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| Four reasons Jeremy Corbyn needs a spin doctor | Four reasons Jeremy Corbyn needs a spin doctor |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| If his first 48 hours at the helm of the Labour party have demonstrated one thing, it is that Jeremy Corbyn badly needs a spin doctor. | If his first 48 hours at the helm of the Labour party have demonstrated one thing, it is that Jeremy Corbyn badly needs a spin doctor. |
| In decision after decision, he has been making controversial calls that are bound to upset a lot of people. In case after case, however, there is at least an argument for what he is doing – and yet nobody has heard it. | In decision after decision, he has been making controversial calls that are bound to upset a lot of people. In case after case, however, there is at least an argument for what he is doing – and yet nobody has heard it. |
| In every case, too, there are reasons to question the motives of those who were rubbishing him before his landslide win was even announced. And yet, without a practitioner of the dark arts to pour such suspicions into journalists’ ears, such doubts are not being stoked. | In every case, too, there are reasons to question the motives of those who were rubbishing him before his landslide win was even announced. And yet, without a practitioner of the dark arts to pour such suspicions into journalists’ ears, such doubts are not being stoked. |
| Let’s consider a (non-exhaustive) list of four great PR mis-steps that have befallen the new Labour leader in his first three days, and then think about lines that a half-competent spinner might have used to hit back, close things down or move the story on. | |
| To be clear, my purpose is not to defend Corbyn’s calls in each case, many of which I don’t agree with, only to point out that he has a right to be heard, which he is thus far failing to exercise, because of his shambolic refusal to play the media game. | To be clear, my purpose is not to defend Corbyn’s calls in each case, many of which I don’t agree with, only to point out that he has a right to be heard, which he is thus far failing to exercise, because of his shambolic refusal to play the media game. |
| 1. Europe | 1. Europe |
| Labour’s stance towards the European referendum is in chaos, with the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, pre-committing to campaign to remain in the EU, while Corbyn himself has been saying instead that he is disinclined to write David Cameron a blank cheque for the renegotiation of membership. The obvious approach here, around which the bulk of the party could rally, is to throw the issue back at the Conservatives. “It was them, and not us, that demanded this referendum at an arbitrary date, pegged to a renegotiation with objectives that are clear as mud. It is a bit rich to expect us to state exactly how we’ll whip our troops when Cameron himself still can’t come out and say what he’ll do with his own cabinet.” | Labour’s stance towards the European referendum is in chaos, with the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, pre-committing to campaign to remain in the EU, while Corbyn himself has been saying instead that he is disinclined to write David Cameron a blank cheque for the renegotiation of membership. The obvious approach here, around which the bulk of the party could rally, is to throw the issue back at the Conservatives. “It was them, and not us, that demanded this referendum at an arbitrary date, pegged to a renegotiation with objectives that are clear as mud. It is a bit rich to expect us to state exactly how we’ll whip our troops when Cameron himself still can’t come out and say what he’ll do with his own cabinet.” |
| Behind the scenes, “sources close to Corbyn” could usefully soothe pro-European nerves: “As an internationalist party, our inclination is of course to remain within the European family, but it would be irresponsible to declare our hand now, leaving Cameron to barter away British employment rights.” However Corbyn votes himself, it is perfectly plain that he will not have the authority to whip individual Euro-enthusiast MPs to vote against their consciences, so he may as well concede that at once. It would be useful, too, to point to polling that suggests his Euro-ambivalence is in tune with middle Britain. After all, the biggest doubt about him are fringe positions, which many Labour MPs fear will doom him to defeat. So if he’s got an issue where he’s in line with the mood on the streets of Nuneaton, he ought to be pointing that out. | |
| 2. Women | 2. Women |
| The male grip on the top shadow cabinet jobs led to fury, a damaging and avoidable irony given that Corbyn has appointed more spokeswomen than men, and one that owes a great deal to maladroit media management. By dripping out only a very few posts on Sunday night, including the shadow chancellor, foreign and home secretaries, he encouraged the idea that these most important jobs were being filled first – by men. If he’d only waited till Monday and announced the whole team at once, he’d have had half a shot at making the headline that his was the first frontbench to contain more women than men. Spinners could have highlighted novelties, such as the first female shadow defence secretary, in Maria Eagle, while also explaining that the Foreign Office is hardly what it was in the days when Britain ruled the world, and that the Home Office was split in half a few years ago. | The male grip on the top shadow cabinet jobs led to fury, a damaging and avoidable irony given that Corbyn has appointed more spokeswomen than men, and one that owes a great deal to maladroit media management. By dripping out only a very few posts on Sunday night, including the shadow chancellor, foreign and home secretaries, he encouraged the idea that these most important jobs were being filled first – by men. If he’d only waited till Monday and announced the whole team at once, he’d have had half a shot at making the headline that his was the first frontbench to contain more women than men. Spinners could have highlighted novelties, such as the first female shadow defence secretary, in Maria Eagle, while also explaining that the Foreign Office is hardly what it was in the days when Britain ruled the world, and that the Home Office was split in half a few years ago. |
