Lobby Life E-Book

Carole Walker

• Herausgeber: Elliott & Thompson
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 517

Beschreibung

Step into the closed corridors of Westminster with a journalist at the heart of the political establishment for more than two decades. Welcome to the secretive world of the Lobby.'An entertaining and revealing insight into the secretive Westminster club where politics and journalism collide.' Andrew Neil___The unassuming brown laminated card issued to Westminster Lobby journalists is a VIP pass to the heart of our political world. As a political correspondent for the BBC, Carole Walker was a member of this exclusive club for more than twenty years. Whether collaring MPs for a private word in Parliament, attending exclusive Lobby briefings with government officials or travelling with a succession of prime ministers, getting to the heart of the story was paramount.Lobby Life lifts the lid on the secretive world of the parliamentary Lobby, from its conception to the present day, revealing what really happens behind the closed doors of power. Through the rise and fall of successive governments – via war, industrial strife and scandal, the financial crash, Brexit and a global pandemic – we witness the rows and resignations, the drama and debate.Asking urgent questions about the role of the media today, when politicians can engage directly with voters online, bypassing journalists and accountability, Lobby Life will intrigue anyone who wants to understand modern politics.___'Lobby journalists are the media's elite commandos. Carole Walker astutely captures their code of honour and critical place in the informed reporting of our politics.' Sir Alan Duncan, author of In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister'Doesn't only lift the lid on the way our press functions in Westminster, it also does a wonderful job of explaining how the relationship between the Lobby and political parties has shaped the country over the past century.' Marie Le Conte, author of Haven't You Heard: Gossip, Politics and Power'Gripping, enjoyable and accessible.' Sir Anthony Seldon, author of May at 10

Leseprobe

For Tony, Sophie and Gus

CONTENTS

Preface: Go to the Lobby

1 The First Draft of History

2 Censorship, Secrecy and Surveillance

3 Swinging Relationships

4 Bernard and the Boycott

5 A Major Mauling

6 New Labour, New Lobby

7 Spokesperson, Spin Doctor, Spad

8 Tory Travails

9 Lobby on Tour

10 Sexism and Scandals

11 Survival

Appendix 1: Lobby Rules, 1982

Appendix 2: Lobby Rules, 2018

Acknowledgements

Notes

Bibliography

Index

PREFACE: GO TO THE LOBBY

It was on a cold, grey morning early in 1996 that I walked into Downing Street for my first Lobby briefing. I showed my freshly minted brown plastic pass to the policeman at the security gates and followed a small group of journalists in through the front door of No. 10. ‘You had better go to the Lobby with John’, had been the instruction from my new boss at the BBC’s political unit. I did not know what she meant: the lobby of the House of Commons, or that of our offices close by? And which John was she talking about? In those days there were more BBC political correspondents called John than there were women lobby journalists.

‘Yes, great,’ was the obvious response. I was not going to reveal my ignorance. What she meant was that I should attend the Monday morning Lobby briefing from the prime minister’s press secretary and the John, on this occasion, was John Sergeant, the BBC’s chief political correspondent. It would be many years before his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing made him a national celebrity, but he was a big figure in Westminster journalism, known to his colleagues as Sergy, though I did not dare use such a familiar term at the time. I tagged along as he marched to Downing Street and launched into his assessment of the current state of British politics. The prime minister, John Major, was beleaguered after years of Tory divisions, scandals and rebellions, and his majority had dwindled to less than a handful of MPs. Sergy had plenty to say about the Conservatives’ woes, but no explanation or advice as to what I should expect at the gathering we were about to attend.

Entering the front door of No. 10 we turned right, into a sitting room with a couple of sofas and a few chairs. There were not nearly enough seats for all of us and, as the political editors and senior correspondents bagged the comfortable spots, I sat on the floor wishing I had worn trousers. I was the only woman in the room. John Major’s press secretary, Christopher Meyer, arrived with a posse of press officers. I had an excellent view of his elegant red socks as he gave us a list of the prime minister’s plans for the week ahead and key announcements from other government ministers. There were questions about Home Office proposals for tougher prison sentences for burglars and drug dealers to be revealed later that week.

Christopher (now Sir Christopher) Meyer went on to become British ambassador to the USA, but he had already spent many years as a diplomat and was clearly at ease as he fended off difficult questions with well-polished charm. He delivered some key messages on the need to address public concerns about serious crime, without giving any details of the measures to be announced. I scribbled frantically, aware that my shorthand was rusty. There was no question of anyone recording his words. The briefing was strictly off the record; any comments were to be attributed to ‘sources close to the prime minister’ or ‘Westminster sources’. I subsequently realised that certain journalists, keen to hint at their contacts in the inner circles of power, would use phrases such as ‘I understand from senior sources’ before trotting out quotes from a Downing Street Lobby briefing.

No one had explained any of this to me. Indeed, it was only when researching this book that I discovered that there was, in fact, a book of rules, entitled Notes on the Practice of Lobby Journalism, published in 1982. It included the instruction: ‘DON’T TALK ABOUT LOBBY MEETINGS BEFORE OR AFTER THEY ARE HELD’, in capital letters.

On the way back from Downing Street, I felt it wise to probe gently about the terms of the briefing Sergy and I had attended, without giving away how little I knew. He gave a lengthy and magnanimous explanation, enjoying his role as one of the elder statesmen of the Lobby. Back at the office, everyone gathered around as he gave a read-out of what we had been told, followed by his own fulsome assessment of what he believed were the real messages behind the words and how they were likely to be received.

I still had to be formally introduced as a member of the Lobby at the afternoon briefing at 3.45 p.m., which until recently took place in a small room at the top of a spiral staircase in one of Parliament’s Gothic spires. Finding it through the maze of corridors, columns and steps was one of the first challenges for a new recruit. The format of the afternoon session was different from that at No. 10, with a senior journalist chairing the meeting and inviting Christopher Meyer to address the room. It was only after twenty-five minutes of questions and banter that I was formally welcomed as a new member. There was a low-key murmur of ‘Hear, hear’, before everyone scurried out to meet their afternoon deadlines.

