U.K. The Threat Of Democracy - The Power Inquiry And Fear Of Public Opinion

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The Threat Of Democracy - The Power Inquiry And Fear Of

Public Opinion

 

 

 

 

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

 

March 9, 2006

 

 

MEDIA ALERT: THE THREAT OF DEMOCRACY

 

The Power Inquiry And Fear Of Public Opinion

 

 

Front-page headlines greeted the publication last week of the Power

Report into the 'meltdown' of British democracy. Plummeting participation

in elections and a growing chasm between the public and party politics

had prompted the study by an independent panel led by Labour peer and

QC Helena Kennedy. The report - naively titled 'Power to the People' -

was based on a year of surveys and hearings, including online public

consultation which generated 1,500 responses.

 

The Independent rode on the report's coat tails, proudly proclaiming

its own supposed enthusiasm for real democracy. The newspaper's coverage

included references to previous Independent cover pages supporting

electoral reform under its Campaign for Democracy.

 

The Independent noted on the Power Report's publication:

 

" Democracy faces meltdown in Britain as the public rejects an outdated

political system which has centralised more authority than ever in a

tiny ruling elite, the Power inquiry warns today. "

 

The article continued:

 

" The inquiry says that there is a 'very widespread sense that citizens

feel their views and interests are not taken sufficiently into

account'. " (Nigel Morris, 'Bleak view of the gulf between people and

government', The Independent, February 27, 2006)

 

An Independent editorial the same day was titled, 'The urgent need to

return politics to the people.'

 

The Guardian's editors announced, 'A cause whose time has come.'

(Editorial, The Guardian, February 28, 2006). Star Guardian columnist

Jonathan Freedland warned: " Short of revolution and war, how does

anyone ever

get power to shift in this country? " but then suggested that a

" reforming [Gordon] Brown " , Chancellor of the Exchequer, might prove

" to be the

solution " . (Freedland, 'Without power of our own, we wait on the whims

of politicians', The Guardian, March 1, 2006)

 

The Daily Telegraph greeted the Power Report with somewhat flippant

headlines, '16-year-olds should be allowed to stand for Parliament' and

'Red Baroness on mission to save democracy' (February 27, 2006). A

Telegraph comment piece by one of its political reporters assured readers

that Brown, reputedly the prime minister-in-waiting, " believes [the Power

Report] should be the catalyst for a wide-ranging debate on the future

of the political system. " (Rachel Sylvester, 'Will the iPod generation

see off party politics as we know it?', Daily Telegraph, February 27,

2006)

 

Meanwhile, BBC News Online reported in its usual 'objective' manner,

namely as a mouthpiece for power:

 

" Tony Blair's official spokesman said these were issues which were

debated inside and outside parliament and the Power Inquiry 'will

contribute to the debate'. " ('Political system faces " meltdown " ',

February 27,

2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4753876.stm)

 

The Guardian gave comment space to Gordon Brown to ally himself

opportunistically with the progressive credentials of the Report. In a

breathless piece of political blather, Brown - or his speechwriter -

waxed

lyrical about a " renewal of Britain " that " springs from a welcome new

culture of rising aspirations, is shaped by a reinvigorated sense of

community and is being led by courageous local reformers - from

environmentally responsible companies to path-breaking charities and

committed

councillors. It is a 21st-century expression of the enduring ideas that

Britain gave the world - a commitment to liberty, a strong sense of civic

duty, a belief in fairness. " (Brown, 'We have renewed Britain; now we

must champion it', The Guardian, February 27, 2006)

 

One can almost picture the angels in the firmament blowing trumpets to

proclaim the glory of all that New Labour has achieved.

However, in common with other commentators and news reports, Brown did

not dwell on the Report's awkward finding that: " The main political

parties are widely held in contempt. They are seen as offering no real

choice to citizens. " ('Power to the People', The Report of Power: An

independent inquiry into Britain's Democracy, February 27, 2006,

www.powerinquiry.org, p.29)

 

 

The Mystery of the Report's Invisible Paragraphs

 

For anyone who cared to examine the Power Report directly there were

several obvious and significant omissions in the media coverage. No doubt

the journalistic excuse would be the old standby: 'restricted space'

means that 'we can't cover everything'. This would explain why the

Report's emphasis on public concerns about the huge impact of corporate

lobbying, and business shaping of government policies, was missing from

mainstream news coverage.

