Counterproductive demands for transparency?

Do we understand or respect Parliament more now it is televised?

About a year ago, I heard snippets of a radio programme that really stuck with me.

I didn’t make a note of the name of the programme at the time (I was driving), and it has taken me best part of the last year plugging away at the few contacts I have in the BEEB’s political journalism department to track down a recording (thanks Alan!).

A transcript would have been very handy a few times recently when I’ve found myself discussing the pros and cons of political transparency, and the implications for both local and national government.

It was, it turned out, it wasn’t one of Radio 4’s political staples, but The Archive Hour marking the 30th anniversary of the broadcasting of Parliament (the first routine broadcast took place on 3rd April 1978, though there was a four-week trial a few years earlier, and the leap from radio to TV coverage didn’t take place until 1985).

Tony Benn was industry secretary at the time, and he was the first Minister to face questions that day (and, as it happens, was sacked for his performance a few hours later). And if you’re a fan of Parliamentary coverage, the programme was a quite a feast with Michael Foot reminding many of the gulf that stands between a great Parliamentary debater and an electoral darling.

For the rest of us, though, the real value in the programme were the conclusions that some commentators drew. Margaret Beckett, for instance, pointed out:

“People know a good deal less about Parliament now than they did before it was broadcast. As Margaret Beckett observes, “…there is hardly any coverage of what Parliament actually says.”

When broadcasting of Parliament was being considered, the programme noted that Parliamentary visitors to the US and Canada – looking at the impact of cameras on the legislature – encountered the concept of the ’soundbite’ for the first time. They concluded that it wouldn’t ever appear in the UK as it was undoubtedly an expression of the cultural difference between the UK and our transatlantic cousins.

Now, as one of the contributors to the programme put it, “.. the soundbite is the enemy to public understanding of parliament.” And it is clear that it can be traced the to changing relationship between the media and Parliament.

Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernard Ingham, put it succinctly:

“Televised political programmes are not concentrating on the House of Commons. They’re concentrating on their own agenda. And much of that agenda is to examine conflict – a conflict of agendas. Now I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s taken the debate out of the House of Commons and put it into a studio.”

Michael White reflecting on the shift from the coverage of Parliament by radio, and later, by TV:

“….as [broadcasting] came on board, it gave newspapers – who were under intense competition at the time – the excuse to drop their coverage of Parliamentary reporting. The fact you could get it on a TV feed meant that they felt that they were under no obligation to provide that kind of coverage.

So the coverage became more ‘lobby’ coverage – what the government’s doing. And this fitted in with the trends of the time anyway – Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair – powerful executive Prime Ministers, presidential, so it was all of a piece – and the losers on both sides were the backbenchers. The people whose speeches had been reported…”

I raise this now, because we are undoubtedly only part-way along the road to meeting all of the demands that transparency campaigners make of Parliament. The demands are usually supported with the assertion that increased transparency increases the public’s understanding of how government works. That the reputation of politics suffers from the cloak that often surrounds proceedings, and that politics will be conducted more effectively if it is conducted in the full unfettered view of the public.

I’d not deny that the conclusions that many would have drawn from that programme fit tidily with my own prejudices. But it would be very hard to argue that the broadcasting of Parliament has had any other effect than that it has damaged the reputation of politicians, resulted in a lower-grade of Parliamentary debate, a lower level of visibility for Parliamentary proceedings and the work of back-bench MPs, and a lower level of public understanding.

Opposing demands for a more intimate degree of public scrutiny these days puts one in a similar position to poor King Cnut. It doesn’t make you wrong though….