Which political party responded most effectively to innovations in political communications and why? Flashcards

Question

The Conservative Party and Film Propaganda between the Wars - Hollins, T. J. 1981

Answer 1

Left Wing Film 'Movement little significance as contemporary influences upon the beliefs of the general public, being limited in exhibition almost exclusively to the converted, at political meetings and film societies. official labour party, conservative and slow to act in matters of party publicity, and continued until I938 to rely on traditional methods for direct political meetings, pamphleteering and street-corner oratory were becoming increasingly unsuited to the changed conditions of the mass electorate conservative party, unlike the labour, was always most progressive where its own organisation was concerned. Conservative Central Office's principal publicity devices had, until 1925, been pamphleteering, the use of professional street and public meeting speakers, and the encouragement of good relations with the sympathetic press, including the provision of editorials for such papers as would take them. Local constituency associations organised meetings, fetes and other events designed both to raise money and to stimulate interest in the party's activities is only by the production and use of our own cinema vans that they can be placed before the public, the managers of cinematograph theatres being unanimous in their opposition to the exhibition of any film of a political character with the reduction of ordinary Central Office speakers and pamphleteering, the number of people reached by conservative publicity probably did not increase greatly

Answer 2

6 months Nov 1928-April 1929, speakers' section arranged 13,849 days of engagements for 'staff' speakers

Answer 3

August 1925 audiences of over 1000 operator would show films for only half an hour, give an hour's speech himself and answer questions for an hour

Answer 4

1926 cartoons lampooned the opposition leaders, showing MacDonald and Snowden as incompetent plumbers or Lloyd George as a garage mechanic whose hamfisted attentions ruined the 'car of state' driven by John Bull.

Answer 5

twelve outdoor cinema vans and twelve smaller vans carrying portable equipment for indoor use

Answer 6

1933 the Daily Herald offered the labour party and T.U.C. jointly one van, which was rejected on the grounds of excessive running costs

Answer 7

May 1930 party's new chief publicity officer, Sir Patrick Gower, replaced Central Office's Film department with the independent but party financed CFA, under new honourary organising director, Clavering largely responsible for the good relationship that existed between the party and the commercial cinema industry throughout the 1930s. Film magnate

Answer 8

CFA's annual budget always equalled, and in 1934 was triple that of the Publicity Department itself. In contrast the number of staff speakers was considerably reduced after 1931, whilst the mid-i 930s appear also to have seen a loss of confidence in the traditional methods of pamphleteering and local constituency canvassing

Answer 9

journal 'World Film News' estimated that in the months immediately prior to the 1935 General Election 1.5 million people saw films from party and National Publicity Bureau vans.

Answer 10

193 i, before the election, Sanger of Movietone quoted with approval the opinion of a Movietone agent in Cardiff that: 'British Movietone News is definitely helping the National Party' Undoubtedly the national government received the bulk of publicity accorded by the newsreels to the opposing parties in the 1931 election March 1935, a clear but highly secret link between Isodore Ostrer of Gaumont British and the National Publicity Bureau was established. At the prime minister's request, the whole emphasis of a projected story on German rearmament was altered in order to stress that the country stood for peace, and to conclude with a speech by Sir John Simon, for the government.

Answer 11

critique of radio in Britain tended to be the opposite of that in America: the BBC was too serious, too highbrow, too dull. The announcers, despite (or perhaps because of) elocution sessions with Professor Lloyd James, sounded like 'a sort of superior being, educated at a public school and talking down to you' severest criticism of the BBC was that it never reached the working class The BBC charter was a careful compromise among major parties designed to keep radio out of politics. It guaranteed that while the BBC would not become the mouthpiece of a particular government, it would remain the creature, albeit thinly insulated, of government Administratively, the BBC was under the Postmaster General, who collected and disbursed license fees. Its charter required it to transmit whatever a department of government gave it and to suppress whatever the Postmaster General ordered it to; in an emergency, it could be requisitioned by the government. Only self- restraint by government in exercising these powers gave the BBC a veneer of independence. A General Advisory Council, set up in 1934, was described as 'about 30 eminent Victorians (of America) Radio also set a standard for cultivated speech; dialects and regionalisms began to disappear from everyday discourse. In a larger sense, radio unified the country in speech, tastes, customs and moral standards as no other medium ever had or until television - ever would one can conclude that in the realm of world affairs during this crucial period, the British listener was not well served by radio. By its charter no less than by the social bent of its personnel, the BBC was nudged toward betraying its chief responsibility to its listeners: to inform.

Answer 12

felt that 'the BBC has subordinated the question of popular appeal to Principles of Moral Philosophy

Answer 13

He brought a typed script to the studio and asked Grisewood to listen and critique.

Answer 14

. In 1930, the International Broadcasting Co. was formed specifically to beam commercial programmes from France to the British Isles. In June 1931, the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion, a French-financed firm, began to blanket Europe with commercial programmes on 100-watt transmitters. By October 1931, Radio Normandie at Fecamp enveloped all of southern England, playing hit records on Saturday nights in what the BBC called a 'blatant American manner'

Answer 15

by 1935 fully 50 per cent of British listeners were tuned to foreign stations on Sundays and 11 per cent on weekdays

Answer 16

In 1925, some ten million listened to the king opening the Empire Exhibition at Wembley 1933, the BBC began a series called Scrapbook, 'a powerful whiff of nostalgia', which, though no surveys prove it, drew an estimated thirty million listeners in 1937

Answer 17

When Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Minister on 20 February 1938, in protest against appeasement of Hitler, CBS broadcast to America his speech to his constituents at Stratford-upon-Avon. The BBC did not, and hundreds of Britons phoned CBS' London office asking if they could hear the broadcast.

