Abstract
Political cartoonists have far easier lives and do much more important jobs than political reporters. They are better paid. They can work from home if they want to and there is no reason why they have to talk to politicians. Most important of all; they end up shaping the way that history is understood. The cartoonist David Low will always be part of our collective understanding of the Second World War, whilst almost nobody recalls the name of The Times political correspondent in 1940.
Only the most learned scholar could name the The Times reporting team of the 1790s. But the cartoonist James Gillray has shaped the British understanding of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution for the past 200 years.
His predecessor, Hogarth, has given a comparable portrait of the moral depravity of the 18th century Whig ascendency In the 20th century, the great cartoons of Giles of the Sunday Express gave the perfect portrayal of domestic family life, which was part of the dominant socially conservative vision of the post-war period.
George Orwell, a political writer of the 1940s, has survived. But Orwell was unique, and his writings had an extra meaning from the fact that he acted as a participant in the political struggles of the 1930s and as a fighter in the Spanish Civil War.
One of the problems with modern political reporters is that they are structurally unable to write the truth. They are reliant for information on party machines and their own political connections, as well as official sources. They feel that they cannot tell the full version of the story without jeopardising these important sources of information. As a result, they end up producing caricatures, whilst cartoonists are paradoxically able to get much closer to the truth.
George Osborne illustrates this point perfectly. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has surrounded himself with an industrious army of client journalists who project a positive image of the Chancellor. Newspaper readers learn of a competent, far sighted and powerful figure. They are never told of the deep personal connections that link the Chancellor with many of Britain's most well-placed political writers. For example, the Treasury declines to give lists of journalists who visit the Chancellor's private residence at Dorneywood House on the grounds that these are private events.
In other words, the written image of George Osborne is essentially a fictitious construction, artfully produced as part of a secret collaboration between journalists, Treasury spin doctors and the Chancellor himself. By contrast, the cartoonists are far more accurate, despite the fact that they rarely ever talk, either to the Chancellor, or to his press management team. Their picture of an insouciant, mannerly, partially out of touch member of the English upper-middle class, has the advantage of being honest. It is reasonably accurate and produced without intervention from allies of the Chancellor.
Let's now examine portrayals of the former Deputy Prime Minster, Nick Clegg, during the coalition government. Political reporters (including myself) painted a picture of a proficient, industrious, patriotic figure who was doing his best to serve his country. The cartoonists painted him as a miserable, abject, snivelling victim who was constantly being humiliated and derided by bullies. In May 2015, the British electorate gave their verdict on which version was closer to the truth.
Likewise we political journalists told our readers that Danny Alexander was a vital member of the inner circle that governed Britain. Cartoonists, by contrast, portrayed a random, red headed man, given access by some hilarious mischance to the heart of the government. They pictured him as such; startled, red hair pointing towards the sky, irrelevant. Once again the electorate gave its verdict.
I don't think the cartoonists are always right. Steve Bell of The Guardian has planted a condom on the head of the Prime Minister ever since he has emerged in front line politics. This doesn't help understanding, though it is quite funny. I think we political writers have been more accurate than cartoonists when it comes to the Prime Minister. We don't portray him as a genius, but rather as a conscientious, faintly shifty, but largely well-meaning individual, who has made less of a mess of things than many expected.
Both political reporters and cartoonists have got Boris Johnson wrong. We all tend to project him as a cartoon figure out of Beano who has wandered into PG Wodehouse's Drone's Club. Actually, Boris Johnson has a razor sharp brain and is both businesslike and capable.
One of the main failings of political journalism is that it concentrates on trivia, rather than structural long term issues. We reporters very rarely frame government decisions in terms of the massive commercial interests which lie behind them, for instance treating party financing and policy decisions as separate things.
Cartoonists don't make this error. They have huge fat cats wandering around in the background, bribing or intimidating politicians into doing what they want. This is another example of how cartoonists tell the truth, even though they get far less access than reporters. If you really want to know what is going on in politics, head straight to the cartoon on the leader page.