What Labour Can Do – 3

If the last election has one lesson for the Mainstream Media, it is that the print part of it no longer has the influence of old. Labour was abandoned by all except the Mirror and Morning Star, the Murdoch and Rothermere press (and Richard Desmond) piled in behind the Tories, yet Young Dave came up short of the win line.

The lesson for both Labour and Tory is equally clear: there is no point in going out of your way to placate the press, something the Tories did this time round, and Labour did when Tone trounced “Shagger” Major, William ‘Ague, and the one who isn’t a Welsh Windbag because he’s a Tory.

The media that really influences the public mood – and another reason to keep the impartiality rule – is television, but only those channels that significant numbers of folks watch, which lets out Rupe’s troops at Sky News (“first for breaking wind”).

And the thought that the press are losing their influence has also occurred to Big Al, who has said much the same on his blog, the post containing the simple message “My advice to the next Labour leader is not to worry too much about the media”.

So there you have it: stop appeasing Murdoch the Interfering Foreigner, don’t be fussed what the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre thinks, and treat the Desmond press as the joke it is rapidly becoming. Take a leaf out of Barack Obama’s book: you can get your message across without the Fourth Estate.