Answer 18

How did politicans cope with the post-1867 electorate? At a local level, there was a marked development of political clubs, small versions of the House of Commons, flourishing in many towns and villages The local parliaments show that the dribe toward oratory was self-generated, and not merely an imposition from above the old days of the 1840s and 1850s when leisured debates on the 'condition of the people' took up to ten days gave way to Parliaments dominated by the details of committee work. Government majorities, except at certain times such as 1885-86, became after 1867 more predictable: the role of rhetoric in the Commons in immediately influencing the survival of the ministry as in the 1850s and 1860 became less important, and consequently less exciting for newspaper readers. The extension of the franchise made extra-parliamentary speechmaking necessary; the continuing limits on the electorate made it effective. thoroughness and regularity of the stump 'season' was new. In the mid-century, politicians, as a rule, visited their constituencies, and rarely any other than their own constituencies, at election times or for some special occasion. Palmerston, following his mentor, Canning, was an unsung pioneer, with a series of public speeches in the 1850s, but he was not at first followed up. Gladstone's speeches between 1864 and 1868 in Lancashire were the most prominent examples of a growing tendency of Cabinet Ministers to talk on a wide range of political subjects directly to the people. two audiences: first the audience actuall present and, second, the audience to be reached through the press. The latter was clearly the more important. MP's position in league table of speech reporting was of great importance for reputation. If could get from summary to 'full' report category, could substantially improve political position. Commons import Lloyd George Boer War attacks on Chamberlain leading to incr prestige ``` Liberal prioritisation of speeches/ speechmaking. Importance of belief in rational argument - class and personal interest not the determining factor in voting behaviour. Speechmaking and good press coverage essential to strategy ``` Vast new electorate and changing press structure meant that the complex structure of extra-parliamentary national debate never recovered rude late-Victorian health Incr politicians' words reached only the 'professional' audience Partisanship of reporting increased markedly During the inter-war years chief means of political communication of the late Victorians had become the whim of an agency editor

Answer 19

Blanchard Jerrold estimated in 1883 that there were over a hundred Houses of Commons (including four each in Glasgow and Manchester) with about 35,000 members

Answer 20

Provincial journalism entered upon a new phase with the repeal of the paper duties and the extension of the telegraph system. Daily newspapers soon became a necessity for all large centres ... and with their establishment a change has followed, which Mr. Gladstone was, perhaps, the first public man to recognise

Answer 21

Manchester in 1872, which lasted three and a half hours (during which he drank two bottles of white brandy, believed by the audience to be water) and at the Crystal Palace in London, also in 1872: both of these speeches were, significantly, to assemblies of Tory Party workers rather than to open audiences.

Answer 22

Gladstone's orations on Bulgaria in | 1876-77

Answer 23

meeting in St George's Hall, Liverpool, in 1868: Gladstone was shouted · down by the Tories in the hall: 'He proceeded, however, peaking to the reporters who were just below him

Answer 24

London in 1868 to act as a central news agency for the expanding, largely Liberal provincial press

Answer 25

1868 - agencies such as the PA and Exchange Telegraph, which mainly acted for the London paper from its establishment in 1872, received very favourable rates of transmission

Answer 26

each week each paper got a list of 'fixtures' - the whips arranged between themselves that there should not be classes such as Gladstone and Salisbury peaking the same evening, - and on Monday the papers sent in orders for the coming week. There were three kinds of report, (a) a verbatim (sometimes as much a fi e columns, (b) 'full' (first-person report but judicious! trimmed and shortened to about 1112 columns from the verbatim), and (c) third-person summary, usually half a column. On the basis of the papers' order, the agency decided which of these sorts of report to arrange

Answer 27

British press became predominantly Unionist having been overwhelmingly Liberal. In 1884, there were 518 Liberal newspapers to 293 Tory; by 1901 the figures were 403 Liberal, 456 Unionist After about 1888 independent papers had on the whole become definitely Unionist in tone

Answer 28

1870s and 80s

Answer 29

Boer War of long-term help to the Liberals by promoting to the 'full' level several unknown Liberal politicians

Answer 30

Decline of Whiggery, loss of Chamberlain Rhetoric incr depended upon as link w the party as well as the electorate Gladstone, Morley, Asquith - controlled no machine, spent no money on politics, no base in localities. Absence of formal party structure

Answer 31

introduced new techniques into Br press in 1880s, inspired by US press

Answer 32

75% of households

Answer 33

vital to enable the vast mass of the electorate to know what the issues were... he did not know of any other way by which [politicians] could get at them

Answer 34

Some DLPs, such as Wansbeck, made a full canvass, and exceptionally efficient ones like East Bristol canvassed the entire division twice Labour Organiser noting that less canvassing took place than at any election since 1918. distribution of printed propaganda was also important. Labour had great difficulties in this direction, too. Most of its stock literature had had to be scrapped, and the replacement material was poor quality and often arrived too late to be of much use Labour's defeat was inevitable. At most, the pro-National press, in keeping up the pressure on its readership to vote for the Government, ensured a high turn-out instead of allowing apathy and complacency to take hold, and so, perhaps, meant Labour lost a few more seats than it would have done otherwise. But to blame the press for Labour's defeat, or even to cite it as a major factor, was to blame the messenger for the message and to seek to evade unpleasant political realities newsreels made no decisive impact. Their coverage was too slender, both in individual reels and overall, to form opinions, especially when many in the audience—like the disgruntled person switching on his or her TV today—considered themselves as viewers rather than electors.

