Labour says no to unfriendly reporters

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 14. If you can't beat them, ban them. That seems to be Labour's philosophy as it cracks down on unsympathetic media voices in the run-up to next month's general elections handing over to the Tory propaganda mill just what the doctor ordered for it - something to crib about.

The election campaign has barely begun but Labour has already banned two high-profile press representatives from being within the earshot of the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair. The axe has fallen on the BBC's Panorama team which has been refused accreditation for Mr. Blair's daily election press conferences; and on the satirist, Mr. Rory Bremner, known for his T.V. parody of Mr. Blair and his powerful Press Secretary, Mr. Alastair Campbell. The former for alleged bad behaviour on a previous occasion and the latter for even less convincing reasons.

Mr. Bremner has been told he cannot expect accreditation to travel in Mr. Blair's election campaign bus nor would he be allowed to attend the Prime Minister's press conferences, according to the pro-Tory The Sunday Telegraph which commissioned Mr. Bremner to write a series of articles on the campaigns of the leaders of the three main parties - Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats. The newspaper quoted a party spokesperson, Ms. Jo Gibbons as saying that Labour believed he wanted to be on the bus, not as a journalist, but to collect material for his work as a comedian. ``Asked who had decided to ban Bremner, she said that the decision was taken by `the leader's office' although she would not say by whom personally,'' it said.

The Telegraph's own take on what it called ``Blair's revenge'' was that Mr. Bremner's withering T.V. impersonation of Mr. Blair and Mr. Campbell had raised hackles in Downing Street. ``Mr. Campbell is known to regard the caricature as a real problem that is damaging to the Prime Minister's image. He has already had to endure much ribaldry...about Bremner's portrayal of his own role,'' it said. Mr. Blair was quoted in The Guardian today denying he had a hand in keeping Mr. Bremner out. ``I only read this in the newspapers this morning so I am afraid I don't decide who goes on the bus,'' he said.

In an article, Mr. Bremner said it confirmed his portrayal of the Blair establishment as a ``nervy, paranoid clique which talks of openness but in reality exercises ruthless control over any source of criticism.'' ``Indeed, the implication is not that our portrayal is an exaggeration but that the reality is even worse,'' he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph. The Panorama bosses were apparently told that the behaviour of their crew, covering Mr. Blair's campaign launch last week, had been ``appalling'' and hence the decision to keep them out for the rest of the campaign.

Panorama ``insiders'' were quoted as saying that it was an ``over-reaction'' to a series of critical documentaries they had done. Mr. Blair was reported to have been upset over a programme which attacked his Government without presenting its own viewpoint fairly. In an interview to the London Evening Standard he had complained about Panorama saying: ``They'd written the script before they ever gave us any opportunity of telling them why their facts were wrong.'' Observers, however, maintained that slapping bans on inconvenient hacks was the wrong way to generate the much-needed goodwill at election time.

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