Over the next twenty years, I attended hundreds of Lobby briefings. While these official gatherings could be a chore, sometimes lengthy and boring, they also yielded key lines signalling the fate of embattled ministers or gave the first hint of policy changes to come. Looking back, it seems extraordinary that the BBC’s Westminster team would often have to wait for one of its senior correspondents to return from the Monday morning Lobby briefing to discover that the foreign secretary was making a statement in the Commons that afternoon or that the environment secretary would be addressing farmers on Thursday.

Yet the announcement of government business at the start of each meeting was simply the prelude to the main performance – the chance to ask the prime minister’s representative whatever you wanted, to follow up with specific queries and to glean unexpected gems from the questions of your colleagues from rival organisations. The spokesman, and it was a man for most of my time at Westminster, would often give cautious answers, repeat agreed lines or duck the subject completely. The gatherings could be tense and combative, with the assembled media trying to force admissions of mistakes or failings when a government was on the back foot. When I first arrived, with little experience of the inner workings of the political world, it was not always easy to spot the real significance of an apparently bland answer, but I learned to look out for the phrases that hinted at an imminent U-turn or lack of support for a minister in trouble.

By the evening of my first day as a political correspondent I thought I had at least learned what was meant by ‘the Lobby’. In fact, it refers not only to these briefings from No. 10 and the group of political journalists who attend them, it can also mean the Members’ Lobby: the grand hallway adjoining the Commons Chamber, surrounded by statues and busts of former prime ministers, and once the best location for catching a quick word with passing MPs and ministers. This unfettered access to politicians across all parties and shades of opinion is as important as the No. 10 briefings, perhaps even more so for any reporter wanting to tell the full story of the latest political drama. Such conversations would traditionally be on ‘Lobby terms’, meaning that the source of your off-the-record chats cannot be named.

While the importance of preserving the concept of ‘Lobby terms’ is restated in the latest version of the Lobby journalists’ rules, others have evolved over the years, and some of the more idiosyncratic conventions have been dropped. The late Chris Moncrieff, former political editor of the Press Association news agency and a legendary Lobby figure, took a bold step back in the 1970s when he produced a notebook and pencil while talking to an MP in the Members’ Lobby to jot down some key quotes, defying a long-held unwritten agreement that this simply was not done. He got away with it and other journalists quickly followed suit. This was a significant breakthrough.

Other obscure rules survive to this day. Another late, great journalist, Anthony Howard, who became editor of the New Statesman and deputy editor of the Observer, recalled the trouble that ensued when he sat down on one of the benches at the side of the Members’ Lobby. ‘All sort of hell was let loose,’ he told the BBC. ‘Policemen rushed forward and said, “You can’t sit there, get up”,’ an episode he described as ‘absolutely absurd’.1 When the Lobby rules were updated in 2018, the ban on journalists sitting down in the hallowed hallway was amended to allow them to sit on one small bench by the doorway to what is known as ‘the Ways and Means corridor’. Progress indeed.

For Howard, these seemingly trivial edicts reinforced his highly critical view of the Lobby, a club he refused to join. He believed the arrangement was cosy and corrupt, creating an incestuous relationship between politicians and the press. He is certainly not alone in that view.

Throughout its history, the Lobby has been the focus of numerous rows and controversies. Critics have argued that it allows the government too much power to manipulate the agenda, putting its own slant on announcements. They believe the system has encouraged lazy journalism and a herd mentality among its reporters. Its defenders insist that it has always been an important channel of communication between Downing Street and the media, an opportunity for correspondents to challenge the prime minister’s spokesperson and to gain a better understanding, which they can pass on to their readers. After two decades working in the highly competitive environment of Westminster, among some of the most ambitious and well-connected journalists anywhere, I do not believe it would be feasible for any self-respecting reporter to rely on the daily briefings for anything more than one very specific aspect of a story: the view that those in power wish to convey.

I left the Lobby in 2017 when I decided to move on from my job as a BBC political correspondent to work as a freelance political commentator, journalist and presenter. It was only after I handed in that unobtrusive brown pass that I realised it was in fact a golden ticket that granted access not only to the most powerful people in the land, but to their rivals and opponents too. It gave me advance sight of sensitive information and allowed me to challenge one of the prime minister’s closest advisers, day after day, whatever political storm was swirling. The system is undergoing radical change, but still provides an essential framework for those who seek to explain what is going on at the heart of our politics away from public view.

The Lobby may be a very different place today from its nineteenth-century beginnings, and a far more open institution than the one I left a few years ago. Nevertheless, there remain many tales to tell about this once highly secretive institution, which has been central to so many battles between journalists and government across the decades.

Drawing on interviews with former colleagues, politicians, spin doctors and critics of the system, as well my first-hand experiences, Lobby Life will give you an insight into the manoeuvrings behind the closed doors of Westminster, the efforts to hold our politicians to account and their struggles to shape the news agenda. I am enormously grateful to all those who have generously shared their experiences and perceptions of our political system, and I hope you will find it as intriguing as I have.

The Lobby remains a privileged club, one which I may yet seek to rejoin – if I am still welcome.

1 THE FIRST DRAFT OF HISTORY

‘So, let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never be completed about a world we can never really understand.’

Philip L. Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, April 1963

‘N ow, for the very latest on this story, we can go live to Westminster and speak to our political correspondent Carole Walker, who has just come from a briefing by the prime minister’s press spokesperson for Lobby journalists. Carole, what is the word from Downing Street?’ That is the sort of introduction I heard on numerous occasions in my time as a BBC political correspondent. I would race to a live camera position outside Parliament to explain the government’s response to the latest row, trying to focus on the key lines to emerge from an often lengthy and confrontational session. For decades it would have been a blatant breach of Lobby rules even to report that I had attended such an event, let alone broadcast the details of what I had been told. Journalists who belonged to the Lobby were instructed not to mention that such briefings took place, even to their colleagues.

