Analysis of Party Electoral Communications in the 1997 UK General Election.

Politics Government and Communication Assignment

Analysis of Party Electoral Communications in the 1997 UK General Election

Ian Wheeler – Tutorial Group 4

Part 1 – Core Concepts and Theories

The subject matter in this topic draws very heavily on Public Relations and Communications theory and practice. The 1997 General Election was one that was fought very much on the “media battleground”, and one of the campaigns that involves the fields of Public Relations and Mass Communication more than almost any other in British Political History. This, therefore, I feel is an excellent forum in which to discuss Politics and Communication Theory.

Initial thoughts – Communication Theory

The kind of communication theory that is involved in political campaigning is very persuasive in nature, and even though it has a reputation historically for being one-way in nature, we have seen recently, and especially within the case study, elements of two way communication models becoming more prevalent in party electoral communications.

Looking at Grunig’s models of Communication, historically, one could say that The Public Information Model has been most prevalent, with governments and political parties disseminating information in a very one-way nature, and while commitment to truth remains a large factor, use of practical “scare tactics” and almost wild assumption has been used in order to “scare” the electorate into voting for a particular political party or government. With recent campaigns, we have seen a move toward a more Asymmetric Two-Way model, where while persuasion remains the primary goal, greater use of feedback, and source-receiver-source communication has been used in order to more effectively involve and persuade the electorate, (possibly in this case to try and combat voter apathy). This is particularly noticeable in the Labour Election Campaign of 1997.

The campaign, that will be studied further below, drew on several PR and Politics related disciplines of how to communicate with the electorate, using both new and tried and tested ideas, in a format that is now accepted as the basis for comparison in all of the election campaigns of European Social Democrat parties. The evidence of the usefulness of these theories seen by Labour’s landslide victory is clear, and an attempt will be made to study what tactics and strategies were used in order to achieve the result that eventually occurred. While main focus will be made on the successor’s (Labour’s) campaign tactics, an analysis of Conservative counter-tactics will also be made in order to give a more balanced view of how parties communicate with their publics in the political landscape of Britain today.

Key concepts that relate to this case study include:

Politics and Communication – a general exploration of how politics and communication are entwined

Mass Media and Politics – how was the mass media used in this campaign?

Voting & the electoral system – how the ways people voted contributed to the result

Party Ideologies – the thinking behind parties’ strategies

Politics and Communication – General Theory

With regards to the topic, obviously communication is at the core of any campaign that was mounted. Therefore an explanation is required of how Politics and Communcation go hand in hand to achieve desired goals. Far from using propaganda, a tactic popular with many 20th Century Dictatorships, Democratic Politics must use elements of persuasion and communication. While it is generally accepted that public opinion is something that no politician cannot afford to listen to, it is also accepted that public opinion can often be wrong, and hence the “communication battleground” of Democracy is created. Decisions and campaigns made by a government or party often require persuasion tactics to make them acceptable to the public, and these persuasive skills are prized in the political world. They can involve such skills as “oratory” – persuasive public speaking, and so on. Many PR related skills can be employed to persuade publics. The communication, unsurprisingly, is not always effective, can be misinterpreted, and so on, and we see quite often how politicians fail to get the right message across, because of poorly executed communication.

Mass Media and Politics

The mass media and skilful use of it was an incredibly important part of the success of Labour’s Campaign. An analysis is therefore required of the mass media and it’s role within politics and political campaigning, and it’s relationships within the field of politics. The mass media includes newspapers, (usually of a high circulation,) film, radio, and television. (And increasingly in the 21st Century, the Internet.) Marshall McLuhan, a 1960’s media theorist, stated “the medium is the message”, meaning that each medium of communication has it’s own characteristics, determining how a message is communicated. The earliest accounts, dating back to the 1920’s, including Walter Lippmanns’ “Public Opinion” impressed the rapid growth and potential each of mass communications, and stressed that the public could easily be swayed by “propaganda” on the radio and in newspapers, and was possibly quite harmful for democracies. For a while, this seemed to be confirmed by use of Mass Media by authoritarian regimes, but in the post war years, further development on this quite volatile area of political theory determined a “healthy balance”, creating theories of “Partisan reinforcement” – where, when political campaigns were fought through mass media, it was seen that not only were opinions changed, but other opinions were reinforced. It is these theories of Mass Media uptake and communication that explain a lot of the ways that helped Labour to victory. Along with issues such as press ownership in the UK, we will further explore the issues surrounding the mass media role.

