THE CRUCIFIXION OF NEIL
The press: Paul Johnson
sees Mr Kinnock as his own executioner
DID the British press do a hatchet-job on Neil Kinnock's trip to Washington? The Sunday Mirror thought so. Its leader, headed The Poodles of Fleet Street', began: The right-wing British press corps to a man went lusting for Kinnock's blood on their visit with him to Washington.' It later extended the condemnation to 'most of the British press', with 'the honourable exception of the Sunday Mirror and Lon- don Daily News' (another Maxwell paper). But the Mirror's own correspondent, Alis- dair Campbell, did not agree. He thought the damage had been done by the White House (possibly acting in collusion with Margaret Thatcher) and in particular by Mr Reagan's spokesman, Martin Fitzwa- ter. 'When the talks ended', he wrote, even Britain's Tory tabloids deemed the talks a success — until the Fitzwater intervention.'
I don't get the impression reporters were trying to do Kinnock down. David Blundy in the Sunday Telegraph, for instance, presented point by point the different White House and Labour Party versions of the encounter; he reported in extenso the complaints of misrepresentation by Kin- nock's staff, having had access to their notes. Simon Hoggart, in the Observer, gave a very full account of the meeting, which after all only lasted 25 minutes (or 20, or 'less than 20', or 28, according to which source you believe). This was obviously compiled from different infor- mants and came, I imagine, pretty close to the truth. It made very entertaining read- ing. Who but Reagan, for instance, would cap a torrent of Denis Healey statistics by telling a story about what one Soviet general. said to another? And who but Kinnock, confronted with a tight presiden- tial schedule, would waste time with the vacuous observation that Gorbachev is Soviet Man writ large'? I would have more sympathy for the Labour team, grappling with the wiles of Reaganite news-management, if they could demonstrate that Reagan, in any way whatever, owes Kinnock a favour. In fact Kinnock, when he is talking to the com- rades, never neglects an opportunity to Portray Reagan as a monster. It is not just that he will sign any anti-Reagan advertise- ment shoved under his nose. At the last Labour Party conference, in his big speech, I heard him devote ten minutes to de- nouncing Reagan's policy in Nicaragua, and then precisely half a sentence to criticising the Soviet occupation of Afgha- nistan — without even mentioning Russia by name. That is the way Reagan, and indeed America, is seen by Kinnock, or at any rate by the people who write his speeches, and the Americans know it. One of the many differences between Kinnock and his predecessors who actually got to Number Ten, such as Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan, is that they did not make a point of voicing anti-American sentiments. Indeed, the true feelings of the Kinnock entourage came out immediately they real- ised the impact of Fitzwater's press confer- ence. Then came the stories that Reagan had confused Healey with the British Ambassador, that he read from cue-cards, that he had to be directed by his new chief of staff, Howard Baker, and that he spent much of the time simple nodding his head, like an idiot. All of this must have come from the Labour team. Indeed the Mail on `I'm rich, but not beyond the dreams of my avarice.' Sunday led its front page with the story 'Healey blasts Reagan', though the details it gave of the 'amazing personal attack' did not amount to much.
The blow-by-blow dissection of this absurd trip does not reveal any particular desire by the British press to distort the news. What it reveals, rather, is a certain relish in recording the blind folly with which Neil Kinnock inflicted yet another needless wound upon himself. Everything that happened in Washington was predict- able, indeed widely predicted. Why then did Kinnock go there? He must know by now that his defence policy is a disaster. Why therefore is he constantly going on about it? The real damage to Kinnock was inflicted not by the press reports of the trip but by his own verbose and in many cases meaningless answers to questions, as shown to British viewers by both ITN and BBC News. Everyone knows that the present Labour Party defence policy is a compromise between the moderates, who did not want any change at all — wanted to keep the British Bomb in fact — and the Left, who wanted us to leave Nato altogether. So why does Kinnock try to argue it is intended to strengthen Nato? There is no hope of persuading people on either side of the Atlantic to believe this. After Kinnock himself, the man who hurts him most, in my view, does not come from the media at all. He is David Owen, who speaks with the authority of a former Labour Foreign Minister and colleague of Healey, and who is quick to point out the awkward truth whenever Kinnock tries to deploy his implausible pro-Nato line. In- deed, for the coming election Owen is the man Kinnock most needs to fear: the contempt he conveys when dealing with the leader makes impressive television.
Kinnock's present state is worrying. He looks to me like a man who is near the crack-up point. He smiles with his mouth but there is pain and bewilderment in his eyes. The media-exposure of modern poli- tics is overwhelming and can be very cruel. Even Margaret Thatcher, who is a tough old girl and very experienced, is badly hurt from time to time. Kinnock has compound- ed his difficulties by surrounding himself by lightweights who give him bad advice and, worse, keep away from him those with wiser heads. How often, I wonder, does John Smith get a chance to talk to him, or Peter Shore? Much is made, at present, of the role of Bryan Gould, who is said to be transforming the presentation of Labour's policy. I watched him on televi- sion last weekend claith that by 'destroying socialism' Mrs Thatcher meant to end free health care, state schooling and pensions. Can he honestly believe this? And if he knows it is false why does he expect ordinary people to swallow such slanders? Complaints about the media might carry more moral weight if Labour spokesmen like Gould showed some respect for the truth themselves.
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