 

The Guardian did briefly note one relevant recommendation of the Power

Inquiry:

 

" Ministerial meetings with lobbyists and representatives of business to

be logged and listed monthly. " (Tania Brannigan, 'Inquiry proposes

radical overhaul of party funding', The Guardian, February 27, 2006)

 

But the crucial context behind this tantalising glimpse of destructive

corporate and state power is missing. As one public submission to the

Inquiry noted:

 

" It is not just perception that corporate lobbying influences

government policy - it is actuality. Until the actuality changes, the

perception

will not. " (Power Report, p.163)

 

Independent research has determined the extent of this public

perception of illegitimate power:

 

" 79 per cent of respondents to the State of the Nation poll in 2004

stated that they felt large corporations had influence over government

policies, while only 34 per cent felt they ought to enjoy such

influence. "

(Ibid., p.164)

 

The Power Report noted " the extraordinary power afforded to

corporations and their lobbying groups, often disguised as

public-interest NGOs

[non-governmental organisations]. " (Ibid., p.165)

 

Again, the media displayed its standard 'balance' by remaining silent

on these matters. As we have regularly reported in our Media Alerts,

uncomfortable facts about the extent of business lobbying, and the

relentless greenwashing of harmful corporate practices, are hardly ever

mentioned. The same applies to public concerns over the democracy-killing

power of media corporations. One submission put it this way:

 

" Commercial considerations influence too greatly how newspapers and

other media gather, edit and represent news stories about politics. "

(Ibid., p.244)

 

Other public statements in the Power Report rightly pointed out that:

 

" The media largely serves its own (financial) interests and barely

serves the interests of the public. " (Ibid., p.245)

 

And:

 

" I think it is a disgrace that so much of the media is concentrated in

so few private hands. I think it is a disgrace that it is allowed to

'self-regulate'. " There should be " legislation to prevent ownership of

controlling stakes by individuals or corporations. There should be no

room for Murdochs or Berlusconis. " (Ibid., p.245)

 

And another:

 

" The media's agenda is largely directed by the vested interests of

political parties and capital. "

 

As a result:

 

" The media routinely and systematically ignores the serious problems of

our times, such as climate change, global poverty, massive political

unrest social instability and dispossession all over the world and spends

much of its time analysing party political rhetoric, the behaviour of

the Windsor family and the wranglings of religious establishments. "

(Ibid., pp.244-5)

 

This is precisely the kind of vital comment, voiced widely in the

public domain, that is rarely, if ever, permitted to break through the

media's limits of acceptable debate. Instead, recent news coverage

included

no more than the briefest and most anodyne statements on the Power

Inquiry's recommendation to 'reform the rules on media ownership.' The

systemic nature of the media's role as guardians of power remained

hidden.

The media were thus once again content to overlook their own complicity

in the undermining of democracy.

 

 

A History of Contempt for the Public Interest

 

The members of the Power commission found an unsurprising " resistance,

even a tetchiness " when interviewing politicians, particularly when

confronting them with ideas for political reform raised by the public.

The

Report noted:

 

" Suddenly, change became a matter for the people rather than the

politicians. The Vice Chair of our Commission, Ferdinand Mount, quoted

Bertolt Brecht to characterise what he had heard: 'Would it not be

easier in

that case to dissolve the people and elect another?' " ('Power' Report,

p.258)

 

Media analyst Robert McChesney observes:

 

" In many respects we now live in a society that is only formally

democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major

public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all

in any

meaningful sense in the electoral arena. " (McChesney, 'Rich Media, Poor

Democracy', The New Press, 2000, p.260)

 

McChesney is referring explicitly to the United States, but the same is

demonstrably true of all the western 'democracies', including the UK.

 

As the Washington Post once noted, modern democracy works best when the

political " parties essentially agree on most of the major issues " . The

Financial Times put it more bluntly: capitalist democracy can best

succeed when it focuses on " the process of depoliticizing the economy. "

(Quoted, ibid., p.112).

 

Notwithstanding the Report's well-intentioned warning about the

imminent 'meltdown' of democracy, this calamity is actually nothing new -

although perhaps more severe now than ever. Examination of the historical

record reveals that it has always suited the interests of powerful

institutions for the public hand to be kept well away from the helm of

policy; the fear of public opinion is ever-present in the minds of the

ruling classes.

