Examination of witnesses (Questions 400
- 419)
TUESDAY 23 JUNE 1998
MR ALASTAIR
CAMPBELL, MR
MIKE GRANATT
and MR ROBIN
MOUNTFIELD
400. But he uses you more, if I can put
it that way. You are being used more by the Prime Minister because
the other ones did not. Margaret Thatcher did not use the other
one in the way you are being used.
(Mr Campbell) I think I have got a very good relationship.
I am just looking here at another factor which is that the scope
now of the media world has changed out of all recognition, even
since Bernard Ingham's day. Now, in my office, we have still got
the same number of people as not just Bernard Ingham, but Joe
Haines had. In 1979 on Radio 4, you had Today, World at One,
PM, The World Tonight, The World This Weekend. On TV, you
had 15 minutes at lunchtime, 20 minutes in the early evening,
and 30 minutes late on. That was 1979. Since then, you have got
longer bulletins at lunchtime and early evening, you have got
Newsnight, the breakfast news, On the Record, Breakfast
with Frost, Westminster Live, News 24, Sky
News, Channel 4 News, Powerhouse. It is a completely
different media world. Now, the Prime Minister gets hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of requests for interviews from around the
world every single day. He cannot meet anything remotely approaching
0. something per cent of them. All of those bids have to be dealt
with, all of them have to be spoken to, and journalists who want
briefings have to be briefed. He has to have somebody who is doing
that and who is organising that whom he can trust, who knows his
mind, who knows what he thinks about the big issues of the day,
and indeed about the small issues of the day, and who can brief
at the drop of a hat so that if anybody asks me a question, I
can answer it.
401. So what you are saying, Mr Campbell,
is that the media is making you?
(Mr Campbell) Well, it is just a job that I have
to do. The job has changed since the days when Bernard Ingham
had to do it. It is a much, much bigger media and again, to learn
the lessons from the last Government, if you let that much bigger
media control the agenda in the way that sometimes they want to
do, then you get hit for six day after day after day. I actually
think it is the duty of the Government constantly to communicate
what it is trying to do. I keep hearing people sort of sneer about
focus groups and the rest of it, but they are one means by which
a political party or the Government can go and find out what people
are actually saying. I do not think that is a bad thing; I think
that is a good thing. It does not mean that you change the policies
as a result of them, it does not mean you actually allow your
lines to be dictated by them, but it means that you never stop
communicating. I have been to focus groups where when people have
discovered that you are doing them for the Prime Minister, for
Tony Blair, they are amazed. They are actually amazed that they
have a leader who keeps wanting to hear what they are saying and
what they are thinking. Now, I do not think in a modern democracy
you can ever stop communicating. Competence and communication
have to go together and I think that goes for any big organisation.
402. Mr Mountfield, has your office changed?
Has it changed from the past and Margaret Thatcher's day?
(Mr Mountfield) No, not in any substantive way.
You used the word "presidential", but I do not think
our system is presidential. It remains essentially a parliamentary
system which I think is the opposite.
403. But you admit that it is now going
that way?
(Mr Mountfield) No, I do not think it is. I think
leadership styles differ and I think one could draw a number of
parallels between the way Mrs Thatcher ran her office and her
press affairs with the present situation.
404. So it has not changed that much?
(Mr Mountfield) I do not think so very much over
that period.
405. So it might be right to say that it
is the media that has changed rather than the office?
(Mr Mountfield) Yes, and I think we are living
in an increasingly visible world where the media expect spokesmen
to be a bit more open than in the past.
Mr Bradley
406. I would like to read a quote to see
whether it gets support or otherwise. It is from evidence given
to us previously and it runs like this: "It is the duty of
every government to communicate its policies and its themes effectively
to the public so that they understand it and so that the electoral
process, the democratic process can take place and the people
can react. It is a healthy thing". I do not know whether
Mr Granatt wants to start and whether he subscribes to that point
of view.
