The way to the BBC's heart is through The Guardian

Where New Labour wooed the Murdoch empire, Project Cameron woos the BBC.  Project Cameron often appears careful not to take up positions that will antagonise the Corporation on its own future, climate change or the war on terror.  In his unmissable column on the press (for The Independent) Stephen Glover notes how the wooing of The Guardian is all part of the BBC-directed charm offensive:

"Mr Cameron's policy of wooing The Guardian, or at any rate not being at loggerheads with it, is central to his strategy. The Guardian may have comparatively limited sales, but it is the BBC's in-house journal.  The Cameroons are certain, after the trauma of three successive election defeats, that the Tories can never win power again with the liberal media against them. The BBC is of course infinitely more powerful than The Guardian, but that newspaper occupies roughly the same role within the corporation as Chairman Mao's Little Red Book once did amongst Chinese Communists. Win The Guardian over, and you have almost won the BBC."

It is certainly true that the team around David Cameron regularly give exclusive stories to The Guardian group.  David Cameron's questioning of the Tories' opposition to sanctions and the new emphasis on relative poverty were stories first given to The Observer or Guardian, for example.  Mr Glover suggests that George Osborne's possible policy of putting public sector adverts online (the lifeblood revenue source of The Guardian) may have betrayed the Tory leadership's true view of The Guardian but that it does not fit with the wider BBC-friendly strategy.

Related link: CCHQ seeks £140K media strategist (apparently)

Comments

[John Marsh]

Andrew Marr said that: "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It has a liberal bias." It is also very powerful. As a strategy to win power Cameron may be right. But fundamentally we need to ensure that the BBC is not able to be a permanent anti-conservative force. It must honour its charter to be fair or lose its £3,000,000,000 a year licence fee income. We need a powerful independent body to audit the BBC with the power to impose massive fines if BBC continues its biased approach. Or else break it up and let us have diversity. They should love some diversity.

[TFA Tory]

This article sums up what is wrong with politics and the media in modern Britain.

It is, in effect, an admission of failure by the Cameroons. They believe they cannot win the argument so they go along with the left liberal agenda of Conservatism's enemies.

The BBC and the Gruaniad will never be Conservative allies. They will line up alongside Brown when Blair is gone. They will then join forces to attack the Tories yet again.

It is time that Party employed experienced professionals rather than Cameron's cronies. This defeatist attitude cannot deliver victory at the next election.

[Alan S]

The key question is: Are we cuddling up to the BBC because we have to or because we share the BBC mindset?

[Matt Davis]

This strategy is a mistake that is destined for failure. The only way it is going to work is if the Cameroonies actually do change the party into some form of LibDem lite or New Labour with a blue rosette. That is the only thing that will satisfy the institutionally anti Tory BBC and Guardian.

Bliar always said that one of the key purposes of New Labour was to kill off conservatism as a political force in Britain and in the process destroy the Conservative party. I hope and pray that the current leadership of our party swiftly come to their senses and do not actively assist them in this process.

It would make a lot more sense to be courting the Murdoch empire since we have won many elections without the support of the BBC and Guardian but have never won one without the Sun and the Times, not to mention the rest of the massive Murdoch empire, behind us.

[Goldie]

What you do to get somewhere, influences what you can do when you get there.

[David Sergeant]

"It is, in effect, an admission of failure by the Cameroons. They believe they cannot win the argument so they go along with the left liberal agenda of Conservatism's enemies."

You can't win an argument if nobody can hear it.

[David Sergeant]

"It is, in effect, an admission of failure by the Cameroons. They believe they cannot win the argument so they go along with the left liberal agenda of Conservatism's enemies."

You can't win an argument if nobody can hear it.

[Off Message]

It's just smart politics and doesn't cost us a thing. We are interested in social justice and supporting families (of all types) and in reducing poverty and in creating greater community cohesion. Our opponents have demonised us and made us seem unsympathetic. Showing that we care about other people's opinions (including those who don't agree with us) and that we do what we do because we think it will create a fairer and improved society gives nothing away but does attract some while reducing the repulsion of others.

