The Tories have followed their dawn raid against the BBC with broadcast interviews this afternoon. It’s all a natural part of pushing the message. But what is that message? The headlines on Politics Home’s invaluble ‘Green Box’ tell a seemingly contradictory story:
13:14 Cameron: BBC bosses should be paid less and regulated by Ofcom
13:41 “Politicians should not dictate BBC salaries” says Jeremy Hunt
They don’t quite chime together, do they?
Clicking through to the stories that the headlines link to (here and here) reveals two things: 1) This isn’t misrepresentation of the Tory arguments by Politics Home. The given headlines do summarise the main points of Cameron’s and Hunt’s interviews. And, 2) There isn’t any real conflict between what Cameron and Hunt are saying. Hunt’s just sprinkling a dash of nuance on Cameron’s attack line that “there is a pay issue” in the BBC.
But it’s that nuance which leaves the Tories open to being misinterpreted. It confuses the issue – and creates merry play for the No.10 team, who can caricature the Tory position as “internally opposed”. Thing is, this latest potential confusion is rather representative of the Tory operation in recent weeks. On the surface of things, at least, their response to the financial crisis has been less than clear. Would they cut taxes? Would they cut spending? Would they cut borrowing? The answer to each of those questions has sometimes seemed to be “Yes”. At other times it’s seemed to be “No”. But most of the time it’s seemed to be an uneasy “Yes-No” hybrid.
Now, this isn’t a call for a reduction in nuanced thinking from political parties – that’s the opposite of what the country needs. But it is a recommendation that the Tories start employing more careful and direct rhetoric. As I stressed a couple of weeks ago, Brown is a master at bludgeoning the media and the public with one or two lines until (so the polls suggest) they eventually bleed into the national consciousness. For the time being, the Tories can’t match the brutal simplicity of the PM’s narrative that “These problems started in America”; “I’m working with world leaders to get oil prices down/boost the IMF’s cash reserves/rescue the banking system”; “Borrowing is good” etc. etc. But they could do – and without recourse to the little fibs and exaggerations that our PM relies on.
In the meantime, Team Cameron may be doing all the running on the “bloated” Beeb. But a failure to get the public message straight could let another party steal their thunder.
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