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Blair loses the brand

16 February 2004

The failure of the Prime Minister to support his own government's worked-out policy on immigration by workers from the E.U. accession countries of eastern Europe illustrates the credibility gap he has opened up with an increasingly unconvinced electorate. Pandering to the right wing press on the issue will not paper over the cracks.

It's an odd thing when the British government is ahead of the game on a question of European integration. But the decision to allow workers from the ten EU accession countries unlimited access to the U.K. labour market places Britain, together with Ireland, way out in front of their continental partners. Most countries will be restricting access, phasing it in over several years.

It shows that the Home Office has the capacity to abandon the mind-set of the right wing press and think intelligently and objectively about a solution that is in everyone's best interests. What a pity, therefore, that the Prime Minister should have spoiled the effect by apparently contradicting it, in the House of Commons last week, when he spoke instead about the need to consider new restrictions.

His comments were later "clarified" by his office, as referring only to so-called benefit tourists. If that was really all he meant then he needn't have bothered, since access to benefits for new arrivals is already substantially restricted. Mr Blair's now notorious failure to grasp the detail is clearly an issue here. When asked about migration from the east European countries he ignored the rationale of his own government's thought-out policy and instinctively played a populist, anti-immigration card. "It is important" he said "that we recognise that there is a risk that people from the accession countries will come into the country. It is precisely for that reason that we are looking at the concessions that we gave. If closing off those concessions means that we can deal with the problem, we will do so."

What a wasted opportunity! In talking about the possibility of people from the accession countries coming to Britain to work as a "risk", the Prime minister turned on its head the whole point of the Home Office's policy. He passed up the opportunity to defend a cogent, free-market position, namely that the U.K. needs migration by willing workers and that orderly, legitimate immigration, particularly on the accepted, E.U. model, is greatly preferable to the illegal traffic that flows into the murky waters of the black economy.

Such a policy is scarcely rocket science. The skill lies in communicating it in a way that encourages its acceptance while remaining truthful about what it is intended to achieve. In this case, that involves overcoming easily-provoked fears about ethnic dilution or cultural annihilation, and in the short term it is much easier to pander to these fears by changing the policy. But the consequence of doing so is that neither the policy itself, nor the true level of support for it, is ever properly tested.

But public opinion is, in reality, much more accessible than the advocates of this pandering would appear to believe. A great deal of media exposure is available to the government in communicating its message. The broadcast media, which is much the most powerful, is regulated to ensure fair and balanced reporting. A government sending out strong and consistent messages would get more than a fair hearing. Broadcasters become critical only when the message is not clear, or not consistent, or not truthful. The opportunity is there, but the government fails to take it. Newspapers, on the other hand, with their strong commercial interests, do a better job of sustaining a particular political perspective. Instead of fighting or, worse still, surrendering to this, the government would do well to work out how they achieve it.

That word "commercial" is important. Newspapers have an interest in making their products as attractive as possible to their readers. To reflect back upon the reader their own uncertainly, ambivalence, ignorance, even lack of interest in the great issues of the day would never achieve this. Just as the first thing that writers of fiction learn is never to attempt to reproduce dialogue in the hesitant, broken form in which people actually speak it, so newspaper editors know that their job is to clarify, epitomise and simplify patterns of thought into easily recognisable positions to which their readers can relate.

This process, in which newspapers "permit" people a clarity of opinion that is not their own, naturally tends to extremes. The middle ground, of balance and even-handedness, is never the most lucid of territories. So Daily Mail readers are empowered to believe that most asylum-seekers are fraudulent spongers while Guardian readers are gratifyingly convinced that Tony Blair will soon get his come-uppance for going to war on Iraq. Telling people what they want to hear allows them to feel the frisson of a point of view without obliging them absolutely to hold to its truth. That frisson does not, in general, flow from a balanced assessment or a complex argument. It comes when readers say "Yes, that's exactly what I think" because the writer has put something simply and succinctly. In reality, however, and whether consciously or not, the readers may have avoided reaching the same conclusion independently because they are too honest to allow themselves so reductionist a view.

It follows that views formed in this way are not deep rooted, but they are more tenacious when conveyed repeatedly by a consistent voice. The mind of a regular reader of a particular newspaper is already cultivated to accept views in line with that paper's world view. When that world view is tightly drawn the effect is even more pronounced. Because of this, the most feared papers politically are the middle market right-wing titles - essentially the Telegraph and the Mail, the latter of which is so focussed in its agenda that it offers little to attract a sceptical or dissenting reader.

The Mail is feared politically because it is so absolutely sure of itself, and it creates readers who are sure of themselves in its image. The more up-market broadsheets, in contrast, genuflect in the direction of balance. They make a marketing virtue out of not telling their readers what to think and are less influential because of it. At the other end of the scale, the mass market tabloids are story-led - which is to say that they choose their stories for mass market interest rather than political consistency. This does not mean that they are without ideological standpoints, but their expression of them is more diffuse. Their influence derives more from the sheer numbers of their readers than their consistent political line.

What can the government learn from all this? Is it really condemned to a Faustian bargain with the press barons or is there an opportunity here to emulate their pursuit of commercial imperatives for its own ends? For the government to sell its policies effectively, it needs to be clear, consistent and repetitive in its approach. It is not sufficient for its communication effort to be clear and consistent; the clarity and consistency needs to go to the heart of government and reflect what it actually wishes and intends to do. By projecting a pattern of intention that is both credible and aimed at the direction of rational and sustainable outcomes the government has as good a chance as anybody of triggering that all-important "Oh yes, of course" reaction. But if it bounces about, making or changing policy on the hoof in reaction to real or supposed opposition to a policy that it has not effectively explained, its credibility will be shot to pieces. Its opponents, instead of simply disagreeing it it, will have a field day exposing its inconsistencies and internal dissent.

To put it another way, the pressures of office have caused the government to sell out of its distinctive political brand. If it is going to be radical and reformist on public services, confronting shibboleths of restricted practice in the professions and replacing them with models of rational modernity, why is it so deeply conservative on issues such as asylum and immigration, criminal justice, Lords reform and access to recreational drugs, to name but a few issues that would benefit from the icy blast of unprejudiced reappraisal? For the brand to sell, it needs to be believable, and for that reason it needs to make consistent sense across the board. Sending out soap-box anti-immigration signals in the train of a carefully worked-out, needs-based, policy to encourage immigration not only destroys the credibility of everything on offer but leaves the door wide open for those who come trailing a consistent right-wing agenda.