Voting & the Electoral system

This is a preview of the whole essay

Voting & the Electoral system

The electoral system and it’s function is also another key element that one must understand in order to effectively analyse the subject matter. It is in part the electoral system itself and the way it functions (apart from the obvious) that may have contributed to Labour’s victory. “Wasted votes” and an old electoral system that encouraged voter apathy may have been help to Labour, but also in some ways a hindrance. The electoral system in the UK elects 659 single member constituencies each returning on member of Parliament. The party that wins more votes than any other or is “first-past-the-post”. This is now a relatively rare type of electoral system in the western world. There is a movement for reform in UK politics at the moment toward proportional representation where there is a more exact relationship between the amount of votes cast and seats won. Labour of course, won the 1997 election by a landslide using the older system. Several explanations can be given for why people vote the way they do – Issue voting is one example, where people choose their vote based on a policy issue. Tactical voting has become popular with the rise of third and middle of the road parties, and leader impact has played a significant role in the 1997 and subsequent elections. Certainly the popularity of Tony Blair has been a significant factor. The issues raised here about the electoral system and trends within it in general are particularly relevant to the subject topic because of trends that may have come together in 1997 to give Labour victory.

Party Ideologies

The ideologies that surround political parties (i.e. the thinking behind their opinions) are central to determining voters’ choices. The Labour Party was seen to demonstrate a huge change in party ideology in the 1997 campaign, so to understand how Labour “reinvented” itself, one must understand how these ideologies work. The Labour Party and the Conservative party in the UK have right and left wing ideologies respectively.

Ideologies are the basic principles behind the thinking and policies of a political party, and in theory should influence everything they do. Heywood (1997) defines ideology as: “a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides a basis for political action”.

Conservative Ideology consists of:

Pragmatism – “common sense” rather than theory
Gradualism – rejection of radical change
Imperfect nature of man
Distrust of reason, importance of tradition
Hierarchy, and leadership
Defence of property
Social interdependence – obligation to help the poor
Need for strong government, law and order
Nationalism

In Contrast, Key Labour Ideology consists of:

Trade Unionism
Parliamentary
Gradualist (Fabian socialism)
Equality and Redistribution
Reformist and progressionist
Strong ethical element (Christian socialism)

These individual ideologies have remained traditional to these parties since their inception, and have modified as times have required. In the 1997 election however, we saw a distinct move by Labour toward more conservative views, ideologically. Becoming known as ”New Labour”, it was perhaps as an attempt to agree with more of the mainstream views of the populace, and groups such as the business community and trade unions. As is evident, it was a popular change in views for the now governmental party.

Part 2 - Case Study

As stated before, the General Election Campaign of 1997 was one that was very much fought on the “media battleground” and one that involved the Mass Media more than almost any other past election. In this section we will look at the tactics put into play by Labour and the Conservatives at the 1997 campaign, and how this affected the polls.

The campaigns mounted by each of the two main contenders in 1997 was unique in it’s own ways of communicating. According to Butler and Kavanagh “By common consent Labour’s campaign was a major leap in the techniques of controlled electioneering”. It was constructed around a main grouping of party leaders who stayed ruthlessly on message to the point of robotic repetition of key themes and slogans. Interestingly enough though, Labour lost ground in the opinion polls during the campaign, slipping by seven points in the six weeks of campaigning.

The campaign was overwhelmingly fought in the television news arena. We saw what became “the battle of the agendas” with each party trying to raise the news agenda of whatever issues it considers most useful to it’s campaign. There was a particular tussle to get to the top of the news agenda because political advertising, as we know is banned on TV. The BBC in this case was in the unique position of having to provide balanced coverage for each party because of its’ public service obligation. Below are a selection of the main communication related events in the campaign, and the eventual outcome in more detail. By selecting and studying main campaign events and themes, the hope is to show a picture of how political communication won (or lost) the election.