Answer 35

The Berry group (Daily Telegraphy Daily Sketchy Manchester Daily Dispatch; Sunday Times, Sunday Graphic, Manchester Empire News; around twenty provincial titles) was the largest, and firmly pro- Conservative. Second came the Rothermere chain (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Sunday Dispatch, Sunday Pictorial; London Evening News; around a dozen provincial tides) which followed its proprietor's own characteristically right-wing brand of Conservatism. After Rothermere were another idiosyncratic Tory, Beaverbrook (Daily Express; Sunday Express; London Evening Standard), the Liberal Cadburys (News Chronicle; London evening Star), and the Odhams Press (Daily Herald, co-owned with and under the editorial control of the TUC; the more neutral Sunday People).

Answer 36

Scotland stood somewhat aloof from England and Wales. Only the Daily Express, which alone of the national dailies had a Scottish edition printed in Scotland, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Herald of the English papers achieved a significant share of the market north of the border.

Answer 37

six Conservative broadcasts, three Labour, and three Liberal. This 2:1:1 ratio was ‘justified’ on the grounds that the Conservatives were the Government party; not surprisingly, the Labour Party especially was incensed a 6:4 imbalance in favour of the Government.

Answer 38

Pathé was the least objective, giving no coverage at all to Labour's leaders and declaring joyously after the election: ‘Now—Let us all pull together for prosperity'

Answer 39

The culture of print, increasingly structured public perceptions of politics, language, and memory

Answer 40

Conservative Party has always had as its greatest strength the ability to adapt and survive development of political propaganda born of the harsh political environment that the party faced at the end of the First World War. The two threats extension of the franchise and the rising tide of socialism necessity of ‘political education’. many of the propagandists who had learnt their trade at Crewe House ended up running Conservative Party propaganda during the 1920s and 1930s for the more determined party propagandists such as Sir Joseph Ball, the distinction between ‘party political’ opponents and ‘Communist subversives’ was often lost

Answer 41

Conservative Party has always had as its greatest strength the ability to adapt and survive development of political propaganda born of the harsh political environment that the party faced at the end of the First World War. The two threats extension of the franchise and the rising tide of socialism necessity of ‘political education’. many of the propagandists who had learnt their trade at Crewe House ended up running Conservative Party propaganda during the 1920s and 1930s for the more determined party propagandists such as Sir Joseph Ball, the distinction between ‘party political’ opponents and ‘Communist subversives’ was often lost After the war, the cosy assumption that the ‘party press’ would always be compliant and receptive was rudely broken by the independent- mindedness shown by two of the new generation of ‘press barons For those who doubt the value of the messengers, and place their faith only in the message itself, the 1929 election, in which party propaganda was used at a mass level for the first time, is proof that even the best propaganda can make little difference. The record of the party's use of advertising and communications techniques for publicity is, therefore, one of extraordinary innovation— (p.577) certainly compared to that of the other British political parties such a policy has reaped substantial electoral advantage for the party since the First World War

Answer 42

Sir Malcolm Fraser was appointed the first press adviser to Conservative Central Office and by that year gramophone records with political messages were being sold and forty million leaflets were distributed at both elections.

Answer 43

November 1926 to May 1930 ‘The first job on which I set my mind was to apply the lessons of the Great War to the organization of political warfare'

Answer 44

Director of Publicity 1927 head of Conservative Research Department 1929 ex-MI5 head of investigation

Answer 45

The Press Bureau within Central Office had been set up by Sir Malcolm Fraser in 1911, and by the late 1920s was operating several distinct services. The most important of these was the Lobby Press Service, run from the Press Bureau by Captain Dawson and Mr Burchett. The Lobby Press Service provided 230 weekly and daily provincial papers with a regular diet of political news. Every day, each editor received a leading article and up to six ‘notes’, supplied free of charge June 1927 Central Office calculated that the newspapers printed 353 leading articles, 535 notes, and 35 special articles based on Lobby Press Service material. abuse of the ‘Lobby’ system classic ‘front’ organization, the Industrial Press Service. This was hired during 1924 and 1925 used by eighty-three weekly papers of non-Conservative views, who received economic articles by a ‘Mr Christopher Straight in fact the nom de plume of Gough of the Sunday Chronicle , and E. T. Good, the Press Bureau was also responsible for the publication of various magazines printed by Central Office which had surprisingly high circulations, including Man in The Street (circulation 110,000),

Answer 46

The Press Bureau within Central Office had been set up by Sir Malcolm Fraser in 1911, and by the late 1920s was operating several distinct services. The most important of these was the Lobby Press Service, run from the Press Bureau by Captain Dawson and Mr Burchett. The Lobby Press Service provided 230 weekly and daily provincial papers with a regular diet of political news. Every day, each editor received a leading article and up to six ‘notes’, supplied free of charge June 1927 Central Office calculated that the newspapers printed 353 leading articles, 535 notes, and 35 special articles based on Lobby Press Service material. abuse of the ‘Lobby’ system classic ‘front’ organization, the Industrial Press Service. This was hired during 1924 and 1925 used by eighty-three weekly papers of non-Conservative views, who received economic articles by a ‘Mr Christopher Straight in fact the nom de plume of Gough of the Sunday Chronicle , and E. T. Good, the Press Bureau was also responsible for the publication of various magazines printed by Central Office which had surprisingly high circulations, including Man in The Street (circulation 110,000) Davidson did much to cultivate the friendship (and aristocratic pretensions) of rival press proprietors Berry Brothers, William and Gomer Berry June 1929 Sir William was duly created Baron Camrose of Long Cross. In 1941 he was created a Viscount by a Churchill thankful for his wartime support Lesser honours were bestowed on the editors and correspondents who were sympathetic to the party's policy.

