came across as out of date,
unconvincing and indecisive, while Tony Blair and the New Labour appeared as
trustworthy when promising real changes and new opportunities for British
citizens. The
Times distinguished three kinds of switchers. The first group consisted of
“former Tory voters whose conversions, temporary or permanent, now account for
the large Labour lead.”[57]
The other two groups “are the hard cases who have given up on the
Conservatives; there are those who say they are pretty confident of going over;
and there are those who are looking for an excuse to go back.”[58]
However, the strongest and most numerous group was made of people who had given
up voting for the Tories and really believed in Blair’s political competence
and inborn aptitude for leadership. Both The Times and The Independent
presented the switchers’ acknowledgement in the articles devoted to the
candidates’ walkabouts and meetings with future voters. In her article entitled
“Labour leader goes straight to the target,” Fran Abrams presented the opinions
of Graham Pepperell, who actually “had not yet made up his mind but ‘is leaning
towards Labour’ ”[59]
because “Mr Blair came across as quite sincere. He’s a young man and if he
wants to establish a long career in politics he will try to deliver the goods.”[60]
Another person reported to have
intended to support Tony Blair was Lionel Baird, 52, who described himself as
an “unhappy Conservative and apprehensive Labour.”[61]
He explained that he was grateful for all he had been able to achieve in 18
years of the Conservative rule but for the first time he was switching his vote
to Labour. “I’m not 100 per cent sure and I feel apprehensive, but I think I
will give new Labour a go. It’s time for a change,”[62]
he said. The same article mentioned Adrian Buck, 30, a self-employed bricklayer
who had made up his mind to support New Labour, claiming the Conservatives were
no longer trustworthy. “The key issue for him are the state of the National
Health Service and the education system and he believes Labour may do better
than the Conservatives on the economy.”[63]
Another switcher presented was Roger Frost, who, echoing the opinion of many
others in the group, believed the campaign would have little impact on people.
“I think most people will not change their minds now. I’m 99.9 per cent sure I
will vote Labour this time – it’s simply time we had a change.”[64]
Such statements of ordinary people were likely to appeal to the future voters
and help them make up their mind how to vote on 1 May 1997. In the reports,
these people did not seem to be manipulated by anybody and they were very
convincing only because they were not so different from an average British
voter. But the very fact that the persons chosen for the stories in The Times and The Independent happened to switch from the Conservatives to
Labour, and not the other way round, proves that the newspapers in question
backed the Labour Party and its leader in their coverage of the 1997 election
campaign. In the reports of Tony Blair’s visit
to Northampton Town many switchers were quoted presenting their reasons for
voting Labour and Blair in the election. “He is the best hope we’ve got,”[65]
said Doris Brown, 60, a nurse who gave him a spring of heather for luck. “I was
Conservative for years but now I’m changing to Labour.”[66]
During this visit a considerable number of people were reported as saying they
were abandoning the Tories because the future was Labour. One of the persons
who gave up their life-long Conservative allegiance was John McCririck, who had
become a fervent New Labour backer. He said, “You would have to be an absolute
mug to bet on John Major winning. He is clapped out, finished, and so is his
party.”[67]
About Labour he stated: “I have never voted Labour in my life, but I am going
to now. I like Tony Blair, and I believe he will do a good job.”[68] The most dramatic and convincing
acknowledgement of a switcher was presented by The Independent on 25 April 1997. It was Elsie Butler, who had
voted Tory since 1979 but had decided this time to vote Labour because she was
angry at the appalling treatment experienced by her sick husband. She told The Independent about the moment she had
lost faith in the Tories. “For 30 years, she has been waging a battle against
cancer; so has Mr Butler. They have each had their bowel and bladder removed.”[69]
Together, they had a unique view of three decades of NHS change. They said
those 30 years represented a decline in patient care. “Things are getting
worse. When I first started getting treatment, things were fine. But now there
are mixed sex wards, not enough beds, dreadful shortages of nurses and
appalling food.”[70] Mrs
Butler’s decision to vote Labour had been made after being persuaded by her
husband to attend a meeting with Tony Blair. “I gave him a hard time, and I
emerged convinced. He’s sincere and I think I can trust him. At least you know
he believes in the NHS.”[71]
The article was accompanied by a photograph presenting Mr and Mrs Butler that
made their story even more dramatic and convincing. Their faces expressed a
strong emotion. “Yet the particular ways that these press photographs resonate
with other forms of photography that are private and familiar, make the people
in them accessible to viewers.”[72]
After all, it was their story that was being told. And the eye-contact between
them and the readers made this couple honest and trustworthy. The switchers’ acknowledgement and
their approval of the New Labour Party and Tony Blair were also developed by
the selection of words emphasising the difference between the Labour and the
Conservatives as well as the contrasts between their leaders. Positive
adjectives such as sincere, enthusiastic,
charismatic, were ascribed to Tony Blair and his party, while negative ones
were used with regard to John Major and the Conservative Party. This stood for
an immense polarisation and presenting these two parties in sharp contrast by
both The Times and The Independent. Table 4. The
words and phrases describing the two parties and leaders employed by the
switchers in the coverage of the election campaign.[73]
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