American Politics Journal

The View From Europe
Spin and Sleaze
by Nicola Mitchell

Feb. 27, 2002 -- LONDON (APJP) -- Spin and sleaze... sleaze and spin... that's all we to hear about these days.

It seems to have become the basis on which British politics now rests, a never ending cycle, a game of cat and mouse that exists between the politicians and the media, a game that Tony Blair has been getting some serious refresher lessons in over the past few weeks.

When New Labour were elected in 1997, it came at a time of public backlash against claims of Tory sleaze, but the tables have been turned and it is now Mr Blair who faces trail by media, on charges of sleaze most horrid.

It started off quietly, as these things usually do: just a few media rumblings on the back of the Enron scandal, but has since progressed until we now have accusations of a corrupt prime minister being banded around everywhere. It now appears that he is being implicated, at least in some way, in just about every party finance scandal that has occurred since he came to power, but how true many of the accusations actually are remains to be seen.

In its defence, Blair's team is hitting back in the only way it knows how: spin, spin and yet more spin, a tactic which is probably partly responsible for the pickle the government currently finds itself in.

There's no secret about Blair's fascination with the American presidency and his admiration for Bill Clinton. He saw how effective Clinton's press team, headed up by the likes of George Stephanopoulos and Mike McCurry, was at deflecting and combating negative coverage, and thus Blair decided to use similar tactics within his government. However, as was found during the Clinton administration, the press were angry at being kept at arms length from the people they were supposed to be covering, and the same discontentment has been apparent within the British press for some time.

Of course the Blair machine is all too aware that they are walking a fine line. This past week has already seen the 'resignation' of one of Downing Street's most controversial press figures, Jo Moore, sender of the notorious e-mail urging underlings to release any bad news they wanted to bury on September 11th.

But despite the controversy surrounding Blair's spinners, they are going to have to limber up for one of their biggest battles of public persuasion yet: convincing the British public that it is not only a good idea to go ahead with attacks on Iraq in the name of the war against terror, but that there should also be large scale British involvement, possibly even commitment of troops to the area.

Members of the European community, including French prime minister Lionel Jospin and even a members of Blair's own cabinet, have been openly critical of the language Bush used in his 'axis of evil' speech, so Blair is going to have a pretty tough job on his hands convincing them the move is in their best interests.

Personally, I just can't wait to see what Blair comes up with.

Maybe he'll go down the patriotic line that Bush has been spouting for the past few months, declaring that it is our duty to help our American cousins in their fight (or in translation, as your prime minister I order you to help me win favour with my best buddy George).

Who knows? You can be sure that there is a lot of effort being put in behind the scenes to convince us that our fearless leaders know best -- not the most comforting of thoughts when you consider one of them is implicated in various financial scandals, and the other manages to crash the economy of a country in a matter of minutes while still being unable to master the art of chewing before swallowing.

These are hardly facts that instil one with confidence, are they?