Answer 47

It was Davidson who first suggested using advertising agencies on a professional basis to design and formulate the slogans, posters, and leaflets that were the common currency of election campaigning during the inter-war years. The first agency that the party used was the Holford-Bottomley Advertising Service. Benson's, poster and leaflet work during the 1929 election campaign, and again in 1931 and 1935 ‘Safety First’ slogan that was widely credited with helping the party lose the 1929 election Of the £300,000 spent on the 1929 election campaign by the party, £155,495 went on publicity, the biggest single expense

Answer 48

By the 1929 election Central Office had a small fleet of mobile loudspeaker vans and had purchased nearly 100 portable public-address systems.

Answer 49

Baldwin was the first British politician to give the new medium of film his serious attention by the 1935 election Baldwin was using all the modern broadcasting techniques to help get himself over as well as possible on camera. His staff were adept at preparing short speeches, which effectively reduced the danger of being cut short by newsreel editors before distribution; perhaps the first conscious development of the ‘sound bite’.

Answer 50

very expensive—in 1930 it cost £40 a week to keep twelve vans on the road

Answer 51

In I923, the Liberals had the best possible issue on which to reunite and fight the election - the historic defence of free trade. As a result they won all but one of the region's twelve county divisions. When the Liberals did have new and 'relevant' policies, in I929, Labour and the Conservatives went out of their way to declare them unrealistic and irrelevant and the Liberal revival nationally was limited to traditional strongholds, such as Cornwall.

Answer 52

Ways in which Conservative Party and esp Baldwin and his political allies used the media played an essential part in securing both his and the party's claims to represent 'the nation' in this period In speeches of Baldwin above all other inter-war politicians that the England of HV Morton and his like could be most clearly recognised. 'England', at the annual dinner of the Royal Society of St George, 6 May 1924 - To me, England is the country and the country is England... sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill 'Englishness' as Baldwin's chief tactic and basis of sustained attack on socialism and the Labour Party Conservative Party's success in coming to terms with both the old and the new media was a key factor in their wider political success in the period Ball turned to new media of film and radio for more favourable - and easily manipulable - portrayals of Conservatism than press interwar media, radio and newsreels, not in business of critical editorializing. Politics of consensus. Most persuasive messages = straightforward, informal, non-partisan broadcasting sought to unify and integrate 1930s - radio transformed relationship between individual and nation. Broadcast celebration of religious festivals, civic ceremonies, national days of remembrance and sporting events consolidated a sense of 'national' culture and an image of the 'nation' itself as rational, consensual, 'arcadian' Everything implied in the term 'Reithian values' was inherently conservative Unlike the press, both radio and newsreels maintained a deferential relationship to the government of the day, but particularly Baldwinite Conservatism inter-war years, radio and newsreels drew on and embellished those shared conceptions of the nation and national identity that Baldwin had done so much to embody in words and manner

Answer 53

He interpreted the essential spirit of England

Answer 54

H V Morton's In Search of England (1927)

Answer 55

Davidson = old friend of Sir John Reith, BBC Director General

Answer 56

so pop that by 1931 party managers virtually dictating terms on which would release his speeches to newsreel companies

Answer 57

first Br politician to understand spoke simply and directly from Reith's office 1924. Wife knitting beside him and paused to light his pipe relaxed, intimate, fireside tone

Answer 58

broadcast for half an hour from their party rallies

Answer 59

40% of listening public no other politician over 25%

Answer 60

wireless listeners are not a congregation, and are not subject to the mass psychology of the ordinary audience. Mr Lloyd George and Ramsay MacDonald do not appreciate this

Answer 61

no discussion of any topic within a fortnight of its being raised in Parliament

Answer 62

Gladstone emerges in response to democratization, unifying populace and party while able to transcend party and parliament in order to speak directly to the people. victories of the Liberal platform became the means by which the people triumphed over injustice, felt their own sense of empowerment and found a place within the political world as citizens

Answer 63

Bright and Gladstone borrowed many of the tropes associated with the radical gentleman of the platform, but they did so only when it suited them, on an occasional and very selective basis. Both 'demagogues' went for long periods without addressing any public meetings. But these men were also adroit insiders They met their publics very much on their own terms, whether on the printed newspaper page, within the controlled space of the indoor meeting or political dinner, from special trains on whistle-stop tour, on pilgrimage to Hawarden Castle. The streets and taverns, torchlight meetings and moorland summits, the birthing places of plebeian radicalism and its language were left behind, as were many labouring men and women and finally an older style of gentlemanly leadership. The cultural context of popular politics had changed together with its associated meanings.

Answer 64

Radical inclusion within the Liberal coalition was always partial and conditional. Radical press of the 1870s and 1880s repeatedly attacked local Liberal parties for conspiring to block Radical and Labour candidates Not only did many party politicians continue to accept the legitimacy of the politics of disruption, but they often seemed to eschew any explicit ambition to change the people they claimed to represent. In many respects the hallmark of Tory success in the 1880s and 1890s had been the party's willingness, not only to accept the people as they were, but even to celebrate some of their least loved characteristics. As Liberalism came more fully under the sway of the nonconformist conscience after 1886, so Tories found it easier to present themselves as the champions of the 'respectable' working man who wanted to enjoy the honest pleasures of pub, race-track or music hall free from interference. The Liberals adapted only slowly to the new politics, but by the early 1900s they too began to find a strongly populist voice by exploiting issues such as 'Chinese slavery' and dear food.