[Richard Carey]

"Off Message", that seems very much on-message and I heartily agree.

If you can't communicate your message, you don't have a message, and like it or not, the "liberal media" that so many contributors like to throw rocks at is one of our main delivery channels. I see no harm and everything to gain in investing a little effort in this.

[TFA Tory]

But there is no Conservative message being communicated by the Cameroons. Cameron is not arguing in favour of individual freedom, lower taxes and limited government. Instead he argues for higher government spending and nonsense such as rationing air travel.

Dave is parroting the green "messages" of the Hilton that are targeted at the left liberal chattering classes who are his Notting Hill neighbours.

[Perdix]

TFA Tory 20.58 - Your comments are a gross distortion of Cameron's views.

[malcolm]

Trying to neutalise the BBC is smart politics until we are elected.I suspect the have more power than all the national press put together.I suspect 'though that when it comes to the crunch the BBC will maintain its anti Conservative bias whatever Cameron does.
The Guadian is irrelevant to our vote and I'm sure the leadership must be aware of this. If Osborne does carry out his plan to put job advertisements exclusively online the Guardian is in deep trouble, it's as simple as that.
I think Stephen Glover who does not have a good forecasting record is putting 2 and 2 together and making 5.

[Jonathan]

This is precisely the right strategy. It is after all why we elected Cameron in the first place. To get back we have to neutralise the BBC. It is or should be almost our only important electoral strategy. Of course, the BBC is biased and contains a lot of very smug overpaid liberals. Of course we loathe the BBC. However, they are more important in what is left of the democratic process in these islands than we are. So sit down and shut up and let Cameron schmooze them and thank God that we don't have to.

[Michael McGowan]

This is naive in the extreme: do you think BBC apparatchiks don't read this site and do you think that the Corporation' visceral hostility to the centre-right is ever going to disappear simply because of a superficial charm offensive? I don't think so. The BBC is the equivalent of the TUC in the fifties and sixties. Cosying up to the TUC in the fifties and sixties got the Tories nowhere OTHER THAN of course ensuring that certain Tory politicians got their grubby mits on the spoils of office. History has a habit of repeating itself.

[Sean Fear]

"The key question is: Are we cuddling up to the BBC because we have to or because we share the BBC mindset?"

The key question is does it matter?

If you're dancing to someone else's tune, it really isn't important whether you do out of conviction or not.

[Opinicus]

In one sense you are right Sean. It doesn't matter what we say at this point. We have no power, so whether it is conviction politics or arrant hypocrisy makes very little difference.

The issue at the heart of Project Cameron is how much does he mean, how right wing is he? Now the history of the Conservative Party is one long unseemly anecdote of repeated and recurrent betrayal of the membership by the leadership, so that's the way to bet. But to be a member of the Bullingdon you have to be really seriously right wing at a personality level not simply at a theoretical or policy level. He was not noticeably left wing as Michael Howard's right hand man. He also has the ultimate failure of Tony Blair in front of him as an awful warning of the effects of too much hypocrisy and shallowness. So there is cause for the faintest glimmer of hope that the ends will justify the means.

The BBC must be squared. Their arrogance and vanity are so great, they want to believe that you must agree with them. A mixture of flattery, carrot and just a brief sight of a stick as our poll ratings rise.

And if after the election, we are betrayed then we haven't lost very much over a Labour government...

...except for our innocent trust.

[David Sergeant]

"The key question is: Are we cuddling up to the BBC because we have to or because we share the BBC mindset?" Sean Fear

Having read all the contributions I am begining to wonder if we are being taken for a ride. Cameron, so far, has provided a mixture of right wing views, leftish views which come across to me as honest and comments designed to move the party away from its nasty image. It is hardly surprising that the BBC is laying off him. To suggest that this is all down to trying to impress the BBC must be daft. I just wonder if this is a story invented by anti-Cameroons as a way of getting at Cameron because other ways have not been successful.