Spin – the scourge of modern democracy

Perhaps it is not so new. Perhaps there has always been spin – also in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. Shakespeare writes about politicians being capable of quite a lot of spin, for instance in Julius Caesar.

Spin is generally considered a useful tool of politics. It is generally believed that without spin New Labour would not be able to gain power in 1997. It was inspired by the famous book by Phillip Gould “The Unfinished Revolution”, and both Tony Blair and his spin doctor Alistair Campbell used this book and its advice quite extensively. But spin may turn sour when it’s revealed.  This is what has happened to the disgraced Downing Street aide Damian McBride, who helped another one of Gordon Brown’s press aides Derek Draper to produce smear material against the Conservatives.

Labour was bothered by  campaigns against it made by Tory websites like ConservativeHome, and another, more smear like site called Guido Fawkes run by Paul Staines.  The latter got hold of e-mails written by McBride to various Labour notables. In these mails McBride suggests how smear campaigns may be launched against leading tories, among them the Tory Leader James Cameron. It is not known who the whistleblower is. Labour planned to set up a competitive smear site called Redrag. Labour already has a website called Labourlist, a “grassroots E-network” that somewhat corresponds to ConservativeHome.

The smear story has had catastrophic consequences for Labour. The party is now lagging behind The Tories by some 17 per cent in the polls.

McBride has been fired. But it is hard to tell whether the catastrophic smear campaign will stick to the party in the electorate’s minds. There are probably still some skeletons in the closet – if hints given by Staines are to be believed.

Brown has distanced himself from the sordid story:

Is this trustworthy? The voters don’t seem to believe him. Did he know all along that McBride was crossing a line?
Anyway, spin is the scourge of modern democracy. It makes people distrust the political process and politicians. The spin doctors insulate the politicians from spontaneous contact with the voters. This is harmful to the authenticity of democratic politics. The voters have a right to know what politicians think and believe in, without it being filtered through the sordid channels of spin and media.

Here is McBrides resignation statement.

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