Jon Bright (London, OK): Mark Bell of CentreForum has an interesting piece in CiF today asking the above question. I had a rather ingrained resistance to the idea, but he might have turned me round. The case against, which he deconstructs, runs as follows:
Here in the UK, political parties are banned from advertising on television or radio - with the exception of occasional five-minute party political broadcasts. The logic is seemingly that political advertising encourages negative attacks, reduces politics to soundbites and superficiality, and increases the political influence of the corporations and vested interests whose money would be needed to fund such advertising.
He argues - accurately in my view - that both negative attacks and increasing "money" in politics can (and should) be controlled by regulation if and when they need controlling - not by denial of access to the medium. The soundbites point is also extremely interesting. Bell points out that, when politicians do appear on the news, they are heard to speak for less than 10 seconds on average. Conditioned by this type of access to media, many of them have already divided their message into perfect soundbites - David Cameron's media friendly performances in PMQs the most obvious example of this. Increased access to television might therefore, perversely, contribute slightly to a decrease in the type of soundbite heavy political pronouncement we have become used to.
Bell connects the whole argument to what's going on currently in the US. But here he misses one trick - the dramatic effect of the internet. Even in the US, a land where almost any ad (positive or negative) can end up on TV, politicians in this election have reached out ever more online - where regulations are fewer and cost is far far lower.
Robert Colvile of the CPS has just released a pamphlet on exactly this subject, which I haven't had time to digest in full yet. But the pull quote is eye catching: the BNP website has the same "market share" (% of UK net traffic) as all the other major parties combined. Colvile's point is not that the BNP is wildly popular but that the three main parties have been pathetic in exploiting the potential of the web to get their message across.
Unlike the US, I do not believe the next election in this country will become known as the first "internet" election - it's coming too soon, and dramatic changes of process in this country are an extremely long time coming (a week is, in fact, not a very long time at all in politics - that people think it is says much about how much the word 'politics' in this country has become synonymous with scandal, rumour and celebrity style gossip). But if it isn't, the one after almost certainly will be. And, following Bell, I can see strong arguments in favour of keeping both this medium - and older ones - open rather than closed.
Comments
I don't know about *more* but why not move Question Time to an 8 o'clock slot?
Most of the BBC's output is on late at night, or on a Sunday morning when any self-respecting citizen is nursing a hangover.
There is an excellent book called "Why Americans don't vote and why politicians want it that way", which delves into the way that certain parts of US politics benefit from apathy. (Contrary to some teenage/student opinion, apathy isn't "cool" it's just useless.)
Some politicians such as Blair, want politics to be about nice haircuts, and wide grins. Some like Ian Paisley prefer scaremongering and mud slinging to constructive debate (although he has changed his tune, since the British state threatened to cut his money).
p.s. I am not related to Mark Bell, in case you're wondering.
The problem with Mark Bell's comments lie in the notion that 'regulation' can be used to 'control' access and money in politics.
Regulation already exists - 'Cash for Honours' - and wonderfully effective it obviously is. Of course we could beef it up but then that requires the consent and application of Government and parliament - the very people you are regulating. And we all know how faithfully they stick to detail - just look at the recent 'expenses' rows. We could, of course, establish a sort of 'arms length' body outside Parliament to regulate- a bit like the Financial Services Authority.......then again...maybe not.
The problem with politics is the politicians and the old adage about the man (or woman) who desires to be an MP should be the very last to be considered would be the first step in delivering a solution that might engage the public.
Politics is it's own worst enemy because it refuses to be open and honest. Unrestricted media access is unlikely to make this change.
Thanks for mentioning the pamphlet - actually, there's a point in it which is even more appropriate to the point about political advertising. Once you can advertise on TV, you can use the ads to drive people to your website, where you raise money to pay for more TV advertising, to drive more people to your site, to raise more money, and so on - it's a technique that's worked well for US politicians, and very well indeed for single-issue campaign groups (who are also covered by the advertising ban at the mo). If we lifted the advertising ban, expect animal rights groups, EU referendum campaigners and the like to raise a lot more money, and make a lot more noise.
I definitely think that allocating political parties longer slots would be a big win - they wouldn't be able to get away with soundbites if they have to fill half an hour - especially if other parties got a few minutes at the end as a sort of 'right to reply'.
Of course, the trouble is how to allocate the slots. Previous election %? That would favour incumbents rather strongly, though. A moving average of the current voting intention?
Honestly, though, one has to create the demand for more politics on TV before people start *actually watching it*, and that starts by making politics more local and more interactive so that more people feel that they are involved with it. More devolution and more referendums, please!
I think we should have a greater variety of politics on TV, not just party hacks, but local campaigners, and people from the various assemblies.
Instead of appearing like a London cocktail party, political programmes should reflect real life in the wider world.
But what benefit would it give? What would be the purpose? My problem with America's ads are they are essentially just short bits of propaganda with spun statistics and technicalities to try and either belittle opponents or boost themselves.
And it is important to realise that in America there is always a "one or another" aspect to it. Here you'd have at least three trying to get ahead which is a much more different dynamic.
I would suggest that programs like Question Time, and This Week, even the Politics Show, are all good examples of how to bring politics to the politically minded...albeit with a few flaws here and there. Newsnight unfortunately manages to be a bit too weighty for the general populace and I don't think kids would tune in to any of the above readily. What would non-propagandistic adverts do to change that?
We need more politics on TV, we need to get people from a young age engaged in striving to make the country the best it can be and ironing out the problems we face...but to do that we need to start coming up with independent and representative programming that manages to actually strike a chord with the 18-25 year old market that aren't already interested in politics. With things like iPlayer the time is ripe to truly get something off the ground.
What we don't need is one party after another adding to already laborious advertising schedules with false promises and twisted truths.
Am I the only person who finds Newsnight frequently both lightweight and superficial?
I am against permitting broadcasting to run as much political advertising as the parties can pay for. It does not open up the media, it closes it to money. Indeed I'd be very happy to see hording adverts banned as well. They force the parties to raise huge sums which then corrupts them. What would be a good idea would be for all broadcasters to have to provide air-time in 5 minute and ten minute and occasional 30 minute slots to the parties and local organisations too as Ray Bell suggests to put their case (not attack others) in as imaginative and interesting way as they can. The provision of studios and basic staff should be part of the license agreement, and would help ensure high production standards. Then the parties and organisations will need to state their case in an equal and open fashion. So I am for more politics on TV of all channels and putting the parties on the spot demanding that they state their case. But I am against monetarising this, which will intensify inequalities.
Anthony
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