Private Conversations Among Elites
Writing in the Telegraph, Peter Oborne seeks to develop the argument that, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, we are moving into a ‘post-Murdoch age’ where British politics may develop genuine substance.
In his article, Oborne suggests that Blair and New Labour reinterpreted the British political tradition as a private conversation among elite groups, of which the most important in Blair’s eyes was Rupert Murdoch’s corporate empire. In that he is not wrong. Yet, says Oborne:
It is this system of government that has been exposed in all of its barbarism and moral horror over the past few weeks. As the Westminster season mercifully draws towards a close, it is extremely important to ponder what comes next – for I am certain that there is a wonderful opportunity here to embark upon a new political era, and a new way of doing things.
Sadly, this fantasy is unlikely to become reality in the foreseeable future. No such real exposure has been given to the ‘private conversations among elite groups’ which Oborne describes in his piece, because the re-emergence of phone hacking was primarily a means by the liberal media to stop News Corp’s BSkyB bid.
While the exposure of Murdoch’s corporate meetings with George Osborne and David Cameron have again exposed Cameron as politically inept (if we needed any further proof), it has not drawn a line under similar meetings occurring in future.
Peter Hitchens used a chapter in his book The Broken Compass (recently re-released as The Cameron Delusion) to describe the relationship between journalist and politician, which is at times very close indeed – and this will always be so. But, as Mr Hitchens more recently described, the relationship between the press and politicians should be identical to that between a dog and a lamp post. The problem arises when, as has recently been more apparent, the press and politicians are of one mind.
This threat has arisen from the narrowing proximity between British politicians and the media. They share places of work and residence; they have the same friends; they meet, relax and enjoy similar establishments; they come to know one another intimately. Thus, the old distinctions between Fleet Street and Westminster have fallen. The media and political class have increasingly merged to form a single elite – liberal in nature, absorbed by their own theatre and largely uninterested in politics as the implementation of policy. Adam Smith observed similar in The Wealth of Nations:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
The same is as true of our political and media establishment as it was of business and trade in 1776. The cosier the relationship between politician and media, the greater the threat to our democracy, the electorate and the public purse.
How one goes about preventing such convergence though is another matter. It is often so easy to identify the problem; not so simple to find a solution. But when Peter Oborne claims we have a wonderful opportunity to embark on a new political era, then at the moment he is wrong – we do not, or at least not yet. The exposé of Cameron’s close links with News Corporation are not entirely surprising and, on their own, do not create the conditions for the ‘new political era’ which Oborne desires.
In a sense, very little has changed. The sorry relationship with Murdoch, established by Blair and continued by Cameron, may be under the spotlight, but it is not unique and will endure in other forms. The only way to facilitate a genuine transformation of the British political scene and re-establish the truly adversarial nature of ‘dog and lamp post’ is to strengthen Parliament and the hand of the electorate.
The decline of our democracy into state managerialism, bureaucracy and EU dictation has gone hand in hand with the slackening in adversity between media and politician. If we are to reverse the trend then we could do little better than start by breaking the connection between state and media.
The stranglehold grip the BBC and its civil partner, the Guardian, enjoy over the media establishment through uncompetitive funding (by the license fee and public sector job advertisements respectively) create problems for increased plurality in the media marketplace. This has, to some extent, been alleviated by the blogosphere – but the fact still remains that the market is heavily distorted.
Furthermore, we cannot ignore the fact that many of the ‘private conversations among elite groups’ occur at the supranational level of the European Union. As the sovereign power of our Westminster Parliament has been willingly transferred to the apparatus of the European Union in Brussels, the House of Commons and thus MPs have declined in importance. They no longer legislate and debate, but instead rubber stamp directives and diktats from our new masters, leaving them with ample time to concentrate on the unimportant and banal.
Even if we were somehow or other able to regain our national sovereignty, the concerns over the calibre of MPs and political parties would remain. It is only by strengthening the link between the electorate and their ability to select and vote for candidates that would result in a better, more representative Parliamentarian. But then, we have rehearsed these arguments and many others countless times before.
The above reforms will not magically occur overnight or, indeed, in the course of one manufactured phone hacking scandal as Oborne may suggest, but sadly over years of sustained pressure and hard work. Of course, the age old problem is how one goes about achieving all of the above without being in power. In all honesty, I do not believe we can achieve much until one of the established political parties collapses – mostly likely the Tories. For such a seismic political event, the conditions must be just right – and that time is not yet. But it will come… or there really is no hope.
