A top priority for the new Labour leader Ed Miliband is to appoint a media strategist who has the authority to help develop a disciplined message and then try to enforce it across a fractious party.Another psycho-drama is already unfolding fuelled by the divisive negative briefings which are the legacy of New Labour.
Just as the scars of the Blair and Brown years are beginning to heal, anonymous insiders have started to fuel speculation that the defeated David Miliband is simply waiting in the wings, ready to mount a fresh challenge for the leadership if his brother fails to get a grip on the party.Unless it is possible to silence the culture of anonymous negative briefings which Blair and Brown failed to control, and which did so much to poison relations within the party, Ed Miliband’s leadership will be fraught with difficulty. However hard the Opposition might try to drive a wedge between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the coalition is running a tight ship when it comes to briefing the news media. Soon after the government was established, Cameron read the riot act to a newly-merged team of Conservative and Liberal Democrat spin doctors and special advisers: he told them anyone caught engaging in negative personal briefing against the other side would face instant dismissal. Six months down the track, the Downing Street director of communications Andy Coulson deserves credit where credit is due: the government has not become the victim of endless negative briefings by unnamed Downing Street sources. While political journalists on ‘coalition split watch’ might have other ideas, so far there have been lean pickings and little evidence of the briefing and counter-briefing which became New Labour’s fault line.Once Ed Miliband has shown he can enforce discipline – and that the shadow cabinet is able to speak with one voice – he can launch the kind of initiatives which might help Labour regain the political initiative.While it is far too early to be announcing new policies, he needs to be reinforcing the values of the new ‘generation’ who have taken charge of the party and indicate their direction of travel. Miliband needs an experienced media co-ordinator who has the authority to be respected by political correspondents and who, unlike Alastair Campbell, will have the good sense to keep in the background and refrain from becoming the story of the day. Although the Crown Prosecution Service has yet to give a view on the latest information from Scotland Yard about phone hacking at the News of the World, Andy Coulson cannot be faulted on his ability to work behind the scenes, command the respect of journalists and keep himself out of the day to day commentary on life in Downing Street.END