Friday 21 June 2013

Political class

There's a good article by Steve Richards in the Independent about the way that our leading politicians have concluded that the state should intervene in other countries but stay out of domestic policy. And he rightly identifies this as part of the new consensus that unites Tony Blair and David Cameron and their followers.

Amongst those followers, he refers to a number of journalists: 'The writer Julian Glover gave up a column to work for Cameron. The former Blair adviser Philip Collins became a columnist. Daniel Finkelstein entered the world of commentary from the Conservative Party.' His point is that they all share much the same positions.

But there's another conclusion one might draw. One that would also find room to mention others who have moved between politics and journalism: the likes of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Daniel Hannan, Ed Vaizey... Or, behind the scenes, Steve Hilton (ex-Guardian) and Andy Coulson (ex-News of the World), who used to be so important to Cameron, or Tom Baldwin (ex-Times) and Bob Roberts (ex-Daily Mirror), who are key members of Ed Miliband's inner circle.

In all the media analysis of the political class, the growing covergence between Westminster and Fleet Street tends not to get mentioned as much as perhaps it should be.

3 comments:

Tyrone Jenkins said...

I look forward to reading the book about Glam rock and have requested it as a birthday present! (ditto the book about the 90s!). I agree that glam has been overshadowed the deluge of books about Punk and that the social/cultural significance of the former has been underplayed. The few existing books have been unequal to the task with even the better studies (eg Barney Hoskyns) failing to analyse or even refer to the social-economic-political climate of early 70s Britain. Few studies of Punk are complete with reference to the IMF crisis, the Jubilee, the rise of the new right or Grunwick. Books about Glam rarely mention Heath, Opec, the Three-Day Week etc. I will hazard a guess that your study will make good these omissions!

Tyrone Jenkins said...

I've just noticed that I've posted my comment beneath the wrong article. I doubt the likes of Cameron, Miliband, Balls etc would satisfy any definition of 'Glam'!

Alwyn W. Turner said...

Hi, Tyrone. I've been trying to think of glam politicians, but can't come up with a single suggestion.

Anyway, there's certainly some Heath and Wilson and oil crises in the glam book, and it's probably the only work on the subject to find room for a quote from Lord Hailsham. So, the usual stuff, then, but with the emphasis more on the culture than the politics in this one.