(Mr Granatt) I think a democratic government has
its duty to explain and a right to be heard. I think that is what
the Information Service is about and I think in an increasingly
crowded media world, looking for the audience to talk to is much
more complicated. Once upon a time, you could talk to the Nine
O'Clock News and reach most of the population, but that is
no longer true, so I do think that it is actually part of a government's
duty to explain what it is doing.
407. Is that why, do you think, the association
which represents your members has talked about the challenge of
raising their game, that the communication effort is actually
far more at the heart of government and the delivery of policy
than it has been in the past? Would that be a fair comment?
(Mr Granatt) And what is at the heart of government
is a matter for the Government of the day to decide. I think this
Government has decided that it sees the communication of its policies
and its programmes as a major part of the way that it operates.
408. As a professional of some standing,
is that something that gladdens your heart?
(Mr Granatt) Yes, it does actually.
409. Could I ask Mr Mountfield whether that
throws up difficulties and problems, the fact that the communication
of policy development and the delivery of policy are so closely
intertwined?
(Mr Mountfield) Not at all. I think it is entirely
proper and I thought the quotation was a quotation from our report,
but that clearly is not right.
410. Well, actually it is from Sir Richard
Wilson, the head of the Civil Service.
(Mr Mountfield) It is just as well that I agree
with it in that case, but it seems to me that it is entirely proper
in a democratic society not merely that things should be communicated
because it is people's right to know, but because people's understanding
of policies will improve the effectiveness of those policies in
their implementation.
411. Can I ask Mr Campbell, I doubt that
you would demur from what your colleagues have said about the
importance of communication from the Government's point of view,
but do you feel faintly embarrassed that if the Government communicates
its message properly, then the party of government reaps the dividends
or is that just a more than acceptable by-product when things
go well?
(Mr Campbell) Well, I think from memory it says
in, is it your report, Robin, but there is this point made that
there are bound to be inbuilt advantages to the party of government?
(Mr Mountfield) It is in the guidance.
(Mr Campbell) It is in the guidance for government
information officers, that there are bound to be inbuilt advantages
from the fact that you are in government. There is this central
point about "a well-founded publicity campaign can create
political credit for the party in government, but that must not
be the primary significance or purpose..."[2]
One thing I have been slightly worried about is any sense that
somehow you have got Mike Granatt on the one hand who is worried
about morale and training and personnel in the GICS and you have
got us on the other hand who basically think the last lot did
not know what they were doing so we have got to come in and show
them how to do it. It really has not been like that. I know there
have been a number of changes and that has obviously been unfortunate
not just for the individuals concerned, but also its effect on
morale. From my own perspective, I think that we, coming in from
opposition, have been able to bring improvements to the way that
the GICS is working, but likewise I think we have been able to
learn things from the way that they have done things as well.
One of the real boons of the last 15 months is that the transition
has worked extremely well. In relation to how I fit into that,
within our own press office there have been three personnel changes
since the election. One has gone to the Strategic Communications
Unit. That post was filled, following a series of interviews,
all internal, and an excellent career civil servant has taken
that position. The deputy civil servant press secretary that I
inherited then took a senior job, has been replaced from within
my office by an excellent young member of the GICS and he in turn
has been replaced by another. They work extremely well. I actually
think that the way that we have got the dividing line is clear,
they know what they have to do, the special advisers know what
they are supposed to be doing. There is actually greater clarity
than there was in the days when Mr Tyrie and Mr Ruffley were special
advisers. I think it is now much much clearer and I think that
is better for all of us.
412. How do you respond when you and others
are accused of control "freakery"?
(Mr Campbell) The job that I have to do is set
out. It is one of coordination. There is no point complaining
about these things when they are said because people are going
to say them, that is fine. One thing I am very good at is differentiating
between what is in the papers and what really matters. The fact
that one or two people might think that the centre is too strong
is fine. In relation to the way that we work, the kind of thing
that we do did not start on May 2nd, it has been going on for
years and years and years. What is true is that in Opposition
we made clear that communications was not something that you tagged
on the end, it is part of what you do. That is something that
we have tried to bring into government. Let me say again in relation
to the Mountfield Report, that was not Alastair Campbell and Peter
Mandelson sitting down and saying, "Let us re-write the way
that we work", that was a proper considered investigation
of the way that the Government Information Service was working
and how all of us might actually improve the way that we work.