Chris Moncrieff told me that when he first worked at Westminster in the 1970s, he was warned that he should not tell even his wife about the regular gatherings he attended in Downing Street or the Commons. John Pienaar, the radio presenter and former deputy political editor of the BBC, said that when he first worked at Westminster in 1982 the Lobby was like MI6: ‘Everyone knew it was there but it didn’t formally exist, nor did the briefings, and the number-one rule was that you did not attribute anything to the spokesman, describing any information as from a Whitehall source, which was in itself misleading.’

Nevertheless, the regular briefings from the prime minister’s spokesman, or more recently spokeswoman, are at the heart of the system of Lobby journalism. For many years, members of this club were instructed to attend, unless they had very good reason to be absent. Still, the journalists usually needed no such edict to seize the opportunity to question one of the leader’s closest aides. Over many decades, before the advent of digital media, the lines delivered by No. 10 at these encounters would often become important ingredients of newspaper reports, to be preserved in cuttings libraries for decades and generations to come, serving as a public record of events. Which is why the briefings, and the reports that followed, have so often become the focus of battles between government and press, and also why this arrangement has survived for so long. As the historian and former Westminster journalist Lord Hennessy told me: ‘There’s this dreadful, compulsive mutuality of interest. It drives both sides mad, but they cannot do without it and indeed both sides are striving, are they not, to dominate the content of the first rough draft of history.’

Today, when we have so many sources of news and information on our phones and laptops, the power of the newspapers to control our knowledge and understanding of politics is diminished. Correspondents from the press, broadcasters and websites race to be the first to tweet the latest lines from the regular Lobby briefings. The rules, which had stipulated that nothing could be published or broadcast until the meeting was over, were recently relaxed so the words of the prime minister’s spokesperson can be read online within moments. The message from No. 10 now reaches millions of people moments after it has been delivered. It still has the power to establish a first draft of history, however much that may change in the subsequent hours and days.

Yet this almost instantaneous dissemination of the government’s case does not necessarily work to its advantage. If it subsequently decides on a different approach, performing the U-turn beloved of headline writers, the words and phrases from its official briefings stand as evidence of its lack of consistency.

While much has been written about the levels of vitriol and abuse that characterise many of our current debates, politics has always been about argument and dissent. Thus the briefings from No. 10 can only ever provide one element of any story. The Lobby reporters’ right to wander freely into parts of the Palace of Westminster that are off-limits to anyone else, apart from MPs and parliamentary staff, is arguably even more valuable in the quest to explain the political mood of the moment, the opposition to the government’s aims as well as its objectives.

Traditionally, a key stamping ground for political reporters was the Members’ Lobby, the anteroom to the Commons Chamber. It is a venue that still provides good opportunities for journalists to catch a word with MPs as they stride across the Pugin tiles on their way into a debate or pause to chat to colleagues. Words uttered immediately after a key vote, all off the record of course, can still give vital colour, conveying the emotion of a historic moment.

I remember all too well the awkward social dance as I tried to catch the eye of a minister already in conversation with a colleague, or intercept a potential rebel on the way to a parliamentary division. These days, such all-important chats are more likely to take place in the glass-roofed courtyard of Portcullis House, which opened in 2001 to provide additional offices and meeting places for MPs and their staff. The coffee bar and canteen is usually teeming with politicians and journalists, though it has never been the best location if you want to keep your source secret. The setting is more informal, the social dance updated to involve complex manoeuvres over cappuccinos, but the chance encounters and casual chats still yield the quotes and tip-offs that have always been essential for anyone writing the political narrative of our times. Recently this task was made much harder, with many MPs working online and all human interaction on the parliamentary estate becoming masked and distanced due to Covid-19.

Still, although the majority of MPs tweet their views and announcements and update constituents on their own websites, today’s political correspondents need those quiet conversations to root out stories and discover what is really going on behind the scenes. And every MP has a campaign, an issue or personal mission that they wish to bring to a wider audience, even if they do not want their names revealed. It’s little wonder that the early efforts of Boris Johnson’s aides to clamp down on such discussions never really succeeded. Reporters and politicians will always find ways to exchange news, views and gossip, even when it has to be done remotely.

During numerous crises over the decades, Lobby journalists were often the first to get wind of looming emergencies, either from embargoed official briefings or from contacts who were well placed to pass on sensitive information, provided they were not revealed as the source. Indeed, it was during the turmoil of the General Strike of 1926, when the government realised the importance of conveying a coherent message to the country, that the first collective Lobby briefings began. A dispute that started over the pay and working conditions of coal miners escalated as the unions brought more than 1.5 million workers out on strike. Public transport was crippled, the armed forces were deployed to protect food deliveries and fights broke out between police and pickets in cities across the UK. As the cabinet met to discuss the increasing chaos, Westminster journalists struggled through crowds of angry strikers outside Downing Street to try to catch a word with ministers. In an effort to get a grip on the situation, the government decided to invite them in separately from the rest of the press for ‘guidance’.

It was a significant moment, establishing the exclusive right of members of the Lobby to get the inside track on the government’s approach. Indeed, the Committee, which governs the Lobby, was keen to underline the fundamental principle that only its members should attend these conferences, as ‘ministers often speak confidentially, and the Committee can only assure ministers that our own members will respect confidences’.2 The suggestion that such briefings should be held regularly would come three years later.

The country’s first Labour prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, had been given a hard time by the largely right-wing press during his first brief spell in office in 1924. Despite, or perhaps because of, this, when he returned to power for a second term in 1929 he sought to formalise relations with journalists. The Lobby Journalists’ Committee papers for that year show that it was approached by No. 10 ‘with a view to the provision of regular machinery for facilitating press enquiries’.3 Arrangements were made for an MP called W. W. Henderson to act as liaison officer between the government and the Lobby. MacDonald’s advisers clearly hoped to get a more positive account of his leadership into the papers, then the main source of news, but Mr Henderson provided little information at the gatherings and the arrangement soon lapsed.

