Has Labour bought support from right-wing newspapers at too high a price?
Labour’s recent online ‘smeargate’ trouncing has reinforced the widespread perception that the UK Labour Party has failed to really get the blogosphere in the way that some Conservatives do.
The crime that Damian McBride stands convicted of is that he planned to conduct a campaign of personal smears against senior Conservatives. This from Guido Fawkes – a Tory blogger who has smeared Lib-Dem MP Mark Oaten as a paedophile and who has alleged that Gordon Brown is mentally ill and wets himself to name but a few such transgressions.
Given that Conservative bloggers have done precisely this to their opponents for some years without implicating their party leadership, McBride’s greatest sin may be his political incompetence. The print-media have almost universally gone along with the fiction that McBride's actions were done with direct encouragement from the Labour Party while much more prolific stream of smears that come from right-wing blogs have nothing to do with Cameron's office and some of the charmers that work there.
Mr Eugenides' astute claim that LabourList's problem is 'astroturfing' illustrates the issue here: The nastiness that a few Labour activists were planning was an attempt to copy what the Tories have been doing to Labour for some years now - without any commensurate outrage from the Dead Trees.
So how have the Conservatives acquired the ability to finesse their use of the blogosphere in a way that eludes Labour?
Much of the comment on this subject has hinted at differences in the very sociology of the two parties. The implication is that Labour will never know how to master Web 2.0’s libertine approach to political discourse. Depending upon who you read, you can pick your explanations for this from the following non-exhaustive list:
- control freakery – a hangover from the 1990s Blairite party centralisation that was – in turn – a response to the Trotskyist ‘entryism’ of the 1980s
- the heavy responsibility of government,
- constipated political correctness and self-censorship of a social-workery left,
- a socialistic lack of enterprise in comparison with freebooting Tory rivals,
- the political retreat and self-justification of an aging government,
- political incompatibility with the individualistic nature of the ‘sphere,
- the lack of a juicy target
... and so on.
These are the most commonly touted reasons that I’ve seen over a few years’ close observation on the subject. But I’d add three more points of my own to that list:
Firstly, Labour’s internal dialogue is stilted and defensive. Where Conservatives make their big decisions by taking soundings and have traditionally used the men in grey suits as their main constitutional instrument, Labour has always had documented processes by which policies are fixed and appointments are made.
In reality, these have been gradually replaced by reforms that have provided a structural window-dressing to mask the increasing prerogative powers of the leadership. But there remains a hangover of the belief that - if activists choose the right moment - that a spot of deft procedural footwork could translate into a mandate for legislation. Labour’s internal dialogue is, therefore, very controlled, with statements and speeches reading like composite motions. Any writer with a slightly demagogic turn-of-phrase would find themselves rapidly marginalised within the Labour movement. This is simply not the case with the Conservative Party.
Secondly, The Conservatives have traditionally worked with ‘deniable outriders’ in a way that Labour wouldn’t be able to do. No-one would build a reputation in the Labour Party by making populist assaults on their opponents in the way that the Housewives League did on the subject of rationing in the 1940s or the Taxpayers Alliance do today.
Without the requirement to offer policy solutions, these accomplices can inflict terrific damage on a left-leaning government without the explicit endorsement of the Conservative leadership. It may even provide a snapshot of the Conservative Party’s Freudian Id, represented both by avowedly pro-Conservative bloggers such as ‘Guido Fawkes’ along with the nominally non-Tory rightwing ‘bloggertarian’ swarm that draws frequent cries of concern from left-wing commentators such as Polly Toynbee.
However, the most interesting reason for the Conservative’s ability to out-fight Labour on this territory is what it reveals about the political orientation of the British press. Leading Conservative blogger, Tim Montgomerie is the first to admit that the smeargate story was given its legs by the old dead trees.
In the 1980s, Labour had almost nowhere to run to for support from the press. Since the mid-90s, its leadership has enjoyed highly conditional support from a few unlikely sources. But while The Sun and The Daily Mail have, as yet, withheld formal support from David Cameron, their willingness to side with those populist right-wing outriders remains undiminished.
In many of the recent travails Labour has suffered, a populist anti-politcs agenda has chimed perfectly with the above-the-line attack from Tory bloggers and the more covert encouragement that has come from Conservative politicans.
Labour can count on its remaining support from the right-wing press only as long as he suppresses Labour’s Id. This was the condition that support was received from those quarters in the first place. To co-ordinate media assaults on Labour, all Cameron needs to do is to sit back and encourage his party to display its true colours.
Perhaps this is why Labour supporters feel obliged to be a bit more circumspect?
About the author: Paul is a London-based blogger with a mixed track-record over at Never Trust a Hippy and a few other places. He usually writes about representative democracy and decentralisation. Follow him at www.twitter.com/paul0evans if you usually do that kind of thing. Read more from this author