Cassilis

Polly Toynbee in today’s Guardian on those responsible for ‘fostering gloom’:

“Culprit number one is undoubtedly the media, more virulent than in almost any other western democracy, with too many newspapers competing for a shrinking readership. The Mail's doom-laden poison pretends to speak for an imaginary "middle England", just as the raucous Sun pretends to speak for a fictitious "white van man", reflecting back to the nation mythical caricatures of itself. Mercifully, real people are nicer. Three maverick rightwing owners controlling most of the press set the tone and the agenda - bullying the BBC to follow them in the name of "balance", which the BBC too often does, uncertain of its own compass. Rabidly anti-European, socially penal, xenophobic, anti-state, they spread the simple message that nothing works except markets mitigated by punishment. Instead of breaking away, the dominant voices of the blogosphere often echo and intensify this pessimism and malice”

My first observation is that voters are the ‘real people’ Polly refers to – the ‘nicer’ ones – so it’s not immediately apparent why the situation identified should be a major concern. Those same newspapers were part of the clamour for a New Labour government 11 years ago and it’s not really credible to argue that when they agree with me they’re sensible and moderate but when they don’t…

The other flaw in Polly’s argument is that she’s not actually saying there’s nothing wrong in the country – just that there are different things wrong from those typically pointed out by the Mail etc. Polly regularly goes into bat against the excesses we see in boardroom pay, Labour recent poor performance on inequality and lack lustre attitude to environmental issues – and she often questions why these issues don’t get the attention she thinks they deserve or, by implication, why we don’t have a sort of mass-market, moderate, social democratic version of the Mail that stirs anger and resentment about these different problems.

I often (not always) agree with her positions on these things but advocacy for a different set of ideas is still advocacy, not reporting. Stirring resentment about Lisbon or immigration rather than boardroom pay or the environment IS a political choice but beyond that it’s hard to argue one is fundamentally different from the other – it may be more in keeping with some peoples outlook but that doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate thing for the media and press to do surely?

Polly's article also referenced last weeks row about Tom Harris’ remarks on why everyone is so miserable. I missed this and have only just read through most of the comment about it. I have some sympathy with Tom but a quick thought occurred - imagine a Tory government minister defending his party’s record along the following lines:

“…never been so wealthy…. eating out is as commonplace as going shopping...we spend money in quantities that would have made our parents gasp….more two-car homes in Britain today than there are homes without a car at all….better access to forms of entertainment never imagined a generation ago..”

Polly, among others, would’ve come down on this like a tonne of bricks - the focus on the material and individual wealth, nothing on the environment or equality etc. Labour does of course have more to commend it than that (some of which Tom mentioned) but it’s just strange that no-one seems to have picked up on the overall tone of his piece. “Look, you’re all richer now” is a curious exhortation for a Labour minister to be making...