Political impressionism

Wednesday February 1, 2012

Peter Lloyd bemoans the baleful effects of the modern media on politics

Our top politicians love impressionism – possibly in art, but most definitely in political language. They love it because it involves making sweeping statements which will be widely reported, without having to go into boring details like the cost of associated policies, and they can use ‘hooray’ words like fairness, justice and progress. Who could be against such things?

But their focus on impressionism is justified because we have changed the way we make policy. The process is substantially about how it will look to people rather than whether it will do any good. This is nicely encapsulated in the modern use of the word ‘play’ as in: “Will this policy idea play well?” For which read: “Will it play well in the media?”

The established belief in the political class is that policy will be judged through the medium of the media, so they adapt to their requirements. The news media like to relay their messages in the form of sound bites in order to attract more viewers, listeners and readers. This is based on the idea that we are too busy or uninterested to take in the detail or properly consider the implications of new proposals. Therefore policy has to be delivered in this abbreviated and emasculated form.

Once you give in to the view that the news media are the only transmission mechanism that counts, the purpose of policy making and even of politics has been hijacked. Suddenly there is a different agenda dominated by imagery rather than substance. Perverse policies such as ‘vetting and barring’ of those who want to take children on school trips.

Politicians aren’t the only ones to use the power of the media prism for access and influence. Well organised single-issue pressure groups have great success in pushing their agendas. This is one reason why lifestyle issues have become the domain of the political authorities. The media love scare stories associated with eating, drinking and personal behaviour, and the politicians are close by and there to be tackled. Action is demanded!

David Cameron and George Osborne had forty two meetings between them with News International executives in the twelve months following the last general election. There must have been many more with other media groups and we are not even counting telephone conversations.

In this system politicians become accountable through the media rather than through Parliament and their own parties. Sensing this, the media, particularly the broadcast media, enhance their position by acting as brutal interrogators and critics, rather than providing a neutral platform for exchanges of view or information sharing. With Parliament so often out of view, the media seem to relish the role of official opposition, particularly when policies are deemed to be unpopular or controversial.

As the influence of the news media has grown, so other areas of debate and discussion have declined. The House of Commons, its committees and the Cabinet have all been diminishing in importance for years. Only the House of Lords, with its lower profile, has more or less maintained its role, and that is now under threat.

Although we can be proud of the way of our constitution has been allowed to evolve in a piecemeal fashion because it was never codified, its proper operation may finally have foundered on the excessive influence of the news media and politicians’ involvement with them.