Boris Johnson was right about the need for daily press briefings – his U-turn is shameful

Boris Johnson has drawn much flak for the “media room” he has installed, expensively, at No 9 Downing Street, especially now he has given up on the reason for its existence: his plan for White-House style daily briefings.

Allegra Stratton, the former television journalist and media adviser appointed as spokesperson, has been shunted off to front the UK’s big end-of-year event, the climate crisis summit, Cop26. Will she stay the course?

Now, I am happy to join the chorus of those denouncing the “media room” on aesthetic grounds. That strange brand of “royal” blue seems crass. If the backdrop had to be blue (like the new Brexit Britain passports), maybe navy, or the light, Cambridge, blue would have been preferable; the lecterns are somehow not quite right. If only it had more style.

On the matter of daily TV briefings, on the other hand, the prime minister was right the first time around; it is his reversal that is wrong.

Installing a dedicated media room was always going to cost. But if you are going to have regular press conferences at Downing Street, then they need their own space. They should not have to squat in the dining room or wherever, with the furniture constantly having to be moved to and fro. Given the technology and the rest, I am not sure that the cost as stated is completely out of court.

Nor does it seem unreasonable for the first post-Brexit prime minister to regard a formal media space as a priority. To be sure, a great many people, including me, wish that Brexit had not happened, but it has, and the UK now has to reestablish itself as a distinctive state with its own “brand”.

The government – indeed, any Westminster government from now on – will need to present itself not just to the people of the UK, but to the world. This is part of what all the flags are about: identity, dignity, cutting a figure on the international stage. And if that contributes to a view of the prime minister as unnecessarily – and unconstitutionally – presidential, so be it. That has been the trend at least from Tony Blair onwards, but long before that. Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher – were they all not seen as national leaders, quite as much as leaders of their party and chairs of their Cabinet?

Which takes me back to the original purpose of the “media room”: to accommodate daily, televised press conferences to be given by the prime minister’s spokesperson, or whatever minister had something to say on that day – the successors to the daily Covid-19 briefings. “White House-style press briefings” was the term often used, and this may have been where at least some of the problems began.

Wasn’t Johnson maybe getting rather above himself even thinking about White House-style briefings and installing special premises for them along the lines of US administrations? Why would a UK prime minister want to import something so alien, so American, into the political landscape of this very different country? And where would direct daily briefings from the prime minister’s spokesperson place the posse of lobby correspondents, whose job it currently is to relay the messages – delivered, leaked or merely signalled – from on high?

Far be it from me to suggest that this last question might be a big reason for the near-universal glee that greeted Johnson's change of plan, with all the “told you so’s” about how it had been a terrible idea all along. The Fourth Estate, at least in the shape of the lobby, can now relax and return to normal working.

Whether it is right to dismiss the whole concept of televised daily briefings as a harebrained idea or a Johnson vanity project, however, is another matter. Why should the government not communicate its policies and its views on the issues of the day direct to the people, unmediated by the journalistic high priests of the lobby? Why should it not be subjected to a daily quizzing?

Social media has given everyone who participates a voice; should ministers not have a platform that goes beyond the grilling they face on the BBC Today programme or the quick-fire shorthand of Twitter?

You may decry Donald Trump and all his works, but he was a highly effective communicator for the modern age, whose use of social media in particular has been emulated to some extent by many national leaders, and for good reason. There are new methods and new, less official and less coded, forms of communication out there, which any aspiring politician would be wise to master.

There can be objections, especially in the UK context. Here, as in most developed countries, Parliament is the democratic forum, MPs are elected to represent their constituents, and parliamentary proceedings and committees hearings are televised. But who has the time, other than the professionals, to keep an eye, or an ear, out for it all day every day?

Could such briefings upset current power relationships? They might. But the advantage a government would gain over the Opposition, by having an additional public platform, would last only as long as the government avoided gaffes, and it could become a liability. A third objection might come from constitutional purists, who might see daily government briefings as a step closer to a US-style separation of powers. But it would not be the first step – that was the creation of the Supreme Court – and the UK is unusual in having ministers doubling as MPs. Our political system is already a bit betwixt and between.

What cannot be contested is the appetite of the public to hear from the people who are governing them. The early months of the pandemic may have been a unique time, but those daily coronavirus briefings proved hugely popular – far beyond No 10‘s imaginings – and daily TV briefings would surely have an audience, too. All right, it would be smaller, and skewed towards the media, but in today’s mass-media age should the government not have to defend itself before an audience wider than MPs, and on the record?

It has been suggested that it was the risk of potentially embarrassing, “left-field” questions that led Johnson to abandon his plan for the briefings. If so, that smacks of cowardice. If it was the risk of alienating the lobby, the same applies. If it was practical considerations, then that is a cop-out. Consistency of time and place can only be an improvement.

Since the Covid-19 briefings became intermittent, it has been hard for those outside Westminster to find out even when they are. This only adds to the impression of a somewhat shambolic, last-minute, approach to communications that emanates from No 10, following the flurry of unscheduled departures last year. Mixed messaging does governments no favours.

On a good day, Johnson is among the best communicators in the business. He avoids cliches and political jargon. From political adversaries in the Commons to random voters in the street, people remember what he has said. It is a strange paradox that someone so adept at getting his message across has presided over a communications operation that has so often seemed such a mess. The “White House-style briefings” could have helped remedy that. I, for one, will be hoping for another U-turn.