In Praise of Mr. Seddon ...

I recently got hold of a copy of a new memoir by Mark Seddon, former Editor of Tribune, past elected member of New Labour's National Executive Committee, UN correspondent for Al-Jazeera and now back in London as Director of the People's Pledge.

The fact that he says some really, really nice things about me on pages 153-154 and 186 (we have worked together on this or that project since the mid-1990s) should not cause doubt about my thoroughly straight assessment that this book is very good indeed.

But this is not a book review. I can simply say that anyone who really wants to know what life was like for an honest man in a dishonest political party will find this book entertaining and informative. The cartoons by Martin Rowson, an old Seddon mucker, add some tasty icing to the cake.

This is not the only public reference to my work in the Labour Movement in the mid-1990s. I wrote background pieces for Lobster some years ago, just to have it on the record, and NEC slate candidate Liz Davies also gave a good mention some years ago that was not entirely accurate but well-meaning.

Even Mark (for lack of space) over-eggs my guru status in the formation and running of the internal Grassroots Alliance in 1995/1996. Andy Howell, Trevor Fisher and Ann Black (still on the NEC and working hard) are owed equal billing for constructing the core centre-right element of it, Labour Reform.

Similarly, the project, though firmly under my pragmatic strategic direction, would have been impossible without the immense subtlety and organisational talents of my Left counterpart Redmond O'Neill who was to play a central role in Ken Livingstone's return to the centre stage in London.

What interests me more are the two small vignettes surrounding my entry in Mark's story, both of which tell us a great deal about why New Labour failed - and fail it did, in terms of both core economic competence and ability to provide a sustainable commonweal for the most vulnerable.

The first has a prominent political journalist 'cautioning' Mark against becoming involved in our pitch to get independent grassroots members elected to the NEC because he had 'heard' that the Blairites would 'probably succeed in stopping us'. I have to assume that Mark is reporting him correctly.

The second has Gordon Brown calling Mark in to say that he was pleased that he was running (thus the tensions with the Blairites were clearly very early in their making) but that he should be careful in allying with 'Trots' (the internal party term for the very tiny band of 'revolutionary socialists' in the Party).

What do these two stories tell us about the British political establishment in 1995/6? It tells us two things. The first was that journalists were already ceasing to report in a detached way and were engaged in the construction of a group-think about what was appropriate behaviour.

Yes, this was just the friendly tip of one journalist to another but it was also a piece of advice that did the political classes' leaderships' job for it. It tried to persuade a moderate and sensible person not to join a sincere group of grassroots radicals because it might be bad (we presume) for his career.

This was clearly not intended by the journalist. He was just trying to be helpful. But a journalist who ceases to be detached and gives advice on a political matter is slipping over a line - and the British Establishment has long since slipped over a line that separates it from the mass of the population.

The caution was probably right - from a careerist perspective - but Mark decided to do what was right. The democratic vote was overwhelmingly for his position despite a hugely aggressive operation by the Party machine.

I am not particularly attacking one single journalist. He gave honest advice which was well meant but, whether politics or economics, the general habits of British journalism were already those, in the mid-1990s, of pragmatic group-think based on private briefings, 'things heard'.

Journalists are not wholly neutral in politics. Opinions become aligned with primary sources in State, Party and even Business, those who wield power - neutral between elements in the elite but not between elites and their subjects.

What was relatively trivial in our case (if rather non-democratic) became serious when no journalist until Peston was prepared to question the economic assumptions of that same elite. That failure to question meant that they were surprised and then we were surprised by a system breakdown.

Now we come to Mr. Brown. His opinion was no doubt a tactical one - the Grassroots Alliance would have crumbled quickly without two sensible proven mainstream Party players like Ann Black and Mark Seddon so it was sensible to try to frighten Mark into distancing himself.

If you know Mark, then such tactics are likely to flow over him like water off a duck's back. He will give that disarming smile of his, crack a self-deprecating joke and suggest lunch at the Gay Hussar. What is disturbing about Brown's advice is that he had more of a point than Mark credits.

