Ros writes in Liberal Democrat News, 11 May 2007

Media Junkie

One of the downsides of a career in politics is that you become a media junkie. That may be alright for the calm in temperament, but for me, blood pressure is regularly sent soaring by the Paxman sneer,  Humphries bias or  Toynbee piety.

Last weeks thrombosis-inducing media lowlight was Simon Jenkins piece in Wednesday’s Guardian – “What are the Lib Dems for?”,  a self-indulgent diatribe against the Liberal Democrats full of self-contradictory vitriol.

Simon Jenkins can write like a dream. He produces reasoned arguments in favour of localism, of devolution, of constitutional change.   He argues cogently for freedom of information and civil liberties and addresses the constitutional vacuum at the heart of modern Britain. He then turns his fire on the only party in the country campaigning for change.

I’d like to think that this was a solitary aberration on the part of Jenkins, but sadly not. How often have you read pieces by self styled ‘liberal’ journos which make a valid critique of this government, only to end in a heavy sigh and continuing support for them?

Since I became a member of our Party, its core principles and policies have remained fundamentally unchanged – constitutional change, civil liberties,  Europeanism within a genuinely internationalist outlook and long standing environmentalism. The voltes-face of Labour and Conservatives are ignored by Jenkins and his like.

Jenkins represents an outdated view of British politics in which only two parties count, and the wishes of the 25% of the electorate who vote for us, and those others who vote for other parties, are dismissed. In politics, as in everything else , the value of  competition as an agent for change is recognised by everyone, except it seems by the old-guard commentariat. He talks about mass membership oblivious to the fact that there are no mass parties anywhere in Europe in the way he fondly recalls. He looks at modern Britain through a prism based on an old left/right thesis, a trait shared by many of his Fleet Street colleagues who look back with nostalgia at a two party age.

Along with many of his colleagues, Jenkins displays a lack of understanding about proportional representation and what can be delivered through it. He argues that we support it out of self interest and a wish for power, and then criticises us for not going into government with the SNP in Scotland. Approaching the election, debate will focus on the hung parliament question, and it is essential that we keep saying that this is an issue for all parties to address, not just the Liberal Democrats. For a media who spend the whole time dismissing us as irrelevant, it’s a bit rich that on this one question they insist on putting all the emphasis on our role, as so-called ‘king makers’.

The problem for our Party in getting our fair share of the media is that there are too many like Jenkins. They fail to see that the new concerns of climate change, globalisation and civil liberties do not fit neatly into their black and white view of the world.

We must guard against trying to fight solely on their territory, using their language because we can’t win like that. The danger of trying “to sound like a party of government” is that the definition has been fixed by years of Labour and Conservative parties working  in collusion with the  media, leaving us to make arguments in a style unsuited to the issues we seek to address. It’s the reason people see political parties as increasingly irrelevant – parties and media talking to each other and not to citizens. That’s why there’s no substitute for addressing people directly, without the filter of our press, whether it’s through Focus, the increasing powerful tools available through the internet, or just getting out there into the community.

Liberal Democrat peers continue to play their part in  Party campaigns, and not just by getting out there with clipboard and focus. David Steel’s daughter, Brian Cotter’s son and David Shutt’s son in law were all elected on May 3rd. Sadly, the offspring of Lords Greaves and Avebury fought valiant if unsuccessful campaigns. John Harris, husband of my Noble Friend Angie was elected, as was  our own Diana Maddock, known as Mrs. Beith in Berwich-upon-Tweed. As Tom McNally was heard to remark, “who said the hereditary principle is dead?”