| After all these tricks were missed, the Corbyn camp was playing catchup – but it still had an option that it declined to play. “I’m sure Liz, Yvette, Rachel and others are every bit as committed to getting women at the top table as Jeremy,” a leftist version of Alastair Campbell could have been whispering, “which makes it a pity that they have declined the chance to serve.” | |
| 3. The chancellor | 3. The chancellor |
| The appointment of the trenchant leftist John McDonnell was always going to be the single most difficult thing for the PLP to swallow, seeing as most MPs are convinced that Labour lost the election because it wasn’t trusted with public funds, and so it has proved. Corbyn should have, first, softened up the party up for what he had in mind, and then get himself on the front foot. He might, for example, have declared in his acceptance speech that his huge majority was a vote against austerity above everything else, and further that he’d “to bear that in mind” in building his team. Then, when the time came to declare the inflammatory name, somebody should have explained that McDonnell has authority because he was warning that something was wrong with the economy even before it crashed. Above all, there should have been somebody out there arguing clearly – as Bill Clinton once did – that the trick is to get away from the old, stale argument about tax, borrow and spend, and towards a story of “invest and grow”. But absent a clear economic script, the airwaves were left to be filled with stupid remarks that McDonnell had long ago made about the “bravery” of the IRA. | The appointment of the trenchant leftist John McDonnell was always going to be the single most difficult thing for the PLP to swallow, seeing as most MPs are convinced that Labour lost the election because it wasn’t trusted with public funds, and so it has proved. Corbyn should have, first, softened up the party up for what he had in mind, and then get himself on the front foot. He might, for example, have declared in his acceptance speech that his huge majority was a vote against austerity above everything else, and further that he’d “to bear that in mind” in building his team. Then, when the time came to declare the inflammatory name, somebody should have explained that McDonnell has authority because he was warning that something was wrong with the economy even before it crashed. Above all, there should have been somebody out there arguing clearly – as Bill Clinton once did – that the trick is to get away from the old, stale argument about tax, borrow and spend, and towards a story of “invest and grow”. But absent a clear economic script, the airwaves were left to be filled with stupid remarks that McDonnell had long ago made about the “bravery” of the IRA. |
| 4. The parliamentary Labour party | |
| The mutinous mood of Labour MPs on Monday night was always going to be a bad news story, but it turned into something much worse – a tale of Corbyn somehow losing all control before he’d even assumed it. Journalists are a jaded bunch, who never need much persuading to run with lines such as “sore losers”. One option would be highlighting how many of the same voices who had warned that the election of Corbyn would take Labour back to the civil wars of the 80s were now responding to his win by declaring “let battle commence”. The new leader is, wisely, at pains not to deepen the divide by laying this on too thick, but there is a subtler way to go about it, too. A spinner could be explaining that “MPs face a painful period of grappling with how it is not just New Labour candidates, but new Labour arguments that were found wanting” in the leadership battle. If “the New Labour formula was rigorous capitalism plus social expenditure, and if austerity does away with the social expenditure part of that you’re not left with much of an answer to the sharpest squeeze on wages since Victorian times”. | The mutinous mood of Labour MPs on Monday night was always going to be a bad news story, but it turned into something much worse – a tale of Corbyn somehow losing all control before he’d even assumed it. Journalists are a jaded bunch, who never need much persuading to run with lines such as “sore losers”. One option would be highlighting how many of the same voices who had warned that the election of Corbyn would take Labour back to the civil wars of the 80s were now responding to his win by declaring “let battle commence”. The new leader is, wisely, at pains not to deepen the divide by laying this on too thick, but there is a subtler way to go about it, too. A spinner could be explaining that “MPs face a painful period of grappling with how it is not just New Labour candidates, but new Labour arguments that were found wanting” in the leadership battle. If “the New Labour formula was rigorous capitalism plus social expenditure, and if austerity does away with the social expenditure part of that you’re not left with much of an answer to the sharpest squeeze on wages since Victorian times”. |
| A shrewd comms professional could have charted a way through each of these rows above, and also avoided lesser mistakes, from the late withdrawal from The Andrew Marr show, to distractionary arguments about white poppies on Remembrance Sunday, to the appointment of a vegan agriculture minister who may just fail to hit it off with livestock farmers. | |
| I’m well aware that the young idealists who flocked to Corbyn’s “straight-talking, honest politics” over the summer will be appalled by the very idea of spinning their man. Certainly, the new leader will need a way to continue to talk unmediated to this base, and may also – like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – gain some mileage with the wider electorate for being at ease with himself, and refusing to talk to a script. “This is just Jeremy being Jeremy” will, no doubt, soon become one of the most frequent lines we will hear from the Corbyn press team, when it is eventually hired. But hired it must be, or else he will risk crashing and burning even faster than anyone imagines. |