Media disconnects from the people
Roy Greenslade has a good round up of the newspapers’ reaction to Gordon Brown’s resignation, which seems to come down to Brown being condemned as a ‘squatter’ if he stays or a ‘sordid coup plotter’ if he goes. Add to that Kay Burley’s bullying of pro-reform demonstrators and Adam Boulton losing his rag with Alistair Campbell it’s clear that the media is losing the plot.
‘This is what you do,’ complained Boulton. ‘You come on and say no one won the election. Don’t tell me what to think!’
But Campbell is simply stating the obvious. If somebody had won, they’d have been to see the queen by now to let her know.
Casual observers might have been misled into believing that the Lib Dems Nick Clegg had won. In fact he lost five MPs and lost control of four local councils. Meanwhile, Labour won control of 16 local councils on the same day as the general election (which, for the avoidance of doubt, it did not win).
All that leads to huge disconnect from the people — the newspapers’ readers — most of whom did not vote Conservative or a Lib-Con pact. It will be interesting to see just how sustainable this editorial position will prove to be and whether alienated readers simply give up buying newspapers.
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