Labour Party, Britain

In terms of its use of communication, the Labour Party's evolution can be traced through three stages of propaganda, media, and marketing campaigning. The initial phase involved experimentation with advertising, public relations, and market research techniques. Strategist Sidney Webb's devising of “stratified electioneering” in 1922 was an early attempt to segment and target voters, and this and other methods helped Labour bypass a hostile print media and limited radio service. This experimentation culminated with London party leader Herbert Morrison's successful reelection in a 1937 local campaign devised by marketing experts and focused on persuading less committed supporters. Those involved were influenced by Graham Wallas's contention that mass democracy meant politics would be increasingly about imagery and symbolism. This conflicted with party traditionalists' belief in “making” (rather than “selling”) socialism through interpersonal, didactic methods. Their “educationalist” approach dominated Labour's approach to communication until the 1960s, when Harold Wilson became party leader and the first prime minister to really exploit the growing medium of television.

Whereas previously the aim had been to maximize exposure, Labour's embrace of mediated political communication led to greater refinement of its message. During the run-up to the 1964 general election, strategists called for a “permanent campaign” to appeal to an increasingly affluent, “aspirational” electorate. An image-conscious Wilson perfected the sound bite, evoked a “New Britain,” was compared to John F. Kennedy, and supervised the integration of opinion research, advertising, and public relations techniques and expertise into a campaign that ended with the Labour Party regaining office after 13 years in opposition. Marketing experts played a role in every subsequent election, although they became increasingly marginal prior to the arrival of Neil Kinnock as leader of the Labour Party in 1983 following Labour's traumatic defeat that year. Kinnock oversaw the most thorough reorganization of the party's communications in its history and underlined his commitment to professional methods by streamlining headquarters, recruiting the Shadow Communications Agency of marketing experts, and countenancing the employment of American campaign consultants. Although the subsequent 1987 campaign ended in further defeat to Margaret Thatcher, the new leader and his communications director Peter Mandelson (who was, incidentally, early campaign pioneer Herbert Morrison's grandson) were credited with having rejuvenated Labour's fortunes. The party subsequently embarked on a comprehensive Policy Review driven by opinion polling and focus group evidence provided by advisors, including the influential chief strategist Philip Gould. The review saw Labour embrace a marketing-driven electoral approach, in that opinion research now began to inform policies as well as their presentation. The consequences of this have been widespread and have included the abandonment of several long-standing commitments, together with the party's federal system of internal democracy, resulting in the centralization of power in the leader and his unelected advisers. This marketing-driven settlement did not prevent Labour losing again in 1992, but its ultimate legacy was to [Page 390]help create the circumstances that enabled the charismatic Tony Blair to win the party leadership.