That is to the benefit of the Government. It is not a political
point. I keep reading all this stuff about politicisation. I have
never seen a substantive convincing piece of evidence about politicisation.
Mr Tyrie
413. How many posts were held by political
appointees of the Government Information Service in the last Administration
and how many are held now?
(Mr Campbell) I do not know the answer for the
last Administration. In relation to special advisers, there is
the policy unit.
414. I did not ask about that, I was asking
about the Government Information Service.
(Mr Campbell) None. There are no special advisers
in the Government Information Service, none at all.
415. But political appointments have been
made to the Government Information Service.
(Mr Campbell) No, they have not.
416. What are you?
(Mr Campbell) I am the Prime Minister's Chief
Press Officer.
Chairman
417. There is a factual point here. Are
you going to dispose of that quickly?
(Mr Mountfield) The factual point is that Mr Campbell
is not a member of the GICS and there are no special advisers
who are members of the GICS and there are no appointments that
have been made to the GCIS which were political appointments.
Mr Bradley
418. I wanted to pursue the line about the
control of good communications. I think I accept, and I think
most people who have given evidence to this Committee accept,
that a coherent message is the duty of government, so that it
can communicate effort through the press to the people we represent.
For that message to be cogent and coherent it has to be coordinated
and controlled. I want to go a little bit further. Is it your
view that that kind of disciplined professional communication
makes government more accountable insofar as it provides clear
messages to the people who are elected on which they can take
whatever decisions and react in whatever way they see fit?
(Mr Campbell) I think the public have the right
to know what the Government is doing in their name at all times.
We have the job of trying to communicate what the Government is
doing often through—and I mean through rather than via—a
media that, frankly, is more interested in doing other things.
That means you have constantly to be modernising the way that
you are doing that because the pace of change in the world of
the media is phenomenal, it is changing all the time. We have
got to be on top of that. The public look in at the media coverage
of the political process and I think sometimes they can be forgiven
for wondering what on earth it is all about. Let us take something
which is happening today, David Blunkett's initiative on Education
Action Zones. That is a hugely important thing. It will bring
about real change for millions of people in this country. To be
fair, it has led every single news bulletin today so far. So that
is fine and that is exactly how we wanted it. But you also know
that you are never going to get more than one big day on a story
like that. So it is our job to think of how you get the next big
day on it and then the next one and then the next one, because
we need to be communicating constantly about the things that we
said we would do and we need to be seen by the people to be focusing
on them. The fact is I do not get terribly phased by a lot of
the stuff that is in the papers because I have got a pretty good
judgment about what is getting through. I think there are two
worlds. I think there is a media village that tries to envelop
the political process and then you have got what is happening
out there. It is our job to keep focused upon what is happening
out there and you do that by constantly communicating. Look at
all the sneering stuff there was about the fact that the Prime
Minister appeared on the Des O'Connor Show, but more people
will have seen him on that than perhaps any interview he has done
since the General Election. The fact that he is not being asked
about the sort of things that he might be asked about in Parliament
is not a reason for not doing that kind of thing. You have got
to communicate in new and modern ways all the time otherwise the
media, which is not the tame beast that Mr Tyrie was trying to
suggest when they come along to my briefings, will set the agenda
for you. It happened to the last Government and the Prime Minister
is pretty determined it will not happen to this one.
Chairman
419. So it is the Mrs Merton Show
next Saturday, is it?
(Mr Campbell) If they bid it will be considered.
2 Report of the Working Group on the Government
Information Service, November 1997, Annex B (Guidance on the
Work of the GIS), para. 8. Back
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