politics


change. But it was limited and, also having been a journalist for over 25 years in a market that was really going a bad way, I figured that becoming a politician would give me much, much greater scope and potentially a greater platform to take on things in society that were wrong.” Denis MacShane (pictured below), who was president of the


NUJ in the late 1970s and became MP for Rotherham in 1994, recalls that as a foreign office minister in the 2000s, his close relations with the press pack sometimes got him into trouble. “When Blair appointed me [as a minister], he said: ‘Do be careful about the press, won’t you?’” MacShane recalls. “He was always very suspicious.” He remembers an overnight flight to Brazil where he was


seated at the front of the plane with Blair and top civil servants. “I went back to have a drink and a gossip with [political editors] Michael White, Tom Baldwin and all the gang and, when I finished, I got up and went back to the first class cabin. Blair is standing there, glaring at me: ‘Denis! You’ve been talking to journalists, haven’t you?’ ” Just a few months into the job, Crichton has already noticed


suspicion of journalists among his colleagues. “You don’t realise how fearful politicians are of journalists until you see other MPs going, ‘Oh, how do you know all these journalists?’ In fact, all these journalists are your former colleagues. They’ll chew you up and spit you out as quick as any other politician, you hope, if they’re good at their jobs. “But you do see from some new MPs a kind of caution. They


ask: ‘How do you do that? What do you tell them?’ And, of course, the honest answer is that you have a conversation with them, an exchange of information, and you build up a relationship… and it becomes a relationship of trust and out of that come help with stories and issues and everything else.” In other cases, this suspicion of journalists has turned into


outright hostility towards new colleagues. Dorothy-Grace Elder was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 in the first post-devolution elections after an extensive career in Scottish newspapers and broadcasting. “It’s good to have journalists because we have a background where we know how to ask things and who to ask,” she says. “But, personally, I would not recommend it because it’s quite a shock to see politics from the inside. A lot of them do not like journalists – they don’t like us at all.” In politics, Elder witnessed behaviour she believes


would simply not be tolerated in newspapers or broadcast journalism due to the importance of producing a professional outcome. “I was horrified, really, really horrified at the sort of stuff that happened — which could not have happened in a paper or in normal industry. You wouldn’t get a paper out that night.” Many journalists-turned MPs end up raising issues relating to the media in Parliament. MacShane championed press freedom in countries such as China and Ukraine, and opposed ‘libel tourism’ during his time as an MP. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media, Crichton plans to examine “the difference between platforms and publishers — the fact that Facebook and Meta and Google scrape up data from everywhere, and take the revenue from copy that has been generated by other companies and by individual journalists”. Since becoming an MSP in 2021, Findlay, who is still an NUJ member, has supported striking journalists at STV and Reach — both former employers of his — on picket lines. “Some


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IMAGEPLOTTER / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


It’s quite a shock to see politics from the inside. A lot of them do not like journalists – they don’t like us at all


people might question why a Conservative would be on a picket line,” he admits. “I think it’s not inconsistent because, as much as you have to take each decision to take industrial action on its own merits, my position is, in respect of journalism, I completely understand the need for Scotland to have a really robust and diverse media, whether that’s newspapers or broadcast. If I can do anything that will champion that and protect those who are trying to protect what the public can receive from journalism, then I’ll do so.” Crichton believes the relationship between journalists and


politicians is symbiotic. “Politicians need journalists to get their message out, and journalists need to hold politicians to account. It’s a vital part of what we do, and having relationships with journalists is a really important part of being a politician.” MacShane, who combined journalism with campaigning


for many years, adds: “It’s such a natural segue really. I never thought it was anything unusual. “I think on my grave when I die, it will be ‘journalist’, not ‘politician’.”


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