It’s the Sun Wot Won It – Involvement of the newspaper media

The involvement of the newspaper media in the 1997 was varied and quite broad. The main event of the newspaper media’s involvement was the “It’s the Sun Wot Won It” headline – this headline originally quoted after the 1992 election, became particularly relevant in 1997 because of The Sun’s decision to switch support to Labour. Certainly the newspaper’s position as the highest readership newspaper in the UK provided a positive electoral boost to Tony Blair, and with reporting in the paper becoming widely pro-Blair, speculation ensued about a deal between Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch. This was not the only newspaper related surprise in the campaign. The usually staunch Tory Daily Mail decided they would not necessarily support the Conservatives either. At the very end of the campaign, Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World also broke with precedent by supporting Labour. This gave Labour a lead on press readership of over 10million, and marked one of the biggest surprises, with most previously pro-Tory papers strongly critcal of the government on their European policy. Through careful use of these press endorsements, it is my belief that Labour managed to gain a substantial advantage in the race, and still uses the press with as much evident skill today.

Not even a chance – The headline opinion polls

The switch in newspaper allegiance was just one of the more unusual aspects of this campaign. Labour may have had an easy ride on the back of a Conservative party perceived as “sleaze ridden” by recent press coverage, but even at the outset, headline opinion polls showed on average, a 22 per cent lead for Labour. None gave the Conservatives more than 31 per cent of the vote. While there was skepticism in the press initially of this result, it was eventually proved that Labour would stay overwhelmingly ahead and that only 3 surveys would show the Conservatives above 33 per cent of the possible vote. Until the end, both parties and indeed the media at large (possibly in an attempt to counter voter apathy) attempted to portray the possibility of a close finish, but most commentators based their thinking on the fact that Labour had won.

The Debate

One of the other main communication events of the campaign was the possibility of a televised debate between the leaders of each of the main parties. John Major expressed his willingness to participate in a televised leadership debate before the election. This led to delicate negotiations between the broadcasters and the parties, when Peter Mandelson brought the issue to the fore in 1997. The idea, which had been thrown about by various broadcasters since the 1970’s, was now rejected by John Major; he did not welcome the idea of a debate, and the thought that the election might turn on a single incident in the studio confrontations. Each of the TV networks submitted proposals for their own televised debate series; after much intense diplomacy between parties and networks, including possible court action by the Liberal Democrats if they were left out of the proceedings, as well as wrangling over minutes of onscreen coverage for each individual leader. Eventually, the negotiations fell apart, with each main party blaming he others for “pulling out” of the scheme. From a communication point of view, this debate would have provided the electorate with a form of direct communication over the issues that would have proved engaging and an excellent demonstration of the two-way asymmetric model. However, eventually some high-level debates were broadcast. Direct confrontations were seen between Kenneth Clarke and Gordon Brown for example, which produced lively audience participation. From a direct political point of view, debates are unfavourable at election time and promote “personality politics”. However, in the public view, this became one of the most damaging episodes of the whole campaign for all of the main parties.

The Leaders

As discussed before, one of the main elements of this campaign was the carefully orchestrated movements and statements of each of the main leaders. Press attention was clearly focused on the leaders, and prominent front-benchers, for example Michael Heseltine, who was quoted as “ exuding rumbustious optimism” at Conservative Head office. John Prescott on the other hand, toured all of the key marginals in his battle bus, known as the “Prescott Express”. Shirley Williams also attracted some good coverage for the Liberal Democrats. From time to time the press suggested that certain front-benchers were never seen on television suggesting they were regarded as potential embarrassments, these included Douglas Hogg and Virginia Bottomley on the Conservative side, and Harriet Harman and Frank Dobson on the Labour side. This carefully orchestrated use of personalities, and removal of potential embarrassments from the limelight proved an interesting tactic, if a little transparent to the electorate.

It is an agreed election technique however that a campaign depends on the party leader, who must be the director and central bearer of the party’s message. John Major was supported by Brian Mawhinney and Michael Trend, as well as Lord Saatchi, in developing tactical responses and communications as the campaign developed. The problem however in the Conservaties’ communication tactics seemed however to exist at the core; Brian Mawhinney and John Major. In Butler and Kavanagh, One of Major’s staff was noted as saying: “When he phones it always seems to be bad news; we want to be uplifted, not depressed”. By June 1997, the Sunday Telegraph was reported as saying “Major is now reconciled to defeat”. At times he appeared to be communicating apart from his own party, and was even making personal appeals to voters on Europe. This lack of cohesion in communication structure and goals may have been the Conservatives’ downfall.

Blair had Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson in charge; they along with the Millbank media centre, constantly monitored events and suggested the best response, but did not treat the leader as a puppet. It seemed that Tony Blair stayed “on message” much more faithfully than Major, and constantly stayed in touch with his media group while on his “battle bus”. In public, he kept on message and appeared as a strong coherent leader – reports from Millbank of internal difficulties in the Conservative Party only reinforced this, and Blair began to speak more spontaneously and appeared to “find himself”. This ruthless repetition of primary messages, and coherent communications in an organized manner certainly reinforced the legitimacy and eventual success of the Labour campaign.