Answer 65

Until at least 1914, many of the leading local and regional newspapers were owned by prominent local politicians. After 1918, especially following the amalgamation of the two main Conservative and Liberal papers, local politicians felt keenly their lack of a reliable source of press support. The cost of funding a party political newspaper became too high for all but the richest politicians. Moreover, the status of the provincial press was increasingly undermined by improved rail communications, allowing the national press to compete even in farthest Cornwall. The wireless also reduced the importance of the provincial press from the late 1920s.

Answer 66

Up to the 1940s the Labour politicians themselves regarded the paper with mingled hostility and disdain. In part this reflected its history as a lightweight picture paper with Conservative loyalties The year 1935 proved to be the real turning-point both because of the Italian threat to invade Abyssinia and because of the policy change by the Labour Party which culminated in a firm commitment to collective security and the resignation of the pacifist George Lansbury as party leader Labour Party itself made one crucial move in the Mirror's direction in July 1937 when its MPs voted in favour of the defence estimates for the first time

Answer 67

``` represented the serious-minded political culture of working-class radicalism and socialism ``` 1929 it came under the formal control of the TUC By spring 1930 circulation stood at over one million and had topped two million by July 1933 when the Herald stood second only to the Daily Express While it articulated the views of one working-class community associated with the institutions of the Labour movement, it found it difficult to reach into the alternative working-class political culture where opinions leant more to patriotism, empire, and monarchism and where the mood favoured sport, gambling, drink, and sex. This was the market to which the irreverence and light-hearted exuberance of the Daily Mirror appealed so successfully in the 1940s

Answer 68

This duty of making political speeches is an aggravation of the labour of your Majesty's servants which we owe entirely to Mr Gladstone

Answer 69

analysis of Liberal propaganda in the late 1890s reinforces this picture of a party gripped by an essentially negative, reactive mentality. Not only is there no evidence of innovation in party policy, either on labour questions, or on any other issue of the moment, there is in fact no discussion of Liberal policy at all By 1900 it was using cartoons to drive its message home. For instance, the leaflet 'Part of the pantomime', depicts Salisbury, dressed as a jester, defacing a copy of Chamberlain's 1895 social programme, By mid 1902, however, there were signs of change. A leaflet attacking Tory 'doles' to landlords and clergy argued that the Liberals would spend this money not on tax reduction, as in the past, but on much-needed social reforms such as old-age pensions, unemployment relief and better access to higher education party propaganda was still dominated by the defence of traditional Liberal causes, especially non-denominational education and free trade. Government policy on such issues presented the Liberals with strong cards to play - and increasingly they played them with flair (and a highly populist flourish). As early as 1902 the party issued a pamphlet depicting Hicks Beach, the Unionist Chancellor, as a rat 'nibbling at the big loaf [in] the poor man's cupboard unscrupulous exploitation of the 'Chinese slavery' issue during the 1906 election marked the culmination of a long learning process for Liberal politicians For years the party had been forced on to the defensive by Tory populism learnt that politicians must address electors as they are, not as they would like them to be defence of free trade was a gift to Liberal propagandist

Answer 70

analysis of Liberal propaganda in the late 1890s reinforces this picture of a party gripped by an essentially negative, reactive mentality. Not only is there no evidence of innovation in party policy, either on labour questions, or on any other issue of the moment, there is in fact no discussion of Liberal policy at all By 1900 it was using cartoons to drive its message home. For instance, the leaflet 'Part of the pantomime', depicts Salisbury, dressed as a jester, defacing a copy of Chamberlain's 1895 social programme, By mid 1902, however, there were signs of change. A leaflet attacking Tory 'doles' to landlords and clergy argued that the Liberals would spend this money not on tax reduction, as in the past, but on much-needed social reforms such as old-age pensions, unemployment relief and better access to higher education party propaganda was still dominated by the defence of traditional Liberal causes, especially non-denominational education and free trade. Government policy on such issues presented the Liberals with strong cards to play - and increasingly they played them with flair (and a highly populist flourish). As early as 1902 the party issued a pamphlet depicting Hicks Beach, the Unionist Chancellor, as a rat 'nibbling at the big loaf [in] the poor man's cupboard unscrupulous exploitation of the 'Chinese slavery' issue during the 1906 election marked the culmination of a long learning process for Liberal politicians For years the party had been forced on to the defensive by Tory populism learnt that politicians must address electors as they are, not as they would like them to be defence of free trade was a gift to Liberal propagandist As organised nonconformity began to turn away from party politics and mass protest after 1906, so Liberals too gave more and more thought to the scope for constructive social policies. By the late 1900s Britain had taken a decisive shift, not simply towards reforms to benefit the socially disadvantaged, but towards centralized and programmatic party politics.

Answer 71

