On British and U.S. electorates, and their media

The New York Times' Adam Nagourney returns to what is a familiar theme for people interested in US-UK relations: the growing political, cultural, and ideological divide between these two countries. The news peg is of course the upcoming British general election, slated for May, 2005. This promises to be one of the most boring, lacklustre elections in modern UK political history - but only because Prime Minister Tony Blair has managed to dominate the UK with his center-left approach even more comprehensively than Bush has done with his hard-right approach in the U.S. In particular, this has hobbled Britain's main traditional party of the right, the Conservatives. As Nagourney puts it:

In many ways, the Conservative Party in its post-Thatcher era is like the Democratic Party in the post-Clinton era. Each is struggling to find a new defining theme in the face of an ideologically changing electorate and declining support.

In some key regards the contrasts between the UK and the U.S. are quite stunning, indicating "what analysts describe as a growing divergence between the conservative movements here [in the UK] and in the United States, a decade and a half after the end of the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan." Hot-button social issues like abortion and gay marriage have no traction in the UK. Meanwhile, the post-Thatcher electorate is much more lukewarm on tax cuts and much more supportive of strong government action to cure society's ills. This prevailing social-cultural sentiment is something that Blair has capitalized on with great skill - much as Bush and the Republicans have capitalized on the prevailing mood in America to push their radical conservative agenda.

The implications for media editorial policy are equally fascinating. The media in Britain - not only the BBC, but also most of the press, including the conservative tabloids - have, with the exception of immigration policy, effectively indexed themselves to the dominant center-left political-economic climate manufactured by Blair and finance minister Gordon Brown. Even Murdoch's Sun newspaper has endorsed Blair "in what was widely seen here as an example of Mr. Murdoch's placing pragmatism (he has a history of going with a winner) over ideology." (The difference between the political orientations of News Corporation's media operations in the U.S. and Britain is a study in itself - and something I'll definitely return to.) And conservative Americans are staying out of the proceedings, not wishing to offend Blair (whose foreign policy has so closely aligned itself with that of Bush). Thus Nagourney notes:

While it is hard to walk through Labor Party headquarters without spotting some familiar Democratic Party face who has flown over to help out - Bill Clinton appeared by satellite hookup to speak in support of Mr. Blair at a rally on Sunday - there are few if any American Republicans helping out the Conservatives. Mr. Bush, grateful for Mr. Blair's unwavering support on Iraq, has kept out of the contest.

When it comes to each country's national media and their relationship to their respective populations, the differences between America and Britain might be even more pronounced than the political positions of Bush and Blair, respectively, might suggest. Certainly this seems to be the case in relation to the Iraq War. While it is clear the the agenda-setting U.S. media effectively neutered criticism of Bush's policies, the UK media generally took a much more critical stance on the Blair-Bush policy (as we've talked about in the past). And when Blair attempted to use the Hutton inquiry to punish the BBC over the Kelly/Gilligan affair, it was public opinion that persuaded Blair to back off. This reflects not only the dominant political climate in both countries, but also the greater trust the British public seem to have for the socially and culturally liberal BBC (compared to the increasing disdain Americans have for all their domestic media.)

Of course the key thing for this blog is to understand the relative impacts of each country's media on the other. This is something I'm working on, but I think it's fair at this point to take a position that, in news terms, direct U.S. political influence on British news media is not as strong as you might think. Again, the best place to look for evidence of this is with News Corporation's activities on both sides of the Atlantic. Jane Kirtley, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review back in December 2001, favorably compared UK news media - including Murdoch-owned Sky News - with the U.S. networks’ submission to a Bush administration “suggestion” that they don’t run tapes by Bin Laden, or broadcast his voice. Incredibly, it seems (to someone based in the U.S.) Sky News (as well as ITN) sided with the BBC’s position. Notes Kirtley:

Ironically, on October 15 [2001] when British Prime Minister Tony Blair's director of communications tried to persuade the BBC and the other two British TV companies, ITN and Sky, to similarly censor themselves, they politely turned him down, reserving the right to make their own editorial judgments. And they don't even have a First Amendment to protect them.

Of course the other side of the question is discerning UK media's impact on the U.S. - or at least those parts of the U.S. and those populations in the U.S. not defined by Bush's agenda. Some good stuff to be getting on with here.