ONCE upon a time, some 70 years or so ago, politicians confronted with a reporter’s notebook or a news crew’s microphone were men — and they were in the main, men — of few words, almost always carefully chosen ones.
Britain’s post-war Labour prime minister Clement Attlee, the one who built the welfare state, was utterly without ego. A master of diffidence, he was asked by a journalist if he had a comment to make on Labour’s general election campaign or anything he’d like to tell the country. “No,” was his answer.
There were few press officers, and no spin merchants, special advisers, style consultants, marketing gurus, or taxpayer-funded strategic communications units at €5m a shot… and, of course, no 24/7 news cycles and anti-social media channels to be fed with ill-considered soundbites.
Governments were protected by often deferential reporters and broadcasters, but politicians were able to come up with their own ideas — without help from sharp Trinity College and Oxbridge graduates whose experience of life could be summarised on the back of a postage stamp — and write their own speeches.
Let’s sweep aside the official waffle that attempts to justify the existence and costs of the non-civil service entourages with which senior ministers like to surround themselves. They are, essentially, public relations operations and their task is to make a minister look and sound smart. But how would a politician who was really smart think he or she could get away with spending €5m a year on an outfit which might, for example, be asked to draft a ministerial speech or soundbite telling voters there isn’t sufficient money to tackle the housing crisis or lift the wages of public sector workers?
When a politician next says he or she needs a strategic communications unit or other fancy name, we hope there’s a civil servant nearby with the guts to say No, Minister.