Clean-up in spin city

Abstract

The Daily Mail political columnist argues that new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already restored some honesty to the political process. “He has (and deserves more credit for this than has so far been awarded) voluntarily relinquished some of his own ability to control the press by making newspapers less dependent on the Downing Street machine,” he writes. “As a result reporting from Westminster feels cleaner. Stories can get written up for what they are worth, not fine-tuned to suit party political allegiances… Life is better. Spin is diminishing. Honest, unadulterated political reporting is making a reappearance… Maybe it can really last. With the coming of peace at the end of World War Two the great Daily Mirror cartoonist Philip Zec produced a famous drawing with the message: Don’t Lose it Again. Exactly the same can be said of Fleet Street at the end of the era of Blair.”