early Edwardian years marked a crucial phase in the recovery - and development - of the Liberal press. Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust (JRSST) money heaped upon the Northern Echo Cowdray invested £250 000 in Westminster Press. By 1927 WP's provincial newspapers had improved financial position - rising circulations, falling costs of items such as newsprint, efficiencies 1942, JRSST investment in provincial newspapers was yielding a dividend of about £1000 a year 1905-1939 JRSST lost £69,989 on provincial newspapers After WW2, when newspapers that had been run by WP in the Liberal cause failed to pay, they were allowed to close or sold to Conservative proprietors Rowntrees and colleagues, in diverting resources towards Liberal Party, recognised that Lib newspapers had not stemmed electoral tide vs Libs between the world wars. Esp obvs in northeast England. Resilient Liberal press in northeast. Even in 1929, when Lab's electoral rout of Liberals largely accomplished, 4 dailies backed the Liberals, while Conservatives had one By the 1930s, Liberals in many places little to rely on but the press After WWII, staunch Liberals ceased to control Westminster Press. By then, those who directed WP no desire for the provincial press to lead partisan war. By 1945, Rowntrees ceased to consider newspapers as the first means of political campaigning, and felt it no longer worth acquiring loss-making newspapers and subsidizing them; instead, the Rowntrees funded the Liberal Party directly

Answer 72

newspaper became the dominant medium by the end of the century Lord Palmerston cultivated relationships with several newspapers and individual journalists to improve his standing among the cabinet Press Barons unprecedented power Press power – 1880s WT Stead had claimed credit for passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act WW1 – Northcliffe widely accredited w bringing down Asquith govt 1930s, growing radicalism of the News Chronicle Tory hostility in 1945 election. Campaign centring around Churchill 1925, Labour disadvantage in press rep never suffered before by a major party. By 1945-51, greater balance of political partisanship

Answer 73

1855 repeal of the stamp tax

Answer 74

Commercialisation freed newspapers from dependence on party finance 1922-3, Mail - vote for Labour = a vote for Bolshevism

Answer 75

controversial document published by the British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the general election in 1924. It purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain, ordering it to engage in all sorts of seditious activities. It said the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a Labour government) would hasten the radicalisation of the British working class

Answer 76

1912 The Daily Citizen The Daily Herald - supported industrial militancy and denounced moderate leadership

Answer 77

March 1930 Double to previous size

Answer 78

Daily Herald

Answer 79

'special appeal' lay to 'the politically and culturally apathetic'

Answer 80

overhaul of Labour's publicity machinery 1917-18 Labour Organiser editor Herbert Drinkwater key tools were till the meeting, doorstep visits and leaflet rounds Committment to maintain direct-voter contact characterised the party's approach well into the 20th C Labour politicians in particular continued to promote the value of the public meeting after 1918 Labour's widespread use of 'traditional' educationalist methods of electioneering formed barrier to those seeking to refashion campaigns and embrace 'image' politics Conservative innovations placed 'psychological pressure' on Labour

Answer 81

1924 - invested in expensive loudspeaker system to accompany McD on his tour of the country Party HQ also retained several full-time propagandists who visited local parties and delivered speeches on requested themes. 1931 - this service incorporated recently defeated MPs w efforts co-ordinated by full-time Propaganda Officer Maurice Webb Clarion van tours

Answer 82

5 mill leaflets, 50,000 posters, 1910 (dwarfed by Conservatives' 50 mill and Liberals' 41 mill) 1923 - leaflets designed to appeal to voters as mothers, agricultural workers, ex-servicemen, etc 1929 - 43 million pamph, posters, leaflets

Answer 83

Call to Action (1932-3) Labour's Bid for Power Fund, 1929 - several agents devised stunts involving bell ringers, sandwich-board walkers and horseback riders to appeal for the less interested

Answer 84

prioritise 'very matter-of-fact people' over the 'higher intellectual'

Answer 85

1935 - but abandoned idea on grounds of cost. Plus educationalists' opposition as associated w non-socialist values

Answer 86

Labour's most import advocate of professional publicity. 1920 - castigating Labour's promotional material as 'dull, heavy and badly displayed' 1921 lively pamphlet, the Citizen's Charter, supporting his parliamentary bill to protect against local business monopolies 1st Labour leader of the LCC 1934. Reformed authority's media relations - handouts for journalists and press conferences at which sherry was served Photo opportunity - added support to LCC's Auxiliary Fire Service volunteer drive by exiting a window and climbing down a ladder onto a fire appliance to make his statement at a press conference 1937 re-election campaign. Stretegists e.g. Robert Fraser. Morrison w children alongside slogan 'Labour is Building Better Britons'. Party victory on 51% of the vote

Answer 87

educationalists in the LLP hierarchy like Joan Bourne. | Morrison kept strategic formulations largely secret bc feared backlash from committee mems

Answer 88

1935, adopted larger outdoor poster format popularised for the Conservatives for a series of emotive designs incl 'Election crosses or wooden crosses' - ref to Tories' alleged warmongering

Answer 89

500,000 manifestos, millions of pamphlets John Armstrong - memorable propaga images like 'And Now- Win the Peace' graphic

Answer 90

despite 1919 Film Propaganda Sub-committee w Sidney Webb in the chair. Rotha, of the documentary movement, resigned as adviser on film following drop in Labour interest in film 1937 new committee on film. Co-operative Wholesale Society donated cinema vans to Labour. Cost prevented the party from using the vehicles

Answer 91

greater precision/ use of sci terminology

Answer 92

1922, Sidney Webb Earliest known attempt to segment the electorate. Need to target diff ppl w alternative messages Article reprinted in the Labour Organiser. Endorsed by General Secretary Arthur Henderson

Answer 93

Labour Organiser, edited by Herbert Drinkwater

Answer 94

1923 campaign, contrib to success

Answer 95

Why Brainworkers Should Join the Labour Party pamphlet issued after Great War Morrison, 1923, Can Labour win London without the m-c's

Answer 96

Chair of Labour's campaign committee by 1945. | Victory in more prosperous East Lewisham in 1945

Answer 97

