Malcolm Cupis: We must restore a free press to defeat the left

Malcolm Cupis is a public relations consultant, strategist and writer. He stood as a Reform UK candidate in the 2024 General Election and was appointed Chairman of the Melksham and Devizes Constituency party branch. He resigned from Reform UK in February 2025 and has since rejoined the Conservative Party. 

I have spent my entire career working as a journalist and a public relations consultant – and as a result I can’t help but keep a watchful eye on how politicians and political parties communicate. You can learn so much about the state of a party from its communication tactics; last week has been fascinating from this perspective.

I’ll start this by saying that Tony Blair set a political benchmark for communication. He may well have been the architect of much of this country’s terrible decline, but if you understand communication, you cannot help but admire his strategy and how his tactics have dominated the political arena ever since.

Being successful in politics demands great PR. Perception is reality. If you can persuade people that what you are doing is in their best interest, if you can develop messages that resonate with them and successfully deliver them, you are a very long way to winning elections. Blair was responsible for that: he brought style above substance.

Successful communication isn’t just a sword in attack, it is also a shield in defence – and this was probably Blair’s greatest lesson of all. Choosing a good day to bury bad news. When he set out on this process he did so under careful scrutiny by much of the media.

Although media were politically aligned, they were not as openly biased as they are now. Alistair Campbell was responsible for changing that and, much as I find him a loathsome individual, once again you have to give him grudging respect for achieving what he did; destroying our free press and creating today’s situation where the overwhelming majority of traditional media, broadcast, printed or online, is left leaning.

The profession has become a self-perpetuated leftocracy, which studiously avoids detailed scrutiny of left wing political parties and is incessantly critical and dominated by confected outrage of anything that is in any way supportive of conservatism or issues of concern to anybody marginally right of centre in their opinions and aspirations.

If you control the media you control the perceptions of the people. A free press is as vital a component of a free nation as freedom of expression, freedom of worship and freedom of travel and association.

This last week headlines have been dominated by the greatest issue of our time: immigration. Macron has jetted over from France – not nipped over on the Eurostar to address the “climate crisis” of course – and we have been treated to the spectacle of him being feted by the Royal Family and the political establishment. The Government has given great fanfare to the resultant agreement to give the illusion that it is doing something meaningful to address the chief concern of the overwhelming majority of British people, while actually clearly not wanting to do anything at all.

It doesn’t take much scrutiny to realise that the outcome will have no measurable positive effect on illegal migration, will cost the British taxpayer more money and represents a significant step closer to the EU, with no regard for the views of the 17.6 million people who voted to leave it. But the perception given is that the government has understood the issue, the concerns of the British people – and is addressing it.

While all of that was taking place, a number of things were pushed through on an unsuspecting public that might otherwise have come under greater scrutiny, and would certainly have been controversial at the very least.

Over the weekend we have learnt that junior doctors are planning to go on strike again, demanding a further 28 per cent pay rise. And that Labour is spending £63 million of your money on digging up pavements so that electric cars can be recharged by people who don’t have driveways.

Last week Starmer, under pressure from many of his MPs, was forced into a humiliating U-turn on his proposals to reduce expenditure on state benefits, which will necessitate vast tax increases to finance. Somehow this escaped anything like the level of media scrutiny that so significant a development deserved.

As did an announcement that the job description for MPs has just been quietly changed, so they are no longer obliged to represent the views of their constituents. And an organisation called the National Police Chief’s Council has proudly unveiled what they call PRAP, which stands for Police Race Action Plan, which states that policing should officially become discriminatory by demanding that outcomes should be equalised by race rather than by merit.

Where have you read any critical media commentary of any of these things? It is not just this. Advance UK was launched as a new political party with almost no media fanfare whatsoever. Positioned as a home for the increasing numbers of disillusioned Reform members who are growingly incredulous as they have seen Farage lurch all over the place economically and row back on key promises, whilst presiding over chaos at all levels in his party ranks.

Advance is led by Ben Habib, who is a calm, rational, convivial and avuncular figure, in stark contrast to Farage’s Trumpian authoritarianism and spittle flecked state of permanent outrage. Despite the lack of media recognition, in its first week Advance has signed up 12,000 members.

Of even greater international significance was the announcement that Argentinian President Javier Milei has successfully lowered his country’s monthly inflation rate from 26 per cent to just 1.5 per cent, and grown his economy by 7.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year. His policies closely align with those that were announced by Liz Truss when she became Prime Minister and, like Liz Truss, he was immediately labelled a dangerous far right lunatic by left-leaning media and economists.

The difference being that the people of Argentina – having plumbed depths of economic destruction that this country has not yet come close to, but which is apparently determined to mimic – chose to stick with their democratic choice and are now reaping the benefits.

If this country is ever to recover, socially and economically, to prosper once again as it can and it should, it must insist on conservative economic and social policies – but it must first reform the captured left wing public sector and, vitally, it must also restore a free press and freedom of expression.

The greatest failing of the last Conservative government was its inability or unwillingness to prioritise these vital components of a democratic and free society. Things could have been so very different if we had stuck with Liz Truss’s economic policies. If we had seen the promised bonfire of the quangos and had undertaken the necessary root and branch reform of the Civil Service.

Restoring a free press is equally vital – from removing the monopoly of Reach plc, publishers of the Mirror, which has taken monopolistic ownership of local newspapers, websites and social media channels, and of course facing off the BBC, which now barely even bothers to try to deny its pro left, pro EU, pro Palestine, anti-conservative, anti-Trump, anti-Israel invective.

This must be the first and greatest commitment if this country is ever to be freed from the concrete block which has been dragging it under the waves ever since Blair was enabled to seize control of the institutions. Conservatives must make this commitment and must convince the nation that this time it will see it through.

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