The Press Conference

Use of the Morning Press Conference as a forum for political communication was very prevalent in this campaign. Conferences would launch each party’s theme for the day – and party press officials would then explain and amplify any current themes with top journalists in time for the lunchtime bulletins. These efforts at “spinning” issues were much more obvious than in previous elections.

Use of press conferences as an interactive forum and a way of reinforcing messages was certainly very advantageous for both parties. Agenda setting was used to great effect to focus communication efforts for the day, and ensure primary messages were not lost; we can see how messages were “drummed” into journalists very early on into the day, under the guise of a two way communication format. Clever manipulation of the format is quite evident, and from a broader point of view, made the election day by day much more digestible to the media and to general public, taking each issue “by the horns” each day.

Sleaze!

One of the main communication problems the Conservatives had to tackle was sleaze. “Sleaze” is known as a situation where MP’s conduct acts seen as “wholly inappropriate” by Parliament or the electorate. It is difficult to stay on message and provide a coherent set of campaign communications when other more “sensational” issues detract from your main communications. No example is better known from the 1997 than that of the Hamiltons. Neil Hamilton was the Conservative candidate for Tatton, Cheshire, who had been embroiled in a “Cash for Questions” scandal. The other parties capitalized on this indiscretion by hoping to stand an “anti sleaze” nominee. The ex BBC correspondent Martin Bell stood as an independent candidate, much to the embarrassment of the Tories. One of the defining images of the 1997 campaign is of Bell and Hamilton confronting each other on Knutsford Heath, Hamilton accompanied by his “formidable” wife Catherine.

The Hamiltons, while not blameless, were victims of the “sensationalist” news values of the popular tabloids at the time only served to make the situation worse for the the Tories. While nothing could have prevented the eventual embarrassment, it was a communication problem that the Tories were never quite able to solve, and proved very damaging to their campaign. Along with communication and message problems at other levels, the Tory failures become clear. This is however a clear example of negative campaigning. While all of the parties refused to admit that they were fighting negatively, retrospective analysis showed that the Lib Dems were probably the only main party that could uphold this claim; Labour gave positive themes to Blair and concentrated negative issues to lesser figures. The Conservatives in the end had the most prominent negative themes in their literature, as the party in power, being obligated to report the “dangers” of voting for the other parties.

The Manifestos

The Manifesto can be defined as the most clearly focused and often the most important piece of electoral communication around which any campaign is built. The Conservatives manifesto, called “You can only be sure with the Conservatives” was a 20,000 word document, and was welcomed as a “cautious but coherent package” by The Times, but widely seen as “nothing new”.

Labour produced a 19,000 word manifesto called “Because Britain Deserves Better”, and introduced an interesting structure to the political manifesto in general. It focused on a 10 point “contract with the people”, focusing on all of Labour’s perceived main issues. It reiterated “five pledges” that Tony Blair had set out in previous speeches, and came across as a much more dynamic document than the Conservatives’ plan.

The use of the Manifesto, while not being a communication that may be read by a large amount of the electorate, is certainly the most important document a party running for election can produce. If policy is not coherently presented, in a format that entices the electorate, then the campaign surrounding it will fail. The more modern and much more advertising based layout and structure of the Labour effort certainly helped; it can be argued that the ideas within it were somewhat more dynamic than those presented by the Conservatives, and it might have been this perceived desire throughout the nation for “a change” that Labour reflected in it’s manifesto, that may have been another factor helping it to victory.

Posters and Broadcasts

When the election arrived, poster campaigns were in full swing. The Conservatives led with “Britain is booming – don’t let Labour blow it” and Labour struck back with the slogan “Britain deserves better”. Labour began with positive messages drawn from Tony Blair’s “five pledges”, in an attempt to counter the negative campaigning perceived by the general public. A later Conservative Campaign, featuring the slogan “New Labour, New Danger”, as well as Tony Blair with Demon eyes, was seen unfortunately as yet another form of negative campaigning. The use of political posters is certainly one of the more creative parts of, and some of the best images of, a campaign and it’s issues, and are used as a historical reference for many political campaigns. The provide some of the most hard hitting images, and as we can see with the brief examples above, can work either positively or negatively toward a campaign’s goals. The Conservatives produced the most controversial poster of the campaign showing Tony Blair sitting on Chancellor Kohl’s knee. Several Conservative immediately denounced it s “puerile”, and “abhorrent”, and produced yet another negative episode for the Conservatives, showing just how powerful these communications can be.