Relations between government and journalists were further strained when one of the Lobby correspondents was interrogated and threatened with arrest under the Official Secrets Act. In the spring of 1930, Jack Kirk of the News Chronicle was questioned for five hours after reporting that the government had approved the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi for his civil disobedience campaign in India. Gandhi had a huge following among Indian citizens, and the British administration feared he was undermining its grip on the country. It was Frederick Truelove of the Daily Sketch who first got a tip-off that the cabinet had approved Gandhi’s detention. He needed corroboration of such sensitive news, and managed to speak to the home secretary himself, J. R. Clynes, who was an old friend. Clynes gave him a clear signal that Gandhi would not be allowed the freedom to continue his protests for much longer. Truelove decided to share his story with Kirk and William Forse of the Daily Telegraph. It seems extraordinary that he would pass on his exclusive scoop, but such collaboration was not unusual then and it seems that Truelove was nervous about going it alone with such a big story. All three papers carried similar reports of ‘decisive action’ to be taken against Gandhi, with his arrest ‘to be expected at any time’, after the administration in India had sought and received the backing of ministers at Westminster. Within hours of publication, Scotland Yard officers turned up at the offices of the three newspapers, requesting information about the journalists involved in what they said were potential breaches of the Official Secrets Act. While the editors of the Telegraph and the Sketch refused to co-operate, the deputy editor on duty at the News Chronicle provided Kirk’s name and address. The officers swiftly moved on to Kirk’s home, demanding to know the source of his story and continuing their questioning for many hours.

Shaken by the experience, Kirk phoned Truelove to tell him what had happened. Truelove then pulled strings with his contacts at the highest level, speaking to both Scotland Yard’s chief inspector and to the home secretary, who had confirmed the story in the first place. Clynes informed the prime minister of his own role and the police investigation was called off. Seven days later, Gandhi was indeed arrested.

That was not the end of the matter, though. The Opposition raised the episode in the Commons, MacDonald lectured his cabinet about leaks from their meetings and Lobby journalists took up the battle for press freedom. The Lobby Committee set up a special sub-committee to consider the whole question of the interrogation of Lobby journalists under the Official Secrets Act. In its report, the following year, it declared that the Act ‘should never be used except in cases of real importance and then only with caution. Certainly the Acts ought not to be used to interfere with the political and other news which is communicated to their newspapers by Lobby Journalists’.4 Significantly, they also succeeded in getting an undertaking from the Attorney General ‘that in future, where he found it necessary to make inquiries involving journalists under the Official Secrets Acts, he would personally see the journalist before police action was authorised’.

In addition, there was a commitment from government that senior members of the Lobby Committee would have the right to be present, and to make representations to prevent the abuse of the Act, if it was used against any of their members in future. Although the arguments over the Act continue to this day, it was a recognition of the importance of a free press and a moment when No. 10 was forced to realise the limits of its power.

It was in 1931, after this episode, that the Lobby Committee persuaded Downing Street that the government’s relations with political reporters would improve if regular briefings from a designated liaison officer were reinstated. The prime minister’s private secretary, Herbert Usher, agreed to be available to speak to them at No. 10 between 12 noon and 12.30 p.m. every day when Parliament was sitting, and in the House on other occasions. The arrangement fell apart as the political and economic crisis gathered pace, just as it became more important than ever for journalists to get a proper understanding of the immense problems gripping the nation.

The Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression had a devastating impact on British industry, as exports slumped, sterling plummeted and unemployment soared. The Labour government collapsed, leaving journalists struggling to keep pace with events. The official briefings lapsed amid disarray over who was running the country and the media resorted to a dramatic surge into Downing Street to try to find out what was happening. The Lobby Committee’s annual report bewailed the ‘absence of machinery at the time of crisis’, which it said was ‘a handicap alike to politicians and journalists’. Its usually dry ledger conveyed the drama of the time: ‘In practice it resolved itself into mass bombardment of the door of No. 10, Downing Street and Lobby journalists were compelled to take part in much undesirable questioning of cabinet ministers in Downing Street.’5

This surging crush sounds very similar to the media scrums of recent years, in which I have so often been a participant, with reporters and camera crews jostling to catch a word with ministers on their way to key meetings in Whitehall. These chaotic ‘doorsteps’, as they are known, add to the sense of drama, but they rarely provide ministers dodging the cameras with a proper chance to tell their side of the story. When Ramsay MacDonald controversially returned to power in 1931 at the head of a new National Government, including Conservatives and Liberals, he sought to avoid such scenes in future. A civil servant called George F. Steward was appointed as an additional private secretary who arranged what were described as ‘conferences’ with Lobby journalists at No. 10.

This was to be the start of regular Lobby briefings, where reporters were given embargoed information on matters such as the New Year’s Honours List and the Revenue Returns. They were also granted informal meetings with the prime minister himself, ‘relaxed social and personal chats, far removed from the formal, politically geared sessions which became the set style in later years’.6 This is something that rarely happens today – aside from occasions such as the Christmas drinks reception at No. 10.

Although MacDonald was the first prime minister to introduce these regular briefings for Westminster journalists, the Lobby itself had already existed for almost fifty years. It is hard to imagine the scene back in the nineteenth century when anyone could wander into Parliament. It was, in those days, a noisy, crowded place with large numbers passing through to gaze at the architecture, accost their MP and soak up the atmosphere at the heart of our democracy. In 1870 the Speaker, John Evelyn Denison, wrote in his diary that the Members’ Lobby was so crowded that ‘members could not get to the Vote Office, or to the refreshment room, or to and from the House, without being pressed upon and thronged, not only by constituents, but by members of deputations and other strangers, to their excessive inconvenience’.7

It sounds remarkably similar to some of the scenes at Westminster during the crucial Brexit debates of 2019, when MPs were harangued by campaigners on opposing sides of the argument. However, most of these more recent confrontations happened outside Parliament, which is now surrounded by a formidable array of security measures, including solid-steel barriers, concrete bollards and towering wrought-iron fences, all patrolled by heavily armed police. You can get inside by arranging to attend a Commons debate or to visit your MP, but unless you are the holder of the magic brown Lobby pass you will need to provide identification and go through airport-style security scanning.