tradition of political cartooning which provided the most important source of images for political posters before 1914. Many posters were simply scaled-up reprints of cartoons. Of the six designs put out as colour posters by the National Liberal Federation in 1900, five were by Carruthers Gould, of which four had previously appeared as cartoons in the Westminster Gazette. close of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant expansion in the public presence of visual propaganda, as pictorial posters increased in number, size and use of colour first Liberal Federation colour poster was issued in 1889 growing propaganda efforts of centralized party organizations in the period passage of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883, following the hugely expensive 1880 election, importantly restricted traditional formsof expenditure, such as treating, and redirected resources elsewhere. Technological change, notably developments in lithography, was important. Early theatrical lithographic posters from the 1860s remained relatively small, but the perfection of colour lithography, combined with the use of metal plates and offset printing, facilitated the production of large, full-colour posters in huge quantities.61 Nevertheless, textual, usually letterpress, posters retained a significant presence, as contemporary photographs testify (see Plate 2).The emergence of central organizations equipped with publicity departments owed much to the enlarged electorate richer political organizations were better able to afford large-scale pictorial propaganda than weaker rivals. However, early twentieth-century political culture did not experience the elimination of traditional public politics by the mediated politics of the spectacle British political culture between 1880 and 1914 experienced a significant increase in the volume of political communication. However, its expansion constituted neither the final triumph of the coercive rationalism of print nor the birth of a debased politics of the image Posters were an increasingly significant part of the public culture of British politics before 1914; the political culture they reveal was neither privatized nor passive.

Answer 98

Liberal agents’ journal pragmatically printed excerpts from Human Nature in Politics as a guide to best practice in electioneering. 25 In April 1915, the same magazine observed that ‘the secret of success is said to lie in advertising’

Answer 99

2/3 of a million In 1900, according to the Sphere, the largest poster was the notorious ‘Kruger and his Supporters’, issued by the Liberal Unionist Association By 1910, the largest posters of the January election were eight times larger

Answer 100

over a quarter of a | million of posters, and about 150 000 cartoons

Answer 101

the NUCCA published more than two million posters | and cartoons

Answer 102

50,000 picture posters

Answer 103

When Winston Churchill tried to explain Lord Rosebery’s failure to realize his full potential as a politician, despite having succeeded Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894, he concluded that Rosebery’s greatest handicap had been that he never adapted to the demands of democratic politics. By 1885, so many front-rank politicians were travelling the country to address large election meetings that the party leaders could afford to take a back seat—Gladstone addressed only five meetings during the election

Answer 104

According to Rowe, many voters, especially those who were ‘doubtful’ or ‘indifferent’, would never attend a public meeting, and therefore could only be reached by careful canvassing in their homes

Answer 105

General Strike failure 1926 as turning point in Labour attitudes to press Post-MacD Labour Party was, in many respects, more attuned to the potentialities of mediated communication than their National Government rivals

Answer 106

The Labour Party has a powerful organization in this country, but no Press... The Conservative Party... has the best and stronges organization

Answer 107

TUC press dept updated and expanded its daily précis of "Industrial News: for the Use of the Press", which incl a list of trade union and party activities and a general Labour gloss on the events on the day By 1934 - reported that contact w newspapers, especially the Industrial Correspondents and specialized writers on Trade Union and Labour politics, is now a matter of routine

Answer 108

1920s - the party limited itself to providing weekly notes to "Labour and Trade Union papers and to Labour correspondents to provincial papers" during the 1929 general election, Labour's press dept prepared pre-written articles for the "important provincial papers" - policy that had long been followed by their Conservative opponents. By 1930s, in regular comms w the principle national dailies

Answer 109

Snowden occasionally wrote for the Express while in office Ellen Wilkinson relationship with the Beaverbrook papers

Answer 110

took trouble to cultivate the lobby men at the News Chronicle

Answer 111

Just as Labour publicity dept in 1919 had prepared a series of columns for the Daily Mail that dealt w the reasons why diff sectors of the population should vote Labour, the Herald in 1929 ran a series of "Little Letters" on its front page, addressed to, among others, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a young mother, and "Miss 1929", newly enfranchised "flapper voter"

Answer 112

through invoking the interests of consumers that many aimed to undercut the claims of labour. Labour’s responses indicate the difficulties involved in speaking for a ‘sectional’ interest, and for the public. It is notable, though, that many within Labour sought both to redefine the public interest, and to represent the consuming public, as befitted a party strongly attached to free trade. response to the challenge was more creative, and more complex, than has been recognised. Crude criticism of labour’s inability to articulate consumer concerns underestimates its rhetorical difficulties, but, more importantly, it neglects the movement’s real efforts to speak for both the people, and the public. Trade union newspapers likewise challenged those who claimed to represent ‘public opinion’ against strikers. Railway Review J. W. Frost, Public interest ‘must ultimately rest, not on abject servitude, but on the quantity and quality of its self-respecting manhood’. Aware of the consumerist overtones of the ‘public’, Frost challenged its implicit denial of productionist concerns public interest is the interest of all the people, not the vulgar and sordid ‘interests’ of a few thousand parasites who bleed and exploit the people.76

Answer 113

. This was run by W. T. Stead, the great Liberal publicist of his day, and one of the greatest of all pioneers of the 'popular press'. The Gazette ran a long series of 'Extras' over the years, of which the birthday account of Bright was one. They catered for the great contemporary interest in parliament and parliamentary figures, an interest akin to contemporary fascination with the 'celebrity'.17

Answer 114

