While the opinion polls suggest Boris Johnson is enjoying a honeymoon with the voters after December’s election, Downing Street is certainly not enjoying a honeymoon with the media. Relations between No 10 and Westminster journalists have sunk to their lowest point for many years.
The warning signs were there during the election campaign when some media outlets that did not actively support the Conservatives were initially denied a place on Mr Johnson’s battlebus.
Since the election, the advisers he recruited from Vote Leave have seemed determined to use the power stemming from the Tories’ huge majority to put their foot on the media’s throat and keep it there. There have been selective government briefings for Tory-supporting newspapers on important issues such as Huawei’s role in 5G and the decision on HS2.
The media minders have banned ministers from programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today, Channel 4 News and ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Both the BBC and Channel 4 have been served notice that their role as public service broadcasters will come under review by ministers. There is a legitimate debate to be had about the future of the BBC licence fee in the Netflix era but it should not be coupled with party political pressure on journalists who are merely doing their jobs – indeed, the very job Mr Johnson did before becoming prime minister.
The twice-daily lobby briefings for political journalists given by his press secretary have been moved, without any consultation, from the Palace of Westminster, where the reporters are based, to Downing Street. This sounds trivial but has made it harder for media outlets with a small number of staff to attend, and do their job of holding the government to account.
While some Johnson aides see the lobby as part of an out-of-touch Westminster bubble, this is unfair. The Independent, for example, has always championed making the briefings more transparent; in the past, we boycotted the meetings in order to win reforms to an unnecessarily secretive system.
On Monday, journalists from outlets including The Independent, the i, the Mirror, the Huffington Post and Politics Home were excluded by Lee Cain, the No 10 director of communications, from a briefing by civil servants on the EU trade deal talks to which reporters from other organisations had been invited. The invited broadcasters and publications, including the BBC, ITV News and Sky News, walked out in protest.
The incident had echoes of Donald Trump’s treatment of what he calls the “fake news media” because it dares to scrutinise and criticise him. That Mr Johnson is allowing his staff to go down the same path is deeply worrying.
The government should not be in the business of hand-picking which favoured media organisations are allowed access to briefings on vital matters such as the UK’s long-term relationship with the EU.
Mr Johnson should not turn his back on his former trade. He would be wise to reflect on how the US president’s bullying of the media and wider conduct are viewed by many people in the UK.
The prime minister should also remember that he will need the media more than he does now when he runs into the headwinds that inevitably afflict every government. As he knows, the press always has the last word.