The precedent for this was set 150 years ago when Speaker Denison decided that only MPs should be allowed into the Members’ Lobby, while the public would be able to meet their representatives in the Central Lobby. Special access for journalists was added soon after, when a list was drawn up of reporters who were permitted to keep their freedom to enter the Members’ Lobby and speak to MPs outside the debating Chamber. It is unclear exactly when the arrangements were formalised, as many of the Lobby records were destroyed during the Second World War, but the process started early in the 1880s.

In 1885, the existing list of Lobby correspondents was scrapped, and new arrangements were drawn up by the Speaker, Arthur Peel. These severely curtailed the rights of journalists, who lost their access to the Members’ Lobby and even had to seek special permission to get to the Press Gallery to report on the proceedings of the Commons.

There was an outcry from reporters, who declared that the restrictions would prevent them from doing their jobs. One of them said: ‘The loss to the public would be immense if the press lost touch of each political situation as it arose.’8 They resolved to take up the matter with the Speaker and it is worth noting that, even at this stage, they formed separate delegations. One consisted of parliamentary reporters, whose role was to provide accounts of debates and statements on the floor of the Commons and Lords. The other represented Lobby correspondents, who wrote stories on the wider political picture, often informed by their conversations in the Members’ Lobby. Both groups succeeded in persuading Speaker Peel to change the rules once more. Restrictions on their rights of parliamentary access were lifted and newspapers were issued with tickets for the Lobby – just one per newspaper, with the exception of the London morning papers, which got two passes. The authorities had realised that proper coverage of the political life of the country was an essential element in the first draft of its history.

This formal allocation of tickets marked the creation of the Lobby List kept by the Serjeant at Arms, responsible for keeping order in the Commons, with the names of all the holders of the coveted Lobby passes. The new arrangements resulted in fewer passes overall, a development welcomed by those who did qualify and jealously guarded their privileges. As the London Standard put it at the time: ‘None will be more pleased than those who have real work to do in the lobby to find it closed in future against the soi-disant leaders of opinion, the miscellaneous button-holers and the propagandist idlers who haunt the House on important occasions and pester Members with their trivialities.’9

For some, this moment in 1885 marks the official creation of the Lobby. However, there is some dispute over the precise date. The Lobby celebrated its own centenary in 1984 with a glittering lunch at the Savoy Hotel, where members were addressed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The respected journalist James Margach suggested an even earlier beginning, in 1881. He recalled how two of the Lobby’s founding fathers, R. G. Emery of the Morning Post and Alexander Mackintosh of the Aberdeen Free Press, were entertained in style in 1931 on completing fifty years as accredited Lobby correspondents. Frederick J. Higginbottom, a Lobby journalist in the 1890s who went on to become editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, concurred with that earlier date: ‘Lobbying by journalists began to be practised seriously in 1881, and ten years later had come to be tolerated, but by many members very grudgingly.’10

It is important to note, despite Higginbottom’s use of the word, that Lobby journalists do not in fact do any ‘lobbying’ as we understand the term today. Lobbyists are employed by companies or commercial groups to try to persuade or influence legislators for the benefit of their businesses. Lobby journalists use their access to the corridors of power to get stories and intelligence on political developments, which they then publish or broadcast to inform a much wider audience.

It is clear that from these days in the Gladstone era, Lobby journalists prided themselves on pursuing a very different role from that of their colleagues in the Press Gallery, who reported on proceedings in Parliament. Higginbottom had this explanation:

While the practitioners in the gallery are limited to writing about the daily debates, the lobby men must be forever looking for the events that are to come, anticipating and foreshadowing developments in policy and parliamentary tactics. The faculty of anticipation is cultivated by constant contact with members of all shades of opinion and every degree of influence: by conversation, observation and questioning, deduction and speculation.11

For all the huge changes in media and technology since then, this remains a pretty apt summary of the role of political correspondents today. Their contacts with ‘members of all shades of opinion’ are essential in establishing an accurate picture of our ever-changing political landscape. They would also identify with the difficulties faced by their nineteenth-century counterparts when trying to waylay reluctant ministers, though an account written a few decades later suggests parliamentarians did gradually accept the role of the Lobby journalist: ‘The way of the lobbyist was hard in contrast with what it is today. Then one had to walk warily and calculate the chances of rebuff in approaching a minister or member for the first time; now, information is asked for and expected almost as a right and even ministers are canvassed for news with a freedom that forty years ago would have been resented.’12

This was written in the early 1930s, when George Steward had just been brought in by Ramsay MacDonald to liaise with reporters and became the first and only press officer in the whole of Whitehall. Journalists saw his appointment to this new role as a positive step in formalising relations with Downing Street and praised his ‘personal helpfulness’. They were, however, wary of the ‘danger that [this position] may become too much a personal service of the prime minister’ and could have the effect of ‘putting members of the Government further away from members of the Lobby’.13

The political journalists were quick to spot a move by Downing Street to control the narrative, discourage other ministers from speaking out of turn and provide their own lines for that first draft of a story. They were even more concerned with preserving the secrecy of the Lobby system and its private off-the-record briefings, issuing members with frequent reminders of the rules:

It is desirable that members should not talk in public of the source of their information, or discuss with others – especially those who did not attend a meeting and are, therefore, not bound by any pledge of secrecy – any information given at a confidential talk.

