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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Why do party leaders want to talk to Attitude magazine over the BBC? | Why do party leaders want to talk to Attitude magazine over the BBC? |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| General elections demand that party leaders reach out to the people. Baby-kissing walkabouts in town centres must be endured, but they just don’t stack up the numbers of voters needed to win an election. | General elections demand that party leaders reach out to the people. Baby-kissing walkabouts in town centres must be endured, but they just don’t stack up the numbers of voters needed to win an election. |
| Leaders are therefore required to make themselves available to media outlets that, in normal times, they seek to avoid. These modern equivalents of the hustings are considered by politicians to be important, partly to explain their policies but mostly to maintain as high a public profile as possible. | Leaders are therefore required to make themselves available to media outlets that, in normal times, they seek to avoid. These modern equivalents of the hustings are considered by politicians to be important, partly to explain their policies but mostly to maintain as high a public profile as possible. |
| As long as they avoid gaffes in their TV, radio and newspaper interviews, the content is altogether less important than the fact they are seen to be there. Blandness is considered a virtue where the personal counts more than the political. | As long as they avoid gaffes in their TV, radio and newspaper interviews, the content is altogether less important than the fact they are seen to be there. Blandness is considered a virtue where the personal counts more than the political. |
| So which of the media teams has created the best schedule and what do they say about their campaign strategies? The Guardian has compiled a list of all the interviews the three main leaders have given since the campaign began on 30 March. Going by the numbers, it would appear that David Cameron’s aides have totally out-performed those of Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. Quantity, however, should not be confused with quality. | So which of the media teams has created the best schedule and what do they say about their campaign strategies? The Guardian has compiled a list of all the interviews the three main leaders have given since the campaign began on 30 March. Going by the numbers, it would appear that David Cameron’s aides have totally out-performed those of Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. Quantity, however, should not be confused with quality. |
| David Cameron | David Cameron |
| Daily Mail - 30 March | Daily Mail - 30 March |
| BBC Radio 4 Today programme - 31 March (short studio interview) | BBC Radio 4 Today programme - 31 March (short studio interview) |
| Sky News - 31 March (short studio interview) | Sky News - 31 March (short studio interview) |
| BBC Breakfast - 31 March (short studio interview) | BBC Breakfast - 31 March (short studio interview) |
| Heat magazine - 31 March | Heat magazine - 31 March |
| Attitude magazine - 31 March | Attitude magazine - 31 March |
| Sunday Times - 5 April (with his second cousin) | Sunday Times - 5 April (with his second cousin) |
| Daily Telegraph - 6 April | Daily Telegraph - 6 April |
| ITV - 7 April (part of a five-part series on party leaders) | ITV - 7 April (part of a five-part series on party leaders) |
| GQ - 7 April | GQ - 7 April |
| Samantha Cameron - Mail on Sunday - 5 April | Samantha Cameron - Mail on Sunday - 5 April |
| Cameron has been the most active, cleverly mixing serious interviews in which he reveals policy pledges with lighter material that is supposed to show he has youth appeal. | |
| To this end he suffered an excruciating encounter with Heat magazine’s editor, Lucie Cave, in which she moderated questions from celebrities such as Alan Carr, Joey Essex and some woman off reality TV sitting on a toilet. | |
| But recognition is the key when people enter the voting booth. They may not know the name of their Conservative candidate but they might just remember that the party’s leader was the guy who was nice enough to answer vacuous questions from the people they do know. | |
| Media advisers are aware that their men are not as familiar to the masses as they are to the politically engaged minority. To counter that, they seek to humanise them and even, oddly, to de-politicise them. | |
| Hence the number of occasions in which they must be interviewed on programmes outside their normal comfort zones. | |
| Ed Miliband | Ed Miliband |
| Attitude - 2 April (28 March online) | Attitude - 2 April (28 March online) |
| ITV - 31 March (short studio interview) | ITV - 31 March (short studio interview) |
| Magic Radio - 31 March | Magic Radio - 31 March |
| Absolute Radio - 1 April | Absolute Radio - 1 April |
| BBC Look North - 1 April (short studio interview) | BBC Look North - 1 April (short studio interview) |
| Doncaster Free Press - 4 April (readers’ questions) | Doncaster Free Press - 4 April (readers’ questions) |
| Rock FM - 4 April | Rock FM - 4 April |
| Radio Times - 7 April | Radio Times - 7 April |
| Miliband, whatever his spinners might say, cannot have anything but a passing knowledge of the content of the three radio stations he was required to appear on. | |
| Worse, of course, is that there is precious little recognition engendered by going on radio. What were his media aides thinking? As a strategy to enhance Miliband’s standing it was surely flawed and may even smack of desperation, suggesting that their man is locked out of larger media opportunities. | |
| Unlike Cameron, and even Clegg, Miliband hasn’t done a sit-down interview with a national title. Going to the fringes, such as the Doncaster Free Press which serves his own constituency, was hardly compensation. | |
| Nick Clegg | Nick Clegg |
| ITV (as part of Joey Essex programme that will also eventually feature Miliband and Cameron) | ITV (as part of Joey Essex programme that will also eventually feature Miliband and Cameron) |
| The Independent - 1 April | The Independent - 1 April |
| Attitude - 1 April | Attitude - 1 April |
| The Economist - 3 April | The Economist - 3 April |
| GQ - May | GQ - May |
| Note that all three leaders did interviews with Attitude, the gay lifestyle magazine. The message was patently obvious: vote for us because we are inclusive LBGT-friendly guys. | |
| What counts in the end is the soft approach, and Cameron also scored on that front. Both the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday gave big promotion to two unashamedly sympathetic portraits of the prime minister, one by his second cousin, Harry Mount, and the other a rare interview with his wife, Samantha. No wonder he ducked a TV debate with Miliband. This stuff is so much easier to control. |