[Media-watch] No 10 "worked with Sun to manage news" - Guardian - 25/05/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,1223283,00.html

No 10 'worked with Sun to manage news'

How the grid helped Labour set media agenda

Michael White, political editor
Monday May 24, 2004
The Guardian

The Blair government knew in advance that the Sun newspaper was to launch a
week-long campaign on the "immigration crisis" last summer, and immediately
moved to neutralise the issue in collaboration with the tabloid, it was
claimed yesterday.
The weekly news "grid" produced to maximise the impact of government
announcements for the week of August 18 to 24 included a scheduled interview
with the home secretary, David Blunkett, in which he promised "tough
measures to crack down on asylum cheats", even before the campaign started,
according to a book reported in the Mail on Sunday.

Inside Blair's Bunker, a study of the Blair kitchen cabinet, also repeats
claims that the prime minister realised that his then-communications
director, Alastair Campbell, needed "calming down" during his 2003 battle
with the BBC over David Kelly's suicide - and wished Mr Campbell had stepped
down sooner.

So distraught was Mr Campbell over BBC claims that No 10 had "sexed up"
intelligence data on Iraq knowing it to be false - a charge on which it was
acquitted by Lord Hutton - that his rage made some associates fear for his
health. "I am trying to calm him down," Mr Blair is quoted as explaining.

The book's co-authors, political journalists Simon Walters and Peter Oborne,
both old adversaries of Mr Campbell, repeat charges that the former
communications director - a "brilliant but ruthless man" - often dominated
Mr Blair, who had run-ins with both Bill Clinton and George Bush over his
influence. They also highlight the role of the "grid" used to synchronise
government announcements and make sure they do not clash with events that
might overshadow them in the wider world, including Bob Hope's memorial
service and the world athletics championships in the week starting August 18
last year.

But it was Mr Blunkett's pencilled-in agreement to be interviewed by the Sun
before its "Sun Asylum Week" campaign was even launched which yesterday led
its tabloid rival, the Mail on Sunday, to publish extracts from the book.

Labour invented the grid in 1998, having returned to office after 18 years
to find that Whitehall departments did not know what other departments were
doing - in contrast to ever-sharper media planning outside in the era of
round-the-clock news. Finding out what newspapers, especially tabloids, and
even more importantly, broadcasters, are planning is a significant task for
press officers and spin doctors.

"There's a constant battle. Our task is to learn what we can as soon as we
can and try to put our best case over," one veteran practitioner said
yesterday.

In the case of the Sun's asylum campaign, No 10 knew how sensitive the issue
was to many tabloid readers who feel they are competing most sharply with
newcomers for jobs and other services.

"The impression given was that the government had acted on the Sun's
concerns. The newspaper could boast it had won a significant victory. In
fact, the outcome of the week may have been choreographed well in advance,"
the Mail on Sunday suggested.

Keeping the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun happy is a key target for Labour
strategists, anxious to neutralise the gut-hostility of the tycoon to
anything which smacks of the socialism he briefly espoused as a student.

Mr Oborne and Mr Walters also revive the tensions between Cherie Blair and
Mr Campbell and his partner, Fiona Millar, an adviser and friend of the
Labour leader's wife, who fell out over the influence of Carol Caplin, the
"lifestyle guru".