Nor should any phrase or word be used in the stories written which might indicate the source of information. Such expressions as ‘I learn on the highest authority’; ‘a member of the cabinet’; ‘in ministerial quarters’ should be avoided where concealment of source is especially desirable.14

The result was that as the government grappled with the economic crisis of the 1930s, stories would emerge without being attributed to anyone, although no one really objected at the time. Lobby journalists were happy to abide by the rules, as long as they were getting the guidance and information from No. 10 that was so important for their reports. The government was equally content to stick to an arrangement that allowed it to make its case without being accountable. It was a mutually convenient agreement that remained largely unchanged for almost sixty years, when the pressure for greater transparency finally resulted in Prime Minister John Major’s press secretary being referred to as a ‘Downing Street source’.

In the pre-war era Westminster reporters also had to contend with the suspicion of MPs, some of whom resented the power and access of journalists. As the Lobby briefings became more frequent, a Conservative MP named Sir Herbert Williams organised a rota of backbenchers to keep watch on the entrance to the meeting room and identify which ministers were entering and speaking. Questions were raised in the Commons as to whether members of the government should be disclosing information to the press before telling the Commons. Yet ministers batted away the criticism and the Lobby system survived, with successive governments seeing it as a crucial channel for getting their message to the wider public. George Steward served three different prime ministers: Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain.

Chamberlain had been health secretary and chancellor before he became prime minister in May 1937, with a record of significant reform when it came to pensions and healthcare. His premiership, though, was dominated by his campaign for appeasement, his belief that the only way for Britain to avoid being involved in another war was to reach a deal with Hitler and Mussolini. History tells a damning indictment of that pursuit and of his extraordinary efforts to convince journalists that his strategy was working in the face of mounting evidence of the build-up to war.

Chamberlain had begun meetings with Lobby correspondents when he was chancellor and continued the practice when he became prime minister, determined to secure positive coverage of his policies. He began taking a select group of journalists from newspapers sympathetic to his cause to lunch at St Stephen’s Club, considered a safe location as it was the exclusive preserve of Conservative MPs and other senior party figures. It is clear he set out to manipulate the media into supporting his plans by every possible means. As well as Steward’s continuing briefings for Lobby journalists, Major Joseph Ball, a former head of MI5’s investigation branch, became a party press officer, a political fixer who operated behind the scenes. What is perhaps most remarkable was the amount of time and effort Chamberlain devoted to dealing personally with Lobby journalists and their editors.

Initially, there was significant support for Chamberlain’s views among the public and some newspapers. As war clouds gathered over Europe, and the prime minister faced rising opposition, not least from Winston Churchill and other high-profile Conservatives, he resorted to threats and, at times, lies about the international situation. James Margach, a Lobby correspondent at the time, knew Chamberlain long before he took office in 1937 and gave an eviscerating account of how the prime minister employed what he called ‘news management on a grand scale’, particularly when dealing with the Lobby behind closed doors:

. . . he bitterly resented any critical – or even probing – questions whatever; he always felt they were inspired by opponents. Sometimes he would reply with a haughty sneer. Then he developed a more intimidating style. When he sensed critical undertones, he would pause deliberately and ask the correspondent if he would identify the name of the newspaper he represented – the implied blackmail being that the editor and proprietor would not take kindly to their Westminster man proving unfriendly and unpatriotic. He made no attempt to conceal his anger on such occasions.

Alternatively, when asked a question that he resented he would attempt to snub a correspondent with frozen silence; after an eloquent pause, staring contemptuously at the questioner without saying a word in reply, he would turn aside, look in a different direction and snap ‘Next question, please’.15

It has all the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s approach to the US media eighty years later, though in Chamberlain’s day there were no cameras present and none of his remarks would have been quoted directly.

The prime minister also took to wooing newspaper proprietors, editors and leader writers, many of whom did indeed write articles and stories supportive of his approach. His closest confidant was Geoffrey Dawson of The Times, who was clearly won over by Chamberlain’s entreaties. He even wrote a letter to one of his foreign correspondents, saying he could not understand why the paper’s coverage had annoyed the Germans, when he had been altering despatches ‘night after night to keep out of the paper anything that might have hurt their susceptibility’.16

As late as March 1939, six months before the outbreak of the Second World War, Chamberlain himself met a group of Lobby journalists to give them his assessment of the situation. Under the headline ‘Brighter Outlook’, The Times reported: ‘The more optimistic feeling in political circles is attributable not only to the consciousness of a swift growth in our armed strength, but also to an improvement in the international outlook. Difficulties and dangers enough remain, but in general the international situation seems now to give less cause for anxiety than for some time past.’17

Chamberlain’s success in shaping the first draft of history in the crucial months leading up to the war seems astonishing today, particularly when rivals, including Churchill himself, were stepping up their warnings of the Nazi threat. There was, of course, no mass media; the BBC was in its infancy and the papers were still the main source of news.

The Lobby briefings were a crucial channel for Chamberlain’s propaganda exercise as his message, delivered unattributably, was faithfully conveyed in column inches. Decades before anyone used the phrase ‘fake news’, journalists attending them succumbed all too often to the prime minister’s powers of persuasion and intimidation as he insisted his efforts to broker a deal with the Führer were working:

In all situations and in all crises, however menacing, he always claimed that the outlook was most encouraging, with not a cloud in the sky; he claimed his contacts with Hitler and Mussolini were very good and that the dictators were responding with understanding and promise, and if only Left-wing newspapers would stop writing critical and insulting things about them, he was confident that Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini . . . would co-operate with him in his peace initiative.18

Chamberlain would assure the political correspondents that they could go off on their holidays at Easter and Whitsun in 1939 without worrying about the world situation. Margach admits that all too often he and others were caught out, and that their reputations suffered: ‘We would report Chamberlain’s assessment in good faith, and write news reports and articles reflecting a strong mood of Government optimism on the eve of this or that recess. All too often we would be compelled to come rushing back within twenty-four or forty-eight hours as some new outrage by one or other of the dictators created a war threat which made nonsense of the Premier’s dearest hopes.’19

In September 1938, Chamberlain flew three times to Germany to negotiate with Hitler, culminating in the infamous Munich Agreement, which he signed alongside the Führer and the leaders of France and Italy, declaring their mutual desire to resolve their differences though consultation to assure peace. The price of the agreement was the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia that was annexed by the Nazis. Chamberlain was greeted by cheering crowds as he appeared at the window of Downing Street, waving the piece of paper that he said would bring ‘peace with honour’. It was, he declared, ‘peace for our time’.

