Interconnect

Time to fight back | 26 February 2005

Douglas Hurd urges politicians to stop giving in to the media, and especially to the culture of brutality, fear and sentimentality epitomised by the Daily Mail

It is 7 a.m. and across Britain sober citizens awake to switch on the BBC Radio Four news. They expect perhaps to hear about Iraqis killing Iraqis, about some hope in Palestine or Gordon Brown’s latest boasts on the economy. Instead, at the top of the bulletin they learn what the BBC judges the most important news of the day. With all solemnity it announces that the Duchess of York has voiced support for Prince Harry in the argument about a swastika at a fancy dress party. How low can the BBC sink in obeisance to the triviality of the popular press? No one should blame the Duchess, who needs all the headlines she can get. But the BBC is a public-sector body, at present arguing its portentous case for continuing the licence fee. That day it led with a story of supreme triviality simply because the press were running it hard.

There is nothing new about the triviality of the tabloids. What is growing fast is the link between that triviality and power. That power is exercised over the BBC, over what used to be called the quality press and, most dangerously, over the politicians whose laws shape our lives. We are becoming a nation of strong journalists and weak politicians.

In its triviality, the press supposes that we cannot absorb sustained argument. It prefers to deal in symbols. These are selected to stimulate one of the three qualities which the press particularly favours in its readers — brutality (including envy and blame), fear and sentimentality. These qualities seem to be particularly highly regarded in the Daily Mail.

Everyone can understand, and many can be brought to envy, the fact that the Prime Minister took an exotic New Year holiday. Every prime minister deserves a decent holiday and every prime minister I have known, except Margaret Thatcher, knows that they need one.

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