British press push for Thatcher

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 31

British press push for Thatcher

By

ALAN ELSNER,

of Reuters, through NZPA London The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, aiming to rule Britain well into the 19905, has a key ally in her election campaign — the country’s popular press is overwhelmingly behind her and bitterly hostile to the opposition Labour Party. There is nothing new in most British newspapers supporting Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Party. But the strident anti-Labour tone adopted by some, coupled with an apparent endless series of personal smears directed at its leader, Neil Kinnock, has alarmed some independent commentators as well as Labour politicians. In the week leading up to Mrs Thatcher’s announcement of the June 11 poll, the country’s topselling newspaper, “The Sun,” repeatedly castigated Mr Kinnock as a cheat, a sham, a deceiver and a “Welsh wind'ag” leading a once respected party that had “degenerated into a Marxist shambles.”

Mrs Thatcher, in contrast, was “Britain’s most effective Prime Minister since (Sir Winston) Churchill.” Internationally admired and respected, she had restored a sense of national pride and purpose, the “Sun” said. On the day after Mrs Thatcher called the election, several other national newspapers struck a similar note. The "Daily Express” compared her radical vision with Labour’s “whingeing” policies which ignored the fact that “most of us are not homosexual,

lesbian and racist.” Like many of the newspapers, it virtually disregarded the challenge of the centrist Alliance of Liberals and Social Democrats.

The “Daily Mail” said Mrs Thatcher was “a strong leader, strong for freedom” while Labour wanted to turn back the clock by restoring the privileges and power of trade union bosses.

“British newspapers, by and large, are now more prejudiced than they have ever been, more irresponsible in their use of facts than they have ever been, and in some instances more dishonest than they have ever been,” said Labour’s deputy leader, Roy Hattersley. “It is true that there is overwhelming bias towards one party and that this stifles attempts at a fair debate. The problem is what can be done about it. You can’t force newspapers to be impartial and readers still do have a choice,” said Tony Loynes, editor of “U.K. Press Gazette,” a weekly magazine dealing with news media affairs.

Loynes said Mr Kinnock’s relationship with some newspapers, especially the powerful and influential organs owned by the Australian-born press magnate, Rupert Murdoch, had degenerated to a state of mutual distrust and loathing.

It reached a climax in January 1986, when Murdoch sacked 6000 printers and moved his titles to a new, high-technology plant. Mr Kinnock ordered Labour officials not to speak to journalists from Murdoch’s papers in solidarity with the dismissed men.

In a recently published

book about Mr Kinnock, a journalist, Michael Leapman, said the Labour leader was particularly hurt by the press treatment of his wife, Glenys, characterised as “Glenys the Menace” in one memorable “Daily Mail” headline last December. “We are warned to beware the dangerous schemer ... drawing up a blueprint for a nonnuclear, non-sexist Britain which she will impose on her malleable milksop of a husband,” Leapman wrote in a scornful parody of Glenys’ tabloid image. Leapman, a former “Times” journalist, said Mr Kinnock was especially dismissive of “The Times,” traditional mouthpiece of the British establishment, which has lurched to the right since Murdoch bought it in 1981. The Labour leader now calls it "The ‘Sun’ with long words.”

With six of 11 national titles, accounting for some 10.5 million of the 14 million newspapers sold daily in Britain committed to Mrs Thatcher, Labour can count on the support only of the “Daily Mirror,” with a circulation of just over three million. The upmarket “Guardian” and “Independent,” with a combined circulation of about 800,000, generally take a more neutral stance while “Today,” with daily sales of about 300,000, is the only paper so far to support the Alliance. Loynes said Labour had already been severely damaged by the cumulative effects of months of hostile coverage. “The more stories that appear talking about Labour’s loony Left, many

of which apparently have no basis in fact, the more people are conditioned to believe that Labour is unworthy to govern,” he said.

Labour officials said Mr Kinnock had despaired of getting his message across through the national newspapers and had decided to hold more news conferences outside London to emphasise the regional press.

Above all, he planned to concentrate his efforts on television and radio. But he could face a problem there as well.

Government critics say a series of rows in the last two years between the Government and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) centring on its alleged Leftist bias has left senior officials in the State-funded corporation cowed and intimidated. “There is a perfectly comprehensible fear on the part of those working in television’s upper echelons, especially at the 8.8. C., of taking risks that might offend the likely Conservative victors,” said a London University lecturer in political studies, Raymond Kuhn.

"There will be a dreadful temptation for those in authority within the media to make sure that nothing untoward happens during the election coverage to offend will-still-have-to-be-obeyed-afterwards (Thatcher),” said a professor of journalism, Hugh Stephenson, “especially at a time when radical changes in television, radio and V.A.T. (value added tax) on newspapers are likely to follow the election.”