SHARED OPINION
Celebrating ten years of a medical breakthrough
FRANK JOHNSON
Is it possible that, today, a Jewish moth- er's proudest reference would not be to 'my son, the doctor', but 'my son, the spin doc- tor'? Seldom can a new branch of medicine have achieved fame and reward so quickly. I think I am alone in noticing that the term `spin doctor', as at present applied to poli- tics and public life, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, though it is possible that I think I am alone in noticing this because I am wrong. If so, readers will undoubtedly let me know.
Like most modern terms used in political campaigning, it comes to us from the Unit- ed States. More specifically, the terms come to us from a particular American campaign season. The 1968 presidential campaign gave us 'the silent majority'. The 1980 cam- paign gave us 'middle America'; mutatis mutandis 'middle England'. The 1984 cam- paign gave us yuppie (the 'young, upwardly mobile professionals' who were said to have given Senator Gary Hart his unexpected vic- tory over Mr Walter Mondale in the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary, though Mr Mondale went on to beat him for the presidential nomination).
`Spin doctor' comes to us from the 1988 presidential campaign. Again, the phrase was provided by the struggle for the Demo- cratic presidential nomination. In that year, it may be remembered, the grander Demo- cratic politicians remained aloof from the nomination. The contestants numbered seven, and were inevitably called the seven dwarfs. They had a couple of debates with one another. The first might even have taken place before the opening of the presi- dential year, in which case, as some reader will triumphantly point out, 'spin doctor' is 11 years old, not ten. These debates gripped America less than any public event in the history of the republic, except for the average book of presidential memoirs. After each debate, each candidate's staff moved among the comatose press corps to point out how well their men 'handled' or `fielded' this or that somnolent 'issue'.
What they were doing was putting the best spin on the various answers. The news- papers started calling them spin doctors. Apparently the term derived from baseball. At this point my knowledge of Americana deserts me. I know nothing of that sport. It seems, on the face of it, to be rounders, the girls' game when I was a boy. I am unclear whether the spin is put on by the player who throws the ball, or the player who hits it with that object resembling a thinner rolling pin. Again, readers are bound to enlighten me.
From this tentative beginning there has arisen the world's most influential branch of medicine. Everyone who aspires to importance, or at least self-importance, now feels that they should have a spin doc- tor. 'God's spin doctor', runs a line on the cover of the present issue of this magazine. It may be objected that God's spin doctor was surely St Paul. Not in the modern world. According to us, it is the Church of England's new head of public relations.
The most influential branch of medicine; and the most lucrative one. 'Labour loses top spin doctor,' said a headline in one of the dailies last week, over a report that a Mr David Hill was leaving the Labour party to become 'senior director' at something called Bell Pottinger Good Relations. He would be paid more than double his Labour salary. Most people would not have heard of this Mr Hill. The only spin doctors most of us have heard of are Dr Peter Mandelson and the Government's chief press spokesman, Dr Alastair Campbell. On the face of it, his lack of public renown suggested that this Mr Hill was more of a spin male nurse. But, according to the paper, he was Labour's 'longest-serving spin doctor'. Perhaps he is one of the unsung pioneers of spin research at a time when socialism discouraged it. Perhaps, for his experiments, he had to rob bodies from the political graveyard which in those days tended to supply Labour's front-benchers. Possibly Mr Hill experimented on Mr Michael Foot.
Mr Foot disapproved of public relations. His arriving at the Cenotaph in that jacket proved it. He is unlikely voluntarily to have donated his body to medical science. But Mr Hill would have learnt, from Mr Foot's unwitting torso, how not to do it.
Now Mr Hill is putting his knowledge to the service of mankind. The 'Bell' in Bell Pottinger Good Relations is Sir Tim Bell, who found fame as one of Lady Thatcher's spin doctors before they were known as such. I am afraid I have not looked up who the Tottinger' is. The Times report on the matter said that, after concluding that noth- ing in his political work was ever likely to match last year's election victory, Mr Hill had 'decided to take on a new challenge'. `Taking on a new challenge' is, of course, spin doctors' talk for 'taking on a much higher salary'. Since Labour spin doctors are now much in demand by public rela- tions firms, 'taking on a new challenge' could become a euphemism comparable with 'leaving to spend more time with his family'. We may eventually read that, in quitting Labour's Millbank communica- tions headquarters, this or that Ken Snoop or Rosie Snitch is more than trebling his or her challenge. Eventually, if those observers are right who say that he will come to a sticky end in government, we will read that Dr Alastair Campbell has left to become columnist for this or that tabloid for a £500,000 a year challenge.
Mr Hill is apparently only one of many members of the Millbank Royal College of Spin Surgery to have gone over to private medicine. His good fortune enables us to come to a tentative conclusion on this tenth anniversary of the medical breakthrough. It is the first branch of surgery to improve the health of the consultant at least as much as that of the patient. There is a branch of alternative medicine which argues that Mr Blair would just as easily have won by a landslide without Dr Mandelson's diagno- sis; that the main effect of the operation was to make the world aware of the doctor rather than the patient. People heard of Mr Blair as soon as he became Labour leader. Few had previously heard of Dr Mandel- son. Similarly, the world is now a little more aware of this Mr Hill, or Dr Hill, as Bell Pottinger Good Relations would con- sider him.
On this tenth anniversary, however, there are already signs that the patients are becoming wary of submitting too often to the spin surgeon's knife. These operations can kill. Wisely, politicians are beginning to detach themselves from the language of spin doctoring such as `soundbite'. 'This is no time for soundbites,' said Mr Blair as he arrived in Ulster last week, but went on to say that he felt the hand of history on his shoulder, though admittedly this was as if Churchill in 1940 had announced this was no time for speechifying, before going on to say that if the British empire and its com- monwealth lasted for a thousand years, men would say that this was their finest hour. Mr Blair may no longer need the treat- ment, but the spin doctors may have turned him into a spin hypochondriac.
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