The newspapers were broadly supportive of the deal he had struck. The Guardian reported that ‘The pacificators of Munich returned home yesterday to receive greater gratitude than has ever been given to any returning conqueror. They have done something that has hardly ever happened before in history – the snatching of the world at the eleventh hour from a universal calamity, from a return to barbarism, from untold cruelty and misery.’20 Yet the paper’s editorial did set out its misgivings, warning: ‘Politically Czecho-Slovakia is rendered helpless, with all that means to the balance of forces in Eastern Europe, and Hitler will be able to advance again, when he chooses, with greatly increased power.’

It was by no means the only warning that the Munich Agreement would not halt the Nazis’ march across Europe. Yet Chamberlain continued to tell Lobby journalists how well his campaign of appeasement was progressing. Margach recalls the prime minister’s words at a briefing as late as 9 March 1939, during which he declared that ‘the situation had never been better; he was actually working towards halting the armaments race, he claimed, perhaps leading to an agreement later in the year; his relations with Herr Hitler were most cordial . . . he was on the point of bringing about improved relations between France and Italy. And so on and so on; everything going well in the best of all possible worlds.’21

Just six months after Chamberlain’s infamous speech declaring ‘peace for our time’, his words looked hollow indeed as Germany seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. His policy of appeasement fell apart and his optimistic briefings, so frequently reported by Lobby journalists, were exposed as utterly misleading. Chamberlain clung to power, but the newspapers finally turned against him, nursing wounds to their reputations from their often ludicrously upbeat assessments of the international situation, lines fed to them by the prime minister and, all too often, seemingly printed without question.

The Lobby does not emerge from the Chamberlain era with credit. The legendary William Deedes, a correspondent at the time who went on to become editor of the Daily Telegraph and a Conservative MP and minister, lamented the ‘signal failure of national newspapers to discover and print the truth about Hitler’s Germany’ when ‘proprietors and editors were induced by ministers – manipulated is not too strong a word – to suppress material, in the news or editorial columns, that might give offence to Hitler. Bluntly, the national press fell down on the job.’22

I find it hard to understand why so many highly esteemed journalists were taken in by the prime minister’s spin, particularly when other powerful figures were arguing against Chamberlain’s policies and his assessment of the international picture. I have found no accounts of any rows in these pre-war Lobby briefings, occasions when the reporters challenged the blatant untruths they were being told. Of course, the meetings were all off the record, and we do not know what went on behind closed doors, but there is no indication of any aggressive exchanges like those at many of the Lobby sessions I attended. Indeed, ministers as well as press secretaries often speak of their trepidation at facing an array of political journalists, but I have found no record of Chamberlain being given a hard time.

In May 1940, amid the shock of a devastating German offensive in the Low Countries, Chamberlain stood down, ushering in a very different political leader, Winston Churchill. He too would go to extraordinary lengths to try to control the media, justifying his approach as necessary to protect national security in wartime Britain while seeking to define, in his own words, the first rough draft of history.

2 CENSORSHIP, SECRECY AND SURVEILLANCE

‘Careless talk costs lives.’

Wartime propaganda slogan

L ess than a month after Winston Churchill became prime minister at the head of a coalition government, he stood in Parliament to deliver perhaps the greatest of his famous wartime speeches. It was 4 June 1940. He warned that large tracts of Europe had fallen into the grip of the Nazis and that Hitler had plans to invade the British Isles:

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

His audience was the Commons Chamber, with a handful of journalists in the Press Gallery to report his words. There was no advance briefing to the media, no spin doctors to point out the key phrases to the Lobby. Churchill believed in the power of his own oratory to strengthen the resolve of the nation and did not employ speech writers, spending long hours preparing his scripts himself and practising their delivery.

Churchill’s attitude towards the media was as far removed from Chamberlain’s as his stance on the Nazi threat. His focus was on winning the war that had begun eight months before he became prime minister: the only role he could see for the press was to report his grand speeches and policy announcements. These would be delivered in Parliament or in statements broadcast to the nation. There was no question of him chatting with Lobby correspondents or giving interviews to the newspapers. Yet alongside these stirring public pronouncements were some far-reaching measures intended to suppress anything that might potentially undermine the war effort, and these included frequent efforts to prevent the papers printing stories or comments which could be considered unhelpful to his overriding objective of defeating the Nazis.

Churchill’s mindset is somewhat surprising, given that he was himself a journalist who’d been a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, and returned to writing articles for newspapers during his periods out of office. He had close personal ties with some of the press barons, notably Viscount Camrose, who owned a string of titles including the Telegraph, and Lord Beaverbrook of the Daily Express, who was brought into the war cabinet as minister of aircraft production. Churchill did meet with a select number of newspaper editors, but he appears to have had almost no direct contact with political correspondents and never once briefed the Lobby in person. The records of the Lobby Committee for 1941–2 do note that there was a Lobby luncheon for the prime minister at the Savoy Hotel on Friday, 6 March 1941, the first to be held since the outbreak of war. Nearly 250 guests attended, including other members of the war cabinet. Sadly, there is no record of any of the speeches, let alone the conversations among those present.

Churchill liked to deliver his messages to the nation unfiltered and uninterrupted. He was highly reluctant to give news conferences, although he was persuaded to take part in a handful of on-the-record sessions with the press alongside President Roosevelt in the USA. Churchill handled these occasions with aplomb, winning applause and cheers from his mainly American audience, but his answers were wary to say the least. At the first of these gatherings, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Churchill was asked how long he thought it would take to win the war. His response was: ‘If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly.’1

The British press – perhaps understandably – protested that they were never granted their own opportunities to question the prime minister. They were summoned to Southampton, where Churchill agreed to speak to them on his way back from another of his trips to the States. It did nothing to quell their frustration, as Churchill told them he could not speak about his American visit or his discussions with the president. Every question prompted brief though courteous replies along the same lines: ‘I’m very sorry, I can’t say anything on that until I have reported to Parliament.’

