UK Channel 4 now: great programme on New Labour astroturf

The Dispatches team had an undercover reporter in the Labour press office in the run up to the election, and this is all about her writing letter templates that get sent under various names the local papers ('although I am not a natural Labour voter, I was pleasantly surprised by the Budget ...'). Plus things like sending her to an Alan milburn press conference to sit amongst the press to make him look more popular and interesting. Highly recommended.

It would appear that the Labour party were prepared to do just about anything to prevent either the national press or any ordinary voters coming close to Tony Blair during the election campaign. The fabricated crowds of party hacks pretending to be real people in stage managed photo opportunities was just cynical manipulation of the public . Even the Tories, who are not above pulling a few tricks of their own, seemed sightly taken aback by these tactics. The scene where the Labour party purged some of its volunteers and replaced them with professional canvassers was quite sinister. Indeed, the last shots of party apparatchiks waving their pathetic little red placards whilst giving the 'Great Leader' a ten minute standing ovation would not have been out of place in Pyong Yang. The Labour party may have won three General Election in a row but in the process it has lost half of its members and all of its soul.

Putting a politician in a cocoon such as the one that Blair appears to be living in may minimise difficult questions for the leader but it guarantees that the politician in question will lose touch with the people they are supposed to be serving.

I can actually remember a story in the London Evening Standard about the poster launch where the "endorsers" were clapping to drown out the sound of journalists questions, and I even considered doing a thread on it at the time! And of course we saw more of this in Peter Oborne's excellent documentary during the election, which was used as further evidence of all this in last nights film.

But I was not overLy shocked by the tactics.

I'm certainLy not endorsing them, but I aLways assumed that the cheering crowds were supporters bused in for the occasion; and I've heard foLk from other parties taLking about the Letters to the editor trick.

In the absence of any reaL conviction, reaL poLicy, or reaL Leadership from any of the parties British poLitics has descended to the LeveL where the onLy advantage which can be gained is from the most sLick campaign.

It certainly showed how hollow the claim that they weren't going to concentrate on their media image was. The use of the supporters (eg keeping the real public away from one half of the street, so it's filled with supporters for when Tony comes out - but then refusing to allow reporters to talk to them, while simultaneously refusing to confirm that the supporters were in fact Labour members) is such a big attempt to control the complete image that I'm surprised the media goes along with it.

If they placed the 'endorsers' in the picture, but then allowed the media to interview them (or Blair - when they had to use the endorsers as human shields, it was quite funny), it would seem OK.

I'd love to know which candidate was so lazy that they even asked the central press office to do the 'fill in the blanks' for their constituency.

by our American cousins here. Odd that.

Most candidates wiLL have been pounding the streets physicaLLy meeting as many voters as possibLe - it's the party Leaders who get this treatment.

...seemed to be in the Greater London area. And I think at that point I heard Bromley being mentioned. Bromley & Chiselhurst is a safe Tory seat so the offending candidate may not be in parliament. Certainly I can remember seeing some of the letters to the editor in the Romford press looking a bit fishy but then you also had openly Labour people writing in to slate the Tory MP for Romford too!

tjwmason is correct about much of the dirty tricks being praticed by all parties though. It's just that New Labour tends to be a bit more advanced in those terms.

In fact, it's hundreds of years old.

But I despise the term "astroturfing" - "doughnutting" is the one I'm familiar with. That's the practice where people cluster around a speaking MP in parliament to make him look like part of a large group. I've heard it used for prescos and public meetings as well, but it dates from the televisation of parliament.

"astroturfing" - somebody has been spending too much time reading about American politics :D

I wonder where that could have happened? ;-)

They were pointing out how the American campaign tricks were being imported to the UK. Specifically, it's not the same as 'doughnutting' - it's the practice of getting members to write to their local papers with the same talking points, while not admitting to their party affiliation (or even lying about it) - or even writing in under false names (which Labour seems to have done in at least one case). I think it's an excellent term - artificial grass roots.

The methods on which British election campaigns are operated are quickly converging with methods used in the United States.

Declining voter turnouts, sound bite politics and a total avoidance of debate on virtually any of the real issues effecting the population. It is ersatz democracy.

...this stuff, because I know the Republicans are, and I would at least like to believe that the Democrats try as hard as Republicans to win.

I would also hope that they have more productive ways to spend their time, but if they have time to do this stuff, certainly they shouldn't cede the ground to Republicans.

If Democrats didn't astroturf letters to the editors, right wing groups would be astroturfing 80% of the letters papers receive.

As for filling out audiences, hell, I've done that! That's a lame criticism. I'm shocked that there's gambling at Rick's Place!

were expressly nicked from the Democrats. Zack Exley, creator of http://www.gwbush.com/ worked for Labour during the election and the astroturfing trick is one commonly used by http://www.moveon.org/ . Both of these were mentioned in the programme. As others have mentioned, British politicians copy the US at every opportunity, including the dirty tricks currently in favour.