‘I’ve worked in aggressive media environments before but not this partisan,’ says top aide to Barack Obama who has advised Ed Miliband in the British election

David Axelrod, the top aide to Barack Obama who travelled across the pond to advise Ed Miliband in the British election, has said he has never seen a media environment as partisan as the one in the UK.

UK general election: stakes high as Britain votes Read more

Asked in an interview with Politico Europe whether he knew what he was getting into when he signed up to advise the British Labour leader, Axelrod replied: “We discussed this when I signed on … I’ve worked in aggressive media environments before but not this partisan.”

Axelrod, who shepherded Obama through two presidential campaigns and the constant media churn of cable news and talk radio, said he thought American media were far less driven by party politics than its British equivalent.

British conservative print media was not only more powerful than Fox News is in the US but was also far more partisan than the cable news network, Axelrod said.

“Fox is certainly very conservative, skews to the Republican side, but there isn’t a kind of lockstep between them and the Republicans,” he said. “Fox tries to drive the Republican agenda more than reflecting it.”



Election polling day live: voting enters final hours in closest election for decades Read more

He said of the UK, which he said he had visited “half a dozen” times while advising Miliband in his attempt to unseat the Conservative prime minister, David Cameron: “Here there are relationships between the parties and media outlets that are deeper so you see a lot of themes being previewed in the media in a way that you don’t see in the states.”

The result, Axelrod said, had made Britain the most partisan media environment that he has ever experienced.



The virulence of the 2015 general election has also surprised other American operatives as well. Conservative pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that after looking at British newspapers “I will never complain about the American media again.”

Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) I will never complain about American media again. The British press is like their weather — awful. pic.twitter.com/htmEjS6kTs

“The British press is like their weather,” he added, “awful.” (He later issued a correction – but only about the weather.)

So far in the election campaign, 95% of the columns in the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid the Sun have been anti-Labour. This is a new record for the rightwing paper, long known for virulent attacks against Labour.

But this paled in comparison to the Daily Telegraph, a respected conservative broadsheet, which sent out a mass email to its readers urging them to vote Conservative and included a link to the Telegraph’s editorial backing the Tories. (The Guardian has endorsed the Labour party.)

The partisanship in the media has been driven by how close Thursday’s general election is believed to be. Polls show this year’s race to be the most competitive campaign in a generation, and it is likely that no single party will win enough seats to achieve a majority in parliament.

But with polling day already here, Axelrod can take some comfort that he no longer has to deal with the partisanship of the British press for the next five years. Instead, he can simply look forward to dealing American media personalities like Sean Hannity of Fox and Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC.