Author Nicholas Jones. Published by Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, 1986, hardback, ISBN 0 631 14697 0

Strikes and the Media showed clearly for the first time how the battles of industry had moved away from the factory floor, the mass meeting and the negotiating table to the propaganda war in newspaper columns and television news programmes. A revolution had taken place in the way communication operated within modern British industry and the book is a working journalist's report from the front line. The 1984-5 miners' strike both witnessed the refinement of techniques used in previous disputes, and highlighted the paradoxical position of media coverage of strikes. The attitudes and behaviour of journalists have often been blamed for exacerbating already tense situations. Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, poured scorn on this "bunch of piranha fish", but showed extraordinary dexterity in using them to put across his message, while the National Coal Board, under its chairman Ian MacGregor, used well-oiled public relations machinery and the government exerted behind-the-scenes pressure to add their own manipulation of the media. The tactics adopted are laid bare here, and their effectiveness (or otherwise) assessed.

Author Nicholas Jones. Published by Indigo 1997, paperback £8.99 ISBN 0-575-40116-8

Campaign 1997: How the general election was won and lost, describes the cut and thrust of political street-fighting through the most intense general election in living memory which ended in a landslide victory for the Labour Party leader Tony Blair. From the day the Conservative Party grafted those demonic eyes on to Blair's grinning face when unleashing its controversial "New Labour, New Danger" campaign, to the day when Labour Party workers were instructed to stage "a spontaneous outpouring from offices and factories to greet the new Prime Minister", the 1997 general election was fought as much by the spin doctors as by the politicians. Veteran BBC political correspondent Nicholas Jones, whose book Soundbites and Spin Doctors was described by Anthony Howard as "an essential primer for all who want to understand the strange no man's land between politicians and journalists", chronicles the political media machine cranking up to full steam as the election approached and gives a doorstepper's-eye view of a campaign which, whatever the outcome, was always going to represent a watershed in British politics.   

Author Nicholas Jones. Published by Cassell, 1995, hardback £17.99 ISBN 0-304-34542-3. Published Indigo, 1996 (revised), paperback £8.99, ISBN 0-575-40052-8

Soundbites and Spin Doctors analyses how politicians use the media, and vice versa. What motivates each side and which has more to gain and to lose? The relationship between British politicians and the news media is ambivalent. Politicians are quick to complain about media distortion and intrusion, and as quick to offer themselves to media exposure when it is in their interests to do so. And the media affect indignation at any suggestion of "setting up" politicians while continually trying to lure political figures into the careless phrase or indiscretion which will trigger a news story. Lubricating this relationship are press secretaries and the parliamentary lobby, the image consultants and the spin doctors, some of whom have become almost as familiar as the politicians themselves.  The staple elements of reporting have become the soundbite - the short, pithy statement encapsulating a political position or reaction -- and the photo-opportunity, the photographic session contrived to make a statement: John Selwyn Gummer feeding a British beef hamburger to his daughter, David Mellor posing with his family as a sex scandal reverberates around him. Soundbites and Spin Doctors offers an insider's guide to a constantly fascinating subject. 

Author Nicholas Jones. Published by BBC Books, paperback £6.99, ISBN 0-563-36124-7

Election 92 is an inside account of what went on behind the scenes between 11 March and 10 April in the 1992 general election campaign.  BBC political correspondent Nicholas Jones kept a daily diary of a campaign whose outcome shook Britain. The book examines the pressures which built up inside Conservative party headquarters as the opinion polls suggested a Labour lead or a hung parliament. Jones shows how -- despite his repeated expressions of confidence -- John Major was unsettled by criticism of the Tory campaign. And he investigates clandestine moves to stiffen the resolve of the Tory press, revealing how reporters rounded on a cabinet minister declaring Tory campaign stategy was a shambles.  The Labour Party paid a heavy price for their glitzy, triumphalist -- and much televised --campaign. Jones analyses the mistakes that cost them dear and explains how Neil Kinnock's faith in the opinion polls led to some critical errors. He shows too, how Paddy Ashdown's steadfast refusal to use negative campaigning tactics -- particularly during the "saga of Jennifer's ear" -- won him public admiration, but lost him vital news coverage.  As John Major eventually discovered, when it comes to winning elections, there is no substitute for political passion. He became a street fighter, campaigning from a soapbox and discarding the cosy image of "Citizen John Major" so carefully crafted by Tory media planners.  But it was not Major but the inexorable machine of the Thatcher revolution which lost Neil Kinnock the election. It was a revolution which swept aside Kinnock's personal crusade to revive Labour's fortunes and inevitably claimed him as its final victim.