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 Laura Beers. Your Britain: Media and the Making of the Labour Party. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 2010. Illustrations. x + 272 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN978-0-674-05002-0.  Reviewed by Carole O'Reilly Published on Jhistory (October, 2012) Commissioned by Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia) Laura Beers’s Your Britain examines the evo‐lution of the relationship between the Labour Par‐ty  and various forms of  the British media fromthe  turn  of  the  twentieth  century  until  1945.  Itdocuments the gradual shift  from suspicion andeven fear of the popular press to engagement andexperimentation, and demonstrates the changingmores  of  the  British  political  landscape  duringthis period. This is a colorful and interesting era,from the  point  of  view of  both  political  partiesand trends in media, and is a subject about whichthere has been little scholarship. Histories of theLabour  Party  exist,  as  does  some  more  recentwork on political  media strategies (for example,see Ben Pimlott’s Labour and the Left in the 30s[1986] and Ralph Negrine’s The Transformation ofPolitical  Communication [2008]),  but  there  arefew texts that attempt to integrate both themes,which  makes  Beers’s  book  especially  welcome.Other similar works, such as Dominic Wring’s ThePolitics  of  Marketing  the  Labour  Party (2004),have a broader historical range and are less fo‐cused on the development of an integrated mediastrategy. Structurally,  the  book  takes  a  chronologicalapproach, beginning with a useful chapter on thedevelopment of a mass media culture in Britainand the professionalization of election campaign‐ing.  The  broad  theme  of  the  transition  of  theLabour Party from marginal to mainstream is setagainst the emergence of a dynamic and influen‐tial mediascape, widely perceived to be essentialin  attracting  and  maintaining  voters’  attention.While the chronological approach is welcome forthose readers unfamiliar with either the media orpolitical landscape of Britain at this time, it doesoccasionally militate against a deeper discussionof the broader themes of the book, especially thelack of an agreement on a consistent media policywithin the Labour leadership. Beers  presents  several  detailed  case  studiesthat illustrate both the complexity of the subjectand the  systematic  changes  in  Labour’s  policiestoward  the  media.  Of  particular  interest  is  theanalysis of the role of the Daily Herald, the unoffi‐cial newspaper of the Labour Party, and the par‐ty’s relationship with the BBC. These examples areskillfully integrated into the text and are not pre‐sented  as  stand-alone  studies,  which  is  helpfulwhen considering how the use of the Daily Heraldand the BBC both contributed to and often seemedto undermine the electoral success of the party. The  impact  of  the  General  Strike  of  1926proved  an  opportunity  to  examine  the  lessonslearned by the party for its handling of the media.The failure of the Labour Party to appreciate theresults to be gained by engaging with the main‐stream  media  led  to  the  marginalization  of  theparty  and  its  subsequent  easy  demonization,largely as a consequence of the long-standing sus‐picion  of  the  press.  The  decision  of  the  TradesUnion Congress to boycott the media during thestrike was disastrous for Labour and was a turn‐ing point after which there was a determinationwithin the party  to  adopt  a  policy  of  deliberatemedia engagement (especially with the BBC) in or‐der to broaden its support. Beers  is  realistic  about  the  frequently  self-sabotaging tactics of some factions of the LabourParty when dealing with the mainstream press, inparticular. Notwithstanding the open hostility ofsome sections of that press in the 1920s--the DailyMail was  consistently  antagonistic--the  role  ofNorman  Angell  in  persuading  the  party  that“squaring  the  contradictions”  of  media  engage‐ment  was  necessary  is  interesting  and  handledwell (p. 28). As a former journalist, Angell was ef‐fective in convincing the leadership that develop‐ing  a  coherent  media  policy  would  presentLabour to the public as a valid opposition to theConservatives. He was, however, concerned aboutthe potential effect of anti-Labour propaganda onwomen voters and about how the entertainmentvalue of the pictorial press would provide a dis‐traction for what were perceived as unsophisticat‐ed female voters. Labour’s  gradual  realization  of  the  signifi‐cance of the female vote is a recurring theme ofthe book from the extension of the franchise towomen in Britain in 1928 to the deliberate andcontinuing  attempts  to  attract  the  attention  ofwomen during the 1930s. This was achieved most‐ly through visual images--poster campaigns, espe‐cially those aimed at young mothers and the in‐clusion of women’s fashion pages (previously ananathema) in the Daily Herald after its relaunchin 1930. We know little about the real impact ofthese campaigns, as Beers admits, but the fact oftheir  existence demonstrates  that  the party wasdeveloping a more pragmatic approach to its me‐dia policy. The transition of the Daily Herald froma heavy-handed, loss-making, and pedantic partyorgan  to  a  lively  and  commercially  successfulnewspaper with a two million circulation is a fas‐cinating journey. The shift of the Daily Mirror tothe political Left in the 1930s gets relatively littleattention, which is a pity as a discussion of its re‐lationship to the Daily Herald would seem to offerfruitful  territory  to  examine  the  subtleties  ofnewspapers’ political allegiances. The determination of the Labour Party in the1930s  to  broaden  its  electoral  base  not  just  towomen but to the middle classes was undertakenwith recourse to advice from experts in advertis‐ing and public relations,  demonstrating the pro‐fessionalization of political communication strate‐gies and the beginning of Labour’s opportunity tocompete  with  the  Conservatives  on  an  almostequal footing. We are left with the final impres‐sion of a party that had arrived at a point of thesystematic and targeted utilization of the expand‐ing media and of the consolidation of a complexmedia policy in the subsequent decades. A tanta‐lizing  mention  of  the  New  Labour  era  of  TonyBlair and his election strategist Peter Mandelson(although,  oddly,  not  Alastair  Campbell,  Blair’sfirst press secretary) in the last sentence gives asense of potential further work on this most in‐triguing of subjects. H-Net Reviews2A few quibbles, such as the lack of a separatebibliography and occasional lapses in the writingstyle (Ernest Bevin was “hell-bent” [p. 134]), can‐not be said to spoil what is a very rewarding textwhich adds to our as yet underdeveloped under‐standing  of  the  relationships  between  politicalparties and the media.  Beers has amply demon‐strated  how  the  political  communication  strate‐gies of the Labour Party evolved as an act of “po‐litical  desperation” in the face of  the success  ofthe Conservative Party but from such erratic be‐ginnings grew an ability to persuade, cajole, andultimately translate media attention into votes (p.203). : Media and the Making of the Labour Party that political&#160; p period both&#160; as yet p during this time&#160; [1] s [2] which s p their their S their p ‘ ’ well- (p. 87) s - their l their - s s ‘ ,’ p ‘ ’ p (p. 203)&#160; Notes [1] Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 30s(London:  Allen  &  Unwin,  1986);  Ralph  Negrine,The  Transformation  of  Political  Communication(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). [2] Dominic Wring, The Politics of Marketingthe Labour Party (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmil‐lan, 2004). H-Net Reviews3If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, athttps://networks.h-net.org/jhistory Citation: Carole O'Reilly. Review of Beers, Laura. Your Britain: Media and the Making of the LabourParty. Jhistory, H-Net Reviews. October, 2012. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36392  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 United States License. H-Net Reviews4

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