Celebrity Endorsements

Labour used celebrity endorsement to a great degree, more than Tories. Business leaders such as Anita Roddick of Body Shop and Richard Branson lended their support, providing many excellent photo opportunities and further enforced the value of the party to one of the most skeptical target audiences, the business community. Clever use of “personality politics” gave Labour an advantage among opinion leaders, and while trying not to be too obviously linked to any big names in the entertainment world, used endorsement to launch their policy for Lottery money for the Arts and health and education. Use of endorsement by opinion leaders shows us how a “two step flow” model of communication can work extremely well in influencing the masses by showing that these opinion leaders “are doing the right thing, so why shouldn’t you?” The advantage for the celebrity being closer links with what may eventually be the government in power.

The Results

At the end of the campaign, with most major communication that each party wished to make complete, the results were already quite starkly obvious. Closing opinion polls showed a huge swing toward Labour, and even “The Sunday Telegraph” went with the headline “It’s all over, admit Top Tories”. Initial forecasts were for a victory with a majority of between 60 and 80. Tony Blair was confident of being about 10 per cent ahead, and the Lib Dems were confident of major gains as well. The media could see a Conservative defeat on the horizon, and ran several stories about Tory Leadership struggles. Conservatives themselves banded together to maintain a common front as disaster loomed. The BBC and ITN’s exit polls confirmed the swing to Labour, and the 1- per cent swing emerged as one of the biggest swings in results since the war; Seven Cabinet ministers were defeated, and by the end of counting, Labour had won 418 seats, making a majority of over 179, and a clear 12.5 per cent lead over the Conservatives. On Friday 2 May, 1997, Tony Blair became the fifth ever Labour Prime Minister.

The results alone show how important coherent and effective communication is to a political campaign. The examples shown here, at every point describe how failures in Communcation and strategy by the Conservatives, along with an unfavourable set of circumstances led to an unprecedented defeat for the Conservatives, and how a coherent, well planned and coordinated set of messages and tactics such as those used by Labour produced a massively successful campaign. The facets of political communication indeed are complicated ones, and are no more complicated for politicians than at election times; the importance of clear and useful communications becomes obvious in a situation where the political process becomes a “battle for survival”.

Bibliography

The British General Election of 1997 – Butler & Kavanagh (1997)

On Message – Norris, Curtice, Sanders, Scammell & Semetko (1999)

From Soapbox to Soundbite – Rosenbaum (1997)

Part 3 – Creative Work Rationale

I have decided for this section to produce a series of Labour and Conservative campaign posters based on current issues for the next General Election Campaign, (to be hold in 2005, and called at the Prime Minister’s discretion, usually in the first part of May.)

As part of the task, I decided to do a little “updating” to the styles of each of the parties, and how their posters advertise. (For acknowledgement, these are based on previous poster designs somewhat.)

I decided to try to update the image of the Conservative Party somewhat by renaming it “Conservative Millennium” – trying to give the party a more 21st Century image, and making a new logo to give the party’s corporate image a fresher look. Since an old image for a long time has been the thing that has made the Conservative Party “unelectable”, I felt a few modernising changes to the way it presents itself might go toward making it more “electable”.

I then decided to tackle the content of the posters themselves. Having seen some of the previous posters in Conservative and Campaigns, I decided to make the content more punchy, and tackle issues much more directly. I did not want to start mudslinging or using character assassination, but provide a critique of the Labour party’s state and/or policies, using today’s political issues as a reference.

In the case of NewLabour, I decided that since they would probably feel that they have a successful formula communication-wise, especially considering their previous two election victories, that there would be no major change in the image of the party or how it presents itself.

I then decided to again produce some content for the posters that would hit home the dangers of voting in the opposition, along the lines of previous Labour and Conservative advertising, the New Labour, New Danger Campaign being of particular reference.

With this task, it was my hope to explore the facets of modern political communications, using one of the most recognized and most accessible communication forms that political parties use today. It has taught me that while political parties can use advertising or one form or another to promote their goals, they must strike an acceptable balance, and keep a strict commitment to the truth, otherwise risking political ridicule and legal entanglement.