 

In 1661, historian Clement Walker complained of English

revolutionaries:

 

" They have made the people thereby so curious and so arrogant that they

will never find humility enough to submit to a civil rule. " (Quoted,

Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar, 'Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and

the Media', Black Rose Books, 1994, p.38)

 

Closer to the present day, the Australian social scientist Alex Carey

summed up the evolution of political power over the last hundred years:

 

" The twentieth century has been characterised by three developments of

great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of

corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of

protecting corporate power against democracy. " (Carey, 'Taking the

Risk out

of Democracy', University of Illinois Press, 1995, p.18)

 

We should mention that the power of the state has also grown, in order

to further the growth of corporate power.

 

Carey reflected that in the United States: " from 1900 to 1910 Upton

Sinclair [the prolific author and 'muckraker'] and others so effectively

exposed the exploitation and brutality of American industry that, as

Fortune magazine wrote later, 'business did not discover - until its

reputation had been all but destroyed - that in a democracy nothing is

more

important than [public opinion]'. " (Ibid., p.80)

 

Over the years, endless business propaganda attempted to rein in and

shape public opinion for corporate ends. Edward Bernays, one of the

founders of the modern public relations industry in the 1920s, warned

that

" the masses promised to become king " . This danger could be averted,

argued Bernays, by new methods of propaganda: the " engineering of

consent " .

These methods would enable the " intelligent minorities to mold the mind

of the masses " thus " regimenting the public mind every bit as much as

an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers. " (Quoted, Noam Chomsky,

'Rogue States', Pluto Press, 2000, p.120)

 

American historian Elizabeth Fones-Wolf wrote of business's attack on

the public in the 1940s and 1950s:

 

" Manufacturers orchestrated multi-million dollar public relations

campaigns that relied on newspapers, magazines, radio, and later

television,

to re-educate the public in the principles and benefits of the American

economic system... This involved convincing workers to identify their

social, economic, and political well-being with that of their specific

employer and more broadly with the free enterprise system. " (Fones-Wolf,

'Selling Free Enterprise - The Business Assault on Labour and

Liberalism, 1945-60,' University of Illinois Press, 1994, p.6)

 

Carey concurs:

 

" Beginning in 1945, the postwar conservative assault on public opinion

revived the two dominant themes of the 1930s campaigns: identification

of the traditional American free-enterprise system with social harmony,

freedom, democracy, the family, the church, and patriotism; and

identification of all government regulation of the affairs of

business, and

all liberals who supported such 'interference', with communism and

subversion. " (Carey, op. cit., p.27)

 

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) explicitly warned its

members that:

 

" Public policies in our democracy are eventually a reflection of public

opinion, " so public opinion must be reshaped " if we are to avoid

disaster. " (Ibid., p.24)

 

The NAM, representing a large swath of US, and thus global, corporate

power, is today implicated in blocking substantive action to combat

climate chaos (see many of our earlier Media Alerts).

 

Similar pressures have been brought to bear on the public in other

western democracies which have imported the capitalistic values and

'public

relations' that remain so prevalent in the United States.

 

Here in the UK, the hijacking of government policies by powerful groups

such as the Confederation of British Industry receives minimal media

coverage ('Burning the Planet for Profit', December 6, 2005,

www.medialens.org/alerts/archive.php). But then, why expect corporate

media to

expose the dubious activities of itself and its allies in the business

world, or its corporate sources of vital advertising revenue?

 

British historian Mark Curtis has noted that the primary function of

the British state, " virtually its raison d'etre for several centuries -

is to aid British companies in getting their hands on other countries'

resources. "

 

As for the British security services:

 

" As Lord Mackay, then Lord Chancellor, revealed in the mid-1990s, the

role of MI6 is to protect Britain's 'economic well-being' by keeping 'a

particular eye on Britain's access to key commodities, like oil or

metals [and] the profits of Britain's myriad of international business

interests'. " (Curtis, 'Web of Deceit', Vintage, 2003, pp.210-211)

 

The above observations, then, hint at the true, unreported nature of

'democracy' in a country like the UK where state power and business power

operate in tandem, systematically fighting tooth and nail against the

public interest. This is the hidden history and the missing context from

recent news reporting on the Power Inquiry.

 

Noam Chomsky has expressed succinctly the underlying problem for

genuine democracy:

 

" Remember, any state, +any+ state, has a primary enemy: its own

population. " (Chomsky, 'Understanding Power', edited by Peter R.

Mitchell and

John Schoeffel, The New Press, 2002, p.70)

 

No wonder the shocking depth and historic extent of the systemic

corruption of democracy by big business and its political allies

remains off

the agenda of our corporate 'free' press.

 

 

SUGGESTED ACTION

 

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Email: s.kelner

 

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Email: freedland

 

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