{"id":472,"date":"2007-06-13T06:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-13T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=472"},"modified":"2007-06-13T06:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-13T12:12:00","slug":"tony-blair-and-press-dictatorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-and-press-dictatorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair and press dictatorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>ony Blair got a predictably<\/a> poor reception<\/a> to his speech<\/a> yesterday. In it he quoted former prime minister Stanley Baldwin<\/a>. Baldwin\u2019s oft-cited speech came in the context of a long-running campaign against his leadership of the Conservative Party by Lords Beaverbrook<\/a> and Rothermere<\/a>. The two men were owners of the Daily Express<\/span> and Daily Mail <\/span>respectively, with 6 million or so readers between them. So how was that speech reported?

Well, the Beaver-mere crusade against Baldwin culminated in a political showdown in the safest Conservative seat in the country \u2013 St George\u2019s, Westminster.<\/p>\n

On 28 February 1931 the Express<\/span> declared its own candidate, Sir Ernest Petter, who would run \u201cin opposition to Mr Baldwin\u2019s leadership and policy.\u201d The same day, the official Conservative candidate pulled out. Baldwin told a colleague he was going to resign, but finally an unlikely Baldwinite candidate came forward.<\/p>\n

Alfred Duff Cooper<\/a> knew Beaverbrook. His wife had been both pursued and employed by him. Beaverbrook was godfather to his son.<\/p>\n

But the gloves were off. The Express<\/span> headlined the beginning of his campaign: Mr Duff Cooper\u2019s 44 Listeners: A Meeting Fizzles out at St George\u2019s<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Having found someone to run against the press barons, Baldwin fought on the issue of press dictatorship.<\/p>\n

The Express<\/span> put its response to that claim in a leader column:<\/p>\n

The Daily Express<\/span> and the Daily Mail <\/span>are trying to persuade Mr Baldwin to retire and make way for his successor.
Q. Is that dictatorship?
A. The Baldwinites say so.
Q. But The Times<\/span>, Telegraph<\/span>, and Morning Post<\/span> say that Mr Baldwin should not resign. Is that dictatorship?
A. No. That is loyalty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The attacks prompted probably Baldwin\u2019s most famous speech (the last line written, it is said, by Rudyard Kipling<\/a><\/span>, a former friend of Beaverbrook) in which he railed against the Beavermere newspapers as<\/p>\n

\u2026engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and personal dislikes of two men. What are their methods? Their methods are direct falsehood, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of a speaker\u2019s meaning by putting sentences apart from their context, suppression and editorial criticism of speeches which are not reported in the paper. \u2026 What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, but power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As if to confirm every word, the Express<\/span> splashed next day with SIR ERNEST PETTER\u2019S TRIUMPH<\/span> \u2013 a glowing write-up of their favoured candidate\u2019s rally at a theatre in Victoria.<\/p>\n

Baldwin\u2019s speech was carried lower down the page, under the headline Mr Baldwin Denounces His Enemies<\/span><\/span>. The Express<\/span><\/span>\u2019s editor had gone to report the meeting himself with \u201ca mind unprejudiced.\u201d The quotes above were not included in his commentary, although \u201cthe political platform allows for over-statement and Mr Baldwin knew what was expected of him.\u201d The innuendo grew thicker: \u201cHe [Baldwin] made one smear at Lord Rothermere, however, that simply is not done. When he had made it, he looked furtively at his audience and licked his lips.\u201d By the end of the evening, said the Express<\/span>, the hall was like a \u201cpublic morgue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the coverage, three days later, Baldwin\u2019s candidate won the seat. Time<\/span> magazine – an opinionated but disinterested observer – reported it like this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And thus the threat of press dictatorship passed. Well…<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Blair got a predictably poor reception to his speech yesterday. In it he quoted former prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin\u2019s oft-cited speech came in the context of a long-running campaign against his leadership of the Conservative Party by Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere. The two men were owners of the Daily Express and Daily Mail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}