A、The Relationship Between Politicians and the Press B、The Press: the Resentment of the Politicians C、The Prime Ministers and Co

In the seaside town of Brighton in southern England the ruling Labour Party’s annual conference is getting underway. It’s a time for both MPs and grassroots members to take stock of how the party is doing, to discuss policy and to hear, hopefully, inspiring speeches. The party delegates will be hoping too for plenty of coverage from the media assembled there. Sometimes in politics it appears it’s not so much what you do but what you seem to be doing that counts, and for politicians public relations can seem to be as important as policies.
    Newspapers in Britain have long had great influence over Governments, much to the resentment of the politicians. Almost seventy-five years ago, the then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin accused the two big press barons, Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere, of running their papers as "engines of propaganda" for the "personal wishes and dislikes of two men". He famously accused them of seeking "power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages". It’s hard to imagine the current Prime Minister Tony Blair attacking the tabloid press so publicly.
    A book out this week, written by one of his former press advisers, claims he was "obsessed" with the media during his first term in Government, sometimes making up policy on the hoof simply to give newspapers and broadcasters a story. On one occasion, it says, Mr. Blair was due to go on breakfast television with the veteran interviewer Sir David Frost and the Sunday papers were full of reports of a new rift with his Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. The book’s author, Lance Price, describes in his diary the response of the Prime Minister’s press office: "Our aim is to knock the story out by coming up with a better one. So with half an hour to go before Tony Blair’s appearance, we decide to launch a war on drugs."
    An announcement was rushed out that crime suspects would face mandatory drugs tests, a policy that then had to be squared with the minister and officials in charge of drugs policy. Mr. Blair has courted tabloid newspaper editors assiduously. The former editor of the Daily Mirror Piers Morgan claimed earlier this year that he met the Labour leader no fewer than fifty-eight times for lunches, dinners or interviews, a statistic which astonished many in Government and the media, who thought a party leader and Prime Minister should have had better ways to spend his time. But Tony-Blair has good reason to court the press. In Britain, Labour, left-of-centre governments, have always had problems with national newspapers, most of whose owners traditionally supported the right-of-centre Conservative Party. This came to a head on Election Day in 1992 when Labour seemed set to win power for the first time in eighteen years.
    In those days, Britain’s biggest-selling daily paper, The Sun, part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, was no friend of Labour, indeed it had been Margaret Thatcher’s biggest cheerleader. That morning, on its front page, it depicted the bald head of the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock as a light bulb. Alongside ran the headline: "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?" Labour lost. By the next election, Tony Blair was the party’s leader and determined to win over, or at least neutralise, The Sun and its owner. He succeeded, moving the Labour Party towards the centre ground, and gaining The Sun’s endorsement at the last three elections.
    Once in Government, Labour played hardball with the media, relishing its power, and aware that if it didn’t take charge of the agenda, the media would.
    Its key figure was the former political editor of the Daily Mirror, Alastair Campbell, who took charge not just of the Prime Minister’s press office but all government press officers, trying to ensure the Government spoke with one voice. Journalists who reported favourably were given privileged access, those who didn’t were frozen out.
    Mr. Blair maintained his close links with Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers, doing everything he could to maintain their support. Lance Price claims in his diaries that the Government assured the tycoon and his editors that it wouldn’t change its policy on Europe without asking them. The Prime Minister also built a relationship with another Conservative newspaper, the mid-market Daily Mail, which has a sure instinct for the issues and policies that concern the British middle classes. The Mail led a campaign to reduce the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain and it’s often said that in trying to show they’re tough on criminals and the causes of crime Blair and his ministers are following the Daily Mail’s agenda.
    But Lance Price says the Government’s obsession with the media can be counter-productive. "You have to understand the power the media has, but it is unwise to become a complete slave to that," he writes. "If you are too preoccupied with what the media are doing, you run the risk of doing things to produce headlines rather than what is good for the country."
16. MPs and grassroots members are supposed to do several things during the Labour Party’s annual conference. Which of the following issues is NOT one of them?
17. What did the former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin accuse the two big press barons of?
18. What did the Prime Minister’s press office decide to do half an hour before Tony Blair’s interview?
19. Which of the following daily papers is not mentioned in the talk?
20. What’s the best title for this talk?