Brown: 'The King of Spin'
Monday, 26 January 2009 12:00 AM
By Laura Miller
Gordon Brown faced accusations he is the 'King of Spin' today, after a report revealed he has more press officers than any PM in the last 30 years.
Mr Brown's army of parliamentary lobby journalists acts as a "barrier to openness" and more needs to be done to break up this tight group of reporters, said the House of Lords communications committee.
It recommends live internet streaming of the PM's morning briefing and for Gordon Brown to privilege parliament over the media when it comes to making important announcements.
"When Gordon Brown became prime minister he said it was his aim to put parliament back at the centre of political life", said Lord Fowler, a former Times journalist and Conservative Cabinet minister who chairs the committee.
"However, his premiership has not ended the trend for ministers and government departments to make their policy announcements outside parliament first. It is important that this is stopped."
The current findings show no positive change from those in a 2003 report , which showed that government special advisers, who brief the media for Cabinet ministers, concentrated their attention on parliamentary lobby journalists and specialist reporters.
"This has created an 'inner circle' of reporters who have good access, but a disenfranchised majority who do not," it said.
Today's report is also critical of the lack of information on how much the government spends on its press and communications. The committee discovered the department of health spends more than £100m a year on managing the flow of information.
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