Back at Westminster, one political correspondent, James Robertson of the Glasgow Herald, plucked up the courage to try to catch a word with Churchill when he spotted him striding through the Lobby after questions in the House. Robertson humbly tried to introduce himself, mentioning that Scotland was very interested in his leadership. Churchill, though, was clearly affronted at being accosted by a mere reporter and demanded to know what right he had to do so. Other journalists and MPs paused to watch the tense confrontation. ‘Out of my way,’ growled Churchill as he stomped off, bringing the encounter to an abrupt end.

Despite his reluctance to engage with journalists, Churchill was certainly preoccupied with what they were writing. Like John Major, some fifty years later, he had the newspapers delivered to Downing Street as soon as they came off the presses, sending despatch riders to collect the first editions from Fleet Street so he could read them late at night. He was annoyed at the slightest criticism of his handling of events, but his greatest concern was wartime security and the need to prevent the spread of any information that might help the enemy. Even before he came to power, in the opening days of the war a Ministry of Information was established to distribute and censor all information concerning the conflict. Newspapers had to submit their stories to the censor, and any information of potential military significance, from weather reports to the location of troops, was removed. ‘Defence Notices’ could be issued to stop publication of stories that were deemed to breach official guidance. The new ministry also held briefings at its headquarters in Senate House at the University of London, with facilities for journalists to write their stories and have them checked by the censor at the same time. The system was intended to replace the off-the-record meetings with Lobby journalists.

It may have seemed a sensible arrangement, but within a week it fell into disarray. News leaked out from Paris that a British Expeditionary Force was on French soil. The story was picked up by international agencies and the Ministry of Information decided that, under the circumstances, it would allow publication to go ahead. When the British newspapers included far more information than anticipated, the War Office reacted with alarm and the Ministry of Information was forced into a late-night U-turn, banning publication retrospectively. The government’s current website describes the situation then as one of ‘chaos and complete confusion’; ‘Scotland Yard were instructed to arrange the seizure of all newspapers, police officers were deployed to newspaper offices and wholesale newsagents throughout Britain, roadblocks were erected in Fleet Street and newspaper trains were stopped en-route from London.’2 It is hard to imagine such an exercise today, and indeed it would almost certainly prove futile once stories had spread across the internet. There was further disarray when the Ministry of Information announced that the Queen had returned from a visit to Scotland with her daughters. It was then decided that it was a security risk for this to become public knowledge and once again there was a scramble to try to confiscate newspapers, only for the order to be reversed and the news reannounced hours later.

These incidents prompted Lobby journalists, who were already unhappy at the loss of their exclusive briefings, to write to the prime minister, urging a return to the confidential, off-therecord meetings at Westminster. Both sides realised the potential benefits of the unattributable Lobby meetings, and these not only resumed but were held without the presence of an official censor. The Ministry of Information continued to distribute information and oversee propaganda, but it had lost some of its power to control the news agenda.

Churchill had a low opinion of government communications officers and for a while did not even have a press office at No. 10. He did eventually appoint a press secretary, Fife Clark, to brief Lobby journalists and he ensured that they received embargoed copies of some of the prime minister’s speeches. Clark, though, had little direct contact with his boss and he was unable to offer much detail or insight into the wartime leader’s intentions. Far more powerful was the minister of information, Duff Cooper, who had been brought back into government after resigning from Chamberlain’s cabinet over the Munich Agreement.

Cooper was a close ally of Churchill, but he was unhappy with the role he was given. In his autobiography he complained that when he appealed for support from the prime minister on his handling of the media, he seldom got it: ‘He was not interested in the subject. He knew that propaganda was not going to win the war.’3 Cooper’s aggressive attempts to control the press using the tight censorship rules caused huge resentment among those trying to report the war, and his programme of ‘Mass Observation’ to gauge the public mood prompted comparisons with the networks of spies in Nazi Germany. The droves of staff he deployed to gather information on people’s lives and attitudes came to be known as ‘Cooper’s Snoopers’. Their job, interviewing people around the country, was supposedly to assess morale, establish which government slogans were effective and gather information to help plans for food rationing and wartime supplies. Inevitably, some saw the questions as an unnecessary intrusion into their personal lives and habits, yet the programme went far beyond these face-to-face interviews. The authorities were concerned that people might conceal their real opinions, so investigators also eavesdropped on people’s conversations, recording their unguarded remarks as ‘overheards’. It is hardly surprising that many viewed this as a sinister exercise in surveillance, with some suggesting that the Ministry of Information was the model for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s novel 1984.

The scale of the operation makes all the internal polling and focus groups conducted by Boris Johnson’s government look pretty modest. In December 1939, a Home Intelligence Department was created under the leadership of a formidable former BBC producer called Mary Adams. It began by building a picture of life and attitudes in the Lancashire town of Bolton, known as ‘Worktown’ in its reports, but expanded to try to gather data more widely. By the summer of 1940 it was instructed ‘to report daily on people’s reactions throughout the country with special reference to morale, rumours and the reception of ministerial broadcasts and pronouncements’.4

While focus groups today usually involve a small number of people, selected to reflect a cross-section of society, the effort to find out what people thought of the war effort and the performance of their political leaders was on a vast scale, even if the methods may have lacked statistical rigour. Regional information officers across the country were instructed to report each day by telephone between 12 noon and 2.30 p.m. on morale in their area. An internal history of the department noted that their data was obtained ‘partly by discussions with their own staff, partly by casual conversations initiated or overheard on the way to work, and partly by a hurried series of visits to public houses and other places where the public foregathered’.5