their work. He advocated a ‘pan-med

their work. He advocated a ‘pan-media’ approach to information dissemination,
with less emphasis on broadcasting. To depoliticise government
communication Phillis recommended the creation of a new Permanent
Secretary for Government Communications, who as a civil servant would
not be seen as a political appointee of the prime minister. He also recommended
the creation of a Government Communications Network in order
to strengthen and co-ordinate information structures within Whitehall.
Phillis delivered his final report to Tony Blair in January 2004, who accepted
most of its recommendations, after which substantial reform of the
government communications system was enacted.12 Since Gilligan, Hutton
and the publication of the Phillis report, although spin has continued to be
a theme of political journalism in the UK, it has receded in importance as a
narrative framework for understanding political events and their presentation.
Spin is not dead, but it has lost much of its visibility. New Labour’s
2005 and 2010 election campaigns accordingly emphasised delivery over
spin and substance over style.
After the resignation of Blair as prime minister in 2007 Alistair Campbell
published his diaries (The Blair Years, 2007), providing a rich source of data
for political communication scholars on the inner workings of the New
Labour PR machine. A further volume of unexpurgated material from the
diaries was published as The Alistair Campbell Diaries: volume one in 2010,
a month after Labour’s defeat in the general election.
Internal political communication – the Conservatives
The Conservatives for their part have also had problems with internal communication,
both in and out of government. Despite the success of its political
marketing since the mid-1970s, the party found itself in some difficulty in the
1987 campaign. Confronted on the one hand by an unprecedentedly professional
Labour campaign, on the other their own efforts were hampered by
a lack of co-ordination between key elements of the communications
apparatus. Mrs Thatcher made a number of ‘gaffes’ during the campaign
including, on Labour’s ‘health day’, her insistence on her moral right to attend
a private hospital. Tory difficulties culminated in ‘wobbly Thursday’, when it
began to seem that Labour might win the election. In the end, Tory fears were
misplaced and Mrs Thatcher achieved a third election victory with an overall
majority in three figures. Nevertheless, the party leadership’s dissatisfaction
with what it perceived to be a weak campaign led to a restructuring of the
public relations organisation.
Party chairman Peter Brooke divided Central Office functions into three –
communication, research and organisation – and appointed Brendan Bruce as
Director of communications. A communication audit conducted by Shandwick
PR in 1991 led to the appointment of regional communications officers to liaise
with the local media in their areas. In 1991 too, after a period of cool relations,