Nicholas Jones explained in a speech to the Hansard Society (27.11.2008) why the growing migration to the web will change the British political landscape come the next general election.
When I was invited a couple of months ago to give my thoughts on the “Changing Political Landscape” who would have thought that I would be talking to you in a week when the Westminster waters parted and we saw opening up the clearest political dividing lines for a decade or more between Labour and the Conservatives. “Let battle commence” seemed to be the cry of both Alistair Darling and George Osborne. We are firmly on the countdown to a general election which will eventually offer a clear choice between spending our way out of the recession with higher public debt or by curbing state expenditure in order to limit the size of that looming tax bombshell.
It is too early to say when polling day will be: my money is still on 2010 but I accept that the volatility of the next few months makes it difficult to be sure. Will we be beginning to see some stability by Easter? Will this have reduced even further the Conservatives’ lead in the opinion polls? Or will it be worse than we think.? Will unemployment be over two million and heading for three? It’ll be the New Year at least before there is any chance of charting the way ahead. What I think points against a May/June election is that on Darling’s own calculations it will be 2010 before the recovery starts. I think Gordon Brown will want to prove to the electorate that he has delivered stability and that a return to growth is on the way. Another factor will be that Labour will be gripped by the desire to complete unfinished business.I remember that happening in 1978/79 when Jim Callaghan hung on until the very end. That Labour government was definitely anxious about its legacy. For example, ministers like Michael Foot were determined to assist the trade unions and to ensure that check-off was in place in the national industries. Workers had to join a union with employers checking off their contributions. And of course it was in 1979 that union membership topped 12 million for the first time, twice what it is today. It was just the same in the dying days of John Major’s government. He hung on until the bitter end in May 1997 because the Conservatives were determined, for example, to complete the break-up of British Rail and clear the decks for railway privatisation. I think the same sort of pressures will apply to Brown. I am sure the Prime Minister has a checklist of measures he will want to complete -- perhaps starting the construction of new nuclear power stations to safeguard Britain
’s energy supplies; the go ahead for a third runway at Heathrow; more measures to reduce child poverty. And another key factor is that a lot of Labour Mps know in their hearts they face defeat at the next election. They will be in no hurry for the Prime Minister to go the country. That fear on their part -- which I have certainly sensed at Westminster in recent months -- reflects the reality of the British political cycle. Labour have been in power for 11 years already, it could be thirteen by a 2010 election and that’s why I think the momentum for change will continue to kick in and benefit the Conservatives.While some opinion polls have shown that Brown and Darling are ahead of Cameron and Osborne in their handling of the financial crisis, the Conservatives remain ahead on their ability to deliver change. And I would like to offer some thoughts on the changing landscape we can already detect. However deep the recession turns out to be, the migration to the internet will continue unabated and this will have profound implications for British politics. When the election takes place, whether it is in May or June or more likely in 2010, we will see significant change not only in the way in which the political parties contest the election but also in the way in which the media reports that campaign. When it comes to the organisation of political parties it was the election of Barrack Obama which transformed political campaigning.
The Democrats’ funding came almost entirely through donations made via the web -- 90 per cent were donations of less than $200 dollars.The Democrats now have a data base of millions of supporters and it was that online army of Obama activists who were so were vital in turning out the vote. The Democrats embraced -- and exploited -- technological change because they were the hungriest for power, just as the Conservatives and their grass roots supporters, appear to be streets ahead of Labour in taking advantage of the web. One illustration of this is political blogging. A recent survey of the top twenty political bloggers included only one from the left.
Topping the list are bloggers from the right like Iain Dale ( www.iaindale.blogspot.com ), Tim Montgomerie ( www.conservativehome.com ) or Paul Staines, the Westminster blogger Guido Fawkes ( www.order-order.com ). They are the new commentariat, their blogs get quoted quite regularly in the mainstream media and some have gone on to become newspaper columnists and radio and television pundits. Where is the reformist left in all of this? Nowhere! Campaigning groups on the left do not have the flair and persistence of the right. The same goes for political campaigning. I am sure that the hundreds of thousands of pounds which Lord Ashcroft is investing in the organisation of Conservative constituencies and in promoting Conservative candidates is being used to help establish an online data base which will be far superior to anything Labour has developed. Ashcroft’s money for the key seats certainly is not going on licking stamps. For example, I know from the campaign for Mayor of London, and the success of Boris Johnson, that regular emails and texts to Conservaive supporters did play a part in his success. There are big changes too in the news media where the rush to develop websites -- and especially those offering internet television -- is reshaping the media landscape. Since the 1930s -- and the birth of the BBC as we know it today -- we have had a long-standing political settlement here in the UK. A free press, free to support whichever political party it chooses, but a regulated system of broadcasting that demands political impartiality on the part of the broadcasters and a fair allocation of time between the parties. That is about to change and the implications could be profound.Because the media is so innovative in the UK -- we have some of the best and many say some of the worst -- the communications industry is better placed than most to weather the current financial turbulence. And remember it is the very vitality of the media which has also helped us establish a world beating public relations industry, second only to the USA. It is that expertise, whether in promoting celebrities or in handling financial clients, which will also help pr and the public affairs sectors get through the current crisis. The shift that is taking place is being driven by the newspaper industry as it moves online. The British press is not only highly politicised but also very opinionated. Indeed that is its great appeal and which is why British newspapers are attract a growing online readership from around the world.