The moderates, who actually ran the Campaign on a moderate and simple democratic platform, did have Trotskyists in their ranks in a junior capacity as engines for mobilising the vote (Trots may be a little mad but they work damn hard).

What Brown never asked because he is a surprisingly unsophisticated thinker is why Labour right-wing traditionalists, centre-left radicals and democrats were working with these people in the first place? Probably because they had nowhere else to go.

In a series of clumsy 'Stalinist' moves designed to crush dissent, Labour loyalists who believed in simple values such as consultation and democracy were pushed ever outwards by a combination of union self interest, a centralising party machine and competing kitchen cabinets in Parliament.

We return to group-think - a relatively small coterie of professional politicians and special interests were so determined on acquiring power that they did not consider that a small group of Party members might be speaking for the Party and that some compromise might have been a cheap and useful investment.

Far from revolutionary, the Alliance was conservative. It wanted a genuine partnership between members and elected representatives for the common weal. Its trajectory to the Left reminded one of nothing so much as that of the Russian liberals into the narodniki under the Tsar - mere desperation.

Be all that as it may, the Alliance won an outstanding victory that was meaningless. Elected members were a Potemkin village. Power was exercised entirely by a decidely dodgy Party civil service and then by an autocratic gang who drove the nation to petty warfare and, ultimately, economic ruination.

Do not misunderstand - our challenge to the elite was totally absurd, pure existentialism. It ruined political careers and changed nothing. And, yet, I cannot regret it for a moment ... because it was the right thing to do, something that was not mere pragmatism within a closed culture.

Today, I am largely de-politicised. I find myself unable to criticise the Conservative element within the Coalition with the force that I might once have done because I think of the alternative - an authoritarian, economically incompetent, war-mongering, centralised operation with a disdain for civil liberties.

England (which I see now as more meaningful than the UK) struggles to manage appalling levels of debt in a crumbling world economy and continues to blow a small fortune on foreign adventurism while 25% of the over-55s subsist on £24 per day and students pile up debt just to get an education.

Whatever will 'save' England, it won't be the corrupt 'official' Left within the existing system - not without precisely the democratic revolution inside it that we advocated fifteen years ago.

It will either be a steady pair of hands from its old Tory enemy or some revolutionary transformation of a Parliamentary and Party system that is way past its sell-by date and may not survive a second failure by another Great Party of State.

But do I get excited by all this? No, I do not. Good men and women once saw this coming and did what they thought was right. I learned a hard truth in the process. There are wise and good people across the political spectrum, rich and poor - but there are no wise or good political parties.

Exaro - New Fleet-Street Based Investigative Web Site

Field trials have now started for Exaro, the new investigative website edited by Mark Watts and financed according to a business plan developed by figures experienced in the media and the City.

The founders are making no secret of the risks involved but they think that the time is right for a commercial approach to one of the greatest informational problems of our age - what Nick Davies called 'churnalism', that is a media that simply takes material from PROs and launders it to the public.

This may be unfair on a lot of journalists in the mainstream media who are working very hard to maintain traditional standards but the economics of big media groups are working against them. Resources are spread too thinly and the temptation is to gear copy to the quick advertising or revenue fix.

Although it has mindfully based itself at the corner of Fleet Street with El Vino's and The Olde Cheshire Cheese as its locals (in a nod to traditionalism), it is not an 'indulgence' where 'old salts' try to recapture the 'golden age' of Sunday Times Insight and Granada. Those days are now gone.

Nor is it yet another Foundation-financed ideological shop-front for eager exposes that simply take dossiers from the 'good guys', dossiers that may be no more reliable than those of the 'bad guys' in the security and intelligence services of warring nations. Dossiers are dossiers whoever supplies them.

Exaro is different because, although its motto is 'holding power to account' (all power, that is, including the cultural power of NGOs), it is not only entirely online but it is holding to a tight commercial business model. It is prepared to take the 'hit' of the high cost of evidence-based journalism.

Undoubtedly things will not be so simple in the real world. I won't second-guess the Editor who can speak for himself but the attempt to create an honest and evidence-based investigative journalism that pays its way as a business is undertaken in good faith.

