Abstract
It's been more than a year since I leapt from playing poacher to being gamekeeper: after many years in journalism, I was elected Labour councillor for the London Borough of Redbridge. I'd always seen it as a reporter's role to hold power to account, so it has been fascinating to see what it is like to be under media scrutiny.
As journalists, we look for trouble and discord. As a councillor with the ruling party, the role is to implement the manifesto, conveying positive elements as much as possible. We want to get re-elected next time around. That means the journalist-turned-councillor can easily become conflicted.
In Redbridge, the Labour Party has taken a strong hold over the council, which it won in 2014. Last year it took another 15 seats to raise its total to 51 on a 63-member council. The Liberal Democrats were wiped out and the Conservative Party reduced to 12. This marks an exact reversal of the balance of power in the early 1980s.
Redbridge has areas of high wealth amid much poverty. The population of just over 300,000 is predicted to rise by 15 per cent over the next decade. Some 57 per cent come from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. Nine street homeless have died over the past year. There has been a 42 per cent increase in packages handed out by food banks in the last year. The council is addressing housing shortages, homelessness, the need for massive regeneration, environmental challenges and the unknown threats of Brexit, all set against a background of 60 per cent of government funding being cut over the past nine years. Yet the borough is on the Crossrail route, which is already seeing house prices increasing, with possibilities of gentrification around areas such as Ilford.
There are two main newspapers, from the Newsquest and Archant groups. Both have some excellent young journalists, though there is a constant churn as talent moves on. The papers provide 24/7 news service on websites. The weekly coverage in the two main papers is supplemented by a smaller-circulation (7,000), community-based magazine, the Wanstead Directory, which provides another outlet. Beyond these are social media outlets such as the Wanstead Community Hub and a news service called Wansteadium. I have a good relationship with both papers and, with a weekly column in Newsquest's Wanstead and Woodford Guardian, haven't gone over completely to the other side.
The Labour council has provided helpful briefs for stories and we've put over a good narrative about what the council is doing. We've had favourable stories about council activities, environmental issues and campaigns against academies. The wider council PR operation really operates around the leadership.
If I wear my old hat, I am afraid it is hard to avoid thinking the council gets too much of an easy run. It is sometimes as though the papers are taking dictation from the leader, especially on good news stories. That said, journalists have seen opportunities to pull the leader up, as in a story about a failure to consult properly over a proposal to bring the meat, fish and vegetable markets (the new Smithfield, Billingsgate and Spitalfields) to the borough.
Sometimes I am caught between professional admiration for a piece of journalistic mischief and political support for the council. When I recently proposed a motion related to Brexit, it was amended before the council meeting, allowing the journalist who came to both me and the press office for a comment to report what looked like a difference of opinion. Journalistically, I thought well played to her yet, from a council angle, the potential to expose possible division was not welcome.
The Redbridge PR operation tends to be reactive, but I believe if it were more pro-active, then it could control the narrative more. Other councils with bigger PR departments do it more effectively. That's not necessarily good for democracy or journalism, of course.
More than once over the past 12 months I have been caught in two minds, thinking “That's a good story!”, only to realise it had better not get out. I have watched the council get away with one or two howlers. The first concerned a member who had come forward as nominee to be mayor. His wife had been convicted in a fairly high-profile murder case and served her sentence. This was, of course, no reason not to be mayor – she had served her sentence and is on a new path in life. Also, she was not going for the mayoral role. The nationals got hold of the story, resulting in some distress to the nominee, who considered his position and stood down. Had Brexit not been dominating the news agenda, this story could have run on, doing more damage.
The second followed a councillor tweeting, in response to some comments from a right-wing Australian senator, about bringing sharia law to Ilford. He was not seriously proposing such a measure, but the tweet was picked up by the local papers. Happily, the story didn't take off.
In picking up these stories, the media are doing their job. Journalists could do better still if there were more of them. It's interesting that a positive story about my efforts to ban single-use plastic – good PR for me as a councillor – appeared on the rival front pages of our local papers under the same byline. The story was written by a journalist funded by the BBC local democracy scheme, under the terms of which copy has to be made available to all outlets.
Of course, I am far from the first journalist to turn politician, so learning to cope with the potential conflicts is all part of the job. If Boris Johnson can do it, I am sure I can.