But very little is being said or reported about the implications of a politicised newspaper industry being encouraged by light-touch regulation to re-invent itself on the web. Newspaper websites which are investing heavily in internet television are becoming direct competitors of the BBC, ITV and Sky. A newly qualified journalist is more than likely to have also been trained as a video reporter, capable not just of writing a story but of also being able to use a video camera and putting that report on line on the paper’s website. It is the ability to place advertisements in front of video reports -- perhaps a thirty second or one minute commercial -- which is producing a valuable income stream which means that internet television on newspaper websites is beginning to pay for itself and eventually perhaps turn in a profit.This explains why the newspaper industry fought so hard -- and succeeded last week -- in forcing the BBC to back down over its plan to invest £68 million in sixty ultra local websites. Local newspapers see online video reporting as one way, perhaps the only way, of reversing their falling advertising revenue. A market impact assessment for Ofcom went against the BBC. This was no great surprise because the press proprietors have been very active behind the scenes. Ofcom agreed a couple of years ago that the audio-visual content of newspaper sites should be self regulated by the Press Complaints Commission. Provincial newspapers want their sites to get very local: already some make a point of including postcodes in stories so that readers can find items of interest in their locality. There is just as much innovation in the national press.
Newspapers like the Daily Telegraph and Guardian, which have invested big time in their audio-visual output, say that such is the revenue which they can get from commercials ahead of video reports, that this service is already at a break even point. British newspapers are undoubtedly at the cutting edge of technological change and it is the success of their websites which is helping the main players -- like the Daily Mail, Sun, Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian -- to become recognisable world brands as news providers. My concern is that through internet television newspapers will bring in politicised and partisan broadcasting into Britain by the backdoor. There is a greater spread of digital television in the UK than any other country; full convergence is just round the corner.
On some sets its is already possible to switch from mainstream tv to the internet and back again. So Telegraph tv or Sun tv, which can be as party political as they like, will be competing directly with the regulated BBC and ITV, challenging all the long-standing rules on political impartiality. The Conservatives -- who were against the BBC’s new local websites -- say they think that once newspaper websites go digital they should be allowed to be politically partisan. That idea -- of total political freedom on line -- has wide support out there in the blogosphere. The general consensus is that there is so much news and information on line that it will balance itself out politically. But hang on a minute: the online television programmes on Telegraph tv are almost entirely dominated by Conservative politicians and supporters. Where will the Liberal Democrats or other smaller parties find a platform? The Lib Dems only revive when electors are reminded of their existence on tv and radio. When it come to by elections like the recent one in Crewe and Nantwich the audio-visual output of the newspaper sites paid no heed to the requirement placed on broadcasters to be impartial and most importantly of all to be politics free on polling day when people are actually voting. So internet tv is decidedly politicised and we will have to see how the newspapers of Rupert Murdoch or the Daily Mail group begin to exercise their undoubted political influence on line. Their audio-visual output is already setting the agenda for television and radio: for example the Mail on Sunday’s exclusive video interview earlier this year with Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser Lord Levy dominated BBC bulletins.I fear the consequences of the government and the regulators simply turning a blind eye. I realise the pressure they are under to allow newspapers to be able to diversify, that nothing should be put in the way of their online development. But such is the power of the web that it will undermine the impartiality of the established broadcasters. Several radio shock jocks have either lost their jobs or been disciplined recently for being politically partisan on air. But presenters are free to say what they like politically on line. Some sites are already broadcasting online television advertisements of the kind which were seen so frequently during the American presidential election when the Obama and McCain campaigns used television advertising to attack and retaliate.
What I think is needed is some on going research, backed ideally by an organisation like the Hansard Society, to monitor online political reporting and advertising. Otherwise we might end up by default with a politicised broadcasting system. The web has become a powerful additional megaphone for the tabloids. You only have to look at the Sun’s coverage of the death Baby P -- whose picture first appeared on the Sun’s website -- to see how it can fan the flames of controversy. Online campaigning -- whether over Baby P or John Sergeant’s fate on Strictly Come Dancing -- has added a new dimension to sensational reporting. Twenty five per cent of the population are contributing, commenting or adding pictures to websites or social networking sites, so no wonder they are being bought up by the big media groups. What needs to be monitored is to see how media proprietors like Murdoch use their new- found online influence. In the wake of being elected President, Obama has said his campaign showed that the Democrats can succeed without Murdoch
’s support, that it was their own expertise in exploiting the web which took them to the White House. But American newspapers have been nothing like as innovative as the British press in carving out an audio-visual online presence. And the relationship between media proprietors and the government of the day is so much closer here in the UK. So the next British election will be at the cutting edge when it comes to online political campaigning.My guess is that the Conservatives under their communications director Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, will be right in there knowing just how to influence online political reporting. Indeed there have already been some tell-tale signs that the Murdoch press might switch its support from Labour back to the Conservatives. Perhaps the clearest pointer is the way the Conservatives have lined up against further expansion of the BBC, the need to limit the licence fee and to give newspapers almost limitless freedom to expand on line -- even it erodes established broadcasting practices like political impartiality.
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