As of yesterday, the site can be accessed for free (for a limited time) by anyone interested enough to register at http://www.exaronews.com/

Registrants are warned that what they will see is perhaps only 50% of the capacity at eventual subscription rates but there are already some very interesting stories that show real energy amongst the small team of experienced investigators and young talent after scarcely six months since start-up.

Now, I am assiduous about revealing my interest in anything so let me be clear. The concept was developed over a considerable period of time by me and a small group of people, including Mark, who were disturbed by the flow of unevidenced material appearing in the mainstream media.

As a group, we also saw the opportunities provided by the sheer weight of unanalysed material increasingly available under various FOI regimes and the new culture of openness. Exaro is not aligned with Wikileaks but it recognises the role Assange has taken in making data widely available.

The issue is not (as Assange would probably agree) just making data available but understanding and interpreting it - and, in this role, the death of the traditional journalist has been much exaggerated. The public and business need reliable narrators and Exaro aspires to be just that - reliable.

As of now, I have been helping to build the business side. I (as an individual but not as TPPR) have a minority shareholding and I am a Non-Executive Director in that capacity but the editorial is ring-fenced and I have no involvement in it - and, indeed, I will be written out of the office completely in six months.

If the Editor wants to and he can find an evidenced abuse of power in my circle, then he can go for my and my friends jugular and I cannot do a thing about it. Good! Maybe I will be embarrased from an oversight. Good! I can take it. 'Courage, mon brave!'

Ethical journalism should help inspire ethical business. Our whole culture will benefit if wealth creation and the provision of information to the public are conducted in the open and according to the evidence.

With that uncharacteristic burst of idealism, I commend Exaro to you. Succeed or fail, it is the first major attempt to create an independent voice for investigative journalism along commercial lines in an online context and it is well worth the shot.

Journalism Today [Light Posting]

There is no major posting today because the platform for this Blog [Squarespace] glitched, claimed to have saved an extensive posting and, when we followed its instructions to recover, managed to lose it.

This is a persistent problem with Squarespace which has been drawn to their attention but with little result. There is no auto-save unlike WordPress and the bug that is supposed to deal with the resubmit issue has not been resolved since it was first drawn to their attention in April.

Usually, we just pick ourselves up off the floor and rewrite but there are other things to do today, so the summary is:-

• We are all aware of a crisis in journalism that derives from the shift in its secure role within a national establishment to a less secure one within a competitive global economy;
• This crisis, to date, has affected the quality of news [the 'churnalism' debate] but not so much the status of journalists - the arrival of new technologies is now changing this state of affairs;
• Cost-cutting can support the cross-subsidy of heavyweight news but only in a growing economy - a low growth scenario and the demand for capital for investment online mean tough choices;
• Journalism is heading in the direction of other skill-based celebrity economies (arts, sport, even politics) in seeing high paid 'stars' competing with mid-level 'entrepreneurs';
• Ambitious journalists will increasingly see themselves as 'brands' operating on multiple platforms (books, blogs, columns, shows, and so on) with some appointing 'agents';
• 'Entrepreneurs' will also be seeking a presence on multiple platforms and blurring the historic professional distinction of writing independent narrative and writing commercial copy;
• A 'hack' class will be increasingly indistinguishable between jobbing journalism and PR - it will be worked harder and be more insecure, with too many people competing for the work available;
• Online media will stabilise into viable business models based on free front pages, paywalls and micro-payments - the younger generation will find growing opportunities in content production.
• There will be competition for space between activists writing for free, journalists under economic pressure and the commodity approach to content in the marketing services sector;
• Politically, this competition may create an angry unstable 'intellectual' element within society at local and regional level and on the margins of the metropolitan media;
• Ideologically, the professional old guard is heading into the sunset and the mass media is likely to tend to increasing conservatism (albeit libertarian);
• 'Stranded' grunt workers could become deracinated, unstable and radical (though of both right and left) - this group may create a powerful motive force for social change in Middle England.

Thank Squarespace's glitching for the lack of detailed argument and the references. Although we will try to be better at saving as we go (though we did on this occasion, but clearly not frequently enough), we cannot guarantee that this won't happen again. Our apologies to regular readers.