Liberal heavyweights such as Lloyd George, Churchill, and even Asquith showed themselves to be supreme masters of this new uncompromising mass politics.1 ‘Chinese slavery’ In theory this was a classic liberal issue embodying internationalism, humanitarianism, and an abhorrence of the evils of slavery and imperial exploitation this was not how it played in the populist Liberal press, nor, crucially, how it came to be represented in official party propaganda or in heated constituency contests. Recalling the election in the 1930s, the former Liberal minister Augustine Birrell decried ‘the spectacle of hired men dressed up as Chinese labourers, dragged out from one Liberal platform to another

Answer 115

established in 1887 to provide local Liberal parties with a reliable source of centrally produced leaflets, pamphlets, and posters, produced over 10 million leaflets at the 1892 General Election. This figure had risen to 25 million by 1895, and over 40 million at its pre-war peak in January 1910

Answer 116

political poster also came into its own in this period. In 1880 election posters still relied almost entirely on bold verbal messages using traditional letterpress printing, but simple line-drawings gained ground over the next decade, usually in the form of political cartoons, and in the 1890s the first fullcolour election posters appeared, mimicking the revolutionary impact of Pears Soap’s ‘Bubbles’ campaign of the late 1880s. From 1900, the central parties began to sell large-format, fullcolour posters direct to local parties, and a revolution in pictorial campaigning began. The Liberal Publication Department sold 175,000 posters in 1900, over 500,000 in 1906, and approximately one million for the two elections of 1910. Conservative figures are not directly comparable, but suggest an even more precipitate increase

Answer 117

sounded the most shamelessly populist notes Such images were disseminated, not by the mainstream parties, but rather by the various partisan pressure groups which sprang up in Edwardian Britain such as the Free Trade Union, the Budget League, and the Tariff Reform League. essentially auxiliary organizations in the mould of the Conservatives’ (p.81) Primrose League, rather than pressure groups seeking to move an issue up the political agenda. With good reason, historians have generally discussed their role in terms of how the parties gradually learned to exploit loopholes in the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act. The Tariff Reform League produced posters highlighting the increased cost of ‘free trade’ bread since 1906 Unionists Own populist slogans Amery embraced pithy slogans such as ‘British Work for British Men

Answer 118

1931 Labour election guide - party had ‘held its own against these innovations by the superior quality of its outdoor platform speaking.’ The Conservatives appear to have agreed: in October 1928 their Principal Agent was advising the party leadership to call an early spring election specifically to avoid being dragged into a long summer of open-air campaigning which would ‘place us at a disadvantage’. At first many Conservatives remained reluctant to follow Labour onto the streets at all; indeed in the early 1920s a party electioneering guide still warned of the dangers of ‘cheapening’ the candidate with outdoor speaking. But as amplification became widely available, so these qualms evaporated

Answer 119

Labour was slow to accept amplification for outdoor speaking—in 1931 the party’s official electioneering guide was still arguing that it destroyed the intimacy between speaker and audience. Amplification threatened to destroy that equality not until the later 1930s that Labour began to make routine use of the new technology

Answer 120

At Bristol, where Lloyd George addressed an audience of 2,000 at the Hippodrome, a crowd of 20,000 gathered outside to hear the ex-Prime Minister’s speech relayed by a Magnavox system During the 1923 election Lloyd George addressed a series of vast open-air mtgs across the north of England using powerful new amplification systems—30,000 were said to have heard him at Bolton and 40,000 at Rochdale,

Answer 121

Baldwin’s first experience of the technology was in July 1924 when he addressed a meeting of 20,000 at Manchester’s Belle Vue stadium. Baldwin complained 1929 election he was said to have addressed 200,000 on Blackpool beach via an elaborate relay system

Answer 122

money continued to matter Conservatives could still generally outspend their rivals at both the national and local level between the wars. Conservatives (p.111) recognized that money was probably their greatest asset in the battle to control the radicalizing tendencies of mass democracy not just in their greater use of new technologies such as mobile loudspeakers, relay systems, and cinema vans, but also in more established fields of propaganda such as advertising, leaflets, and also local campaigning, This disparity was at its most extreme after 1927, when the Conservatives’ Trades Dispute Act, passed in the aftermath of the General Strike, starved Labour of vital trade union funds at national and local level by insisting that members must contract into, rather than out of, the political levy 1929 Conservative candidates outspent their Labour counterparts on average by two to one (£905 against £452), and in 1935 the gap was wider still In 1927 they distributed almost twenty million leaflets, including nine million intended to neutralize the TUC’s campaign against the Trades Dispute Act, and in 1929 they sent copies of the party manifesto to 8.3 million homes and hired the advertising agency Benson’s to devise a sophisticated campaign that included almost half a million billboard posters

Answer 123

Centrally drafted ‘literature’ was often seen as inappropriate to local needs, but constituencies also struggled to find anyone remotely capable of producing the bright, snappy copy demanded by modern tastes. The local newsletters widely produced by constituency Labour parties during the 1920. were praised both for their ‘modern’ styling, and for their skilful blending of national and local copy. Here, Labour appears to have had the edge for much of the inter-war period, although, as Laura Beers has argued, during the 1920. this dynamism was in many respects a necessary corollary of the party’s antagonistic relationship with the ‘capitalist’ press, and its reluctance to allow the TUC-owned Daily Herald to be run on purely commercial principles.

Which political party responded most effectively to innovations in political communications and why? Flashcards

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