Originally Posted by MartinRosen:
“i think you could take it back, certainly as far as Harold Wilson, who was very 'media-friendly', or what about Winston Churchill? Obviously the media was very different in those days, but I don't know how much they (presumably) supported him because of his personality or because of the war.”
The big difference between the relationship between the media and politicians now is accessibility and the level and depth of scrutinity. There's been some major step changes in the past (Profumo &c) but our relationship between media and politics is a fairly modern thing. Up until relatively recently, there was always a degree of respect if not deference (which made Spitting Image et al more shocking than something like That Was The Week That Was). But it seems the more media we have (sheer amount of outlets, rolling news, old and new media, social media) the more access we expect, the more we demand even on superficial levels: Cameron's hair, weight &c., Miliband's voice &c. I know it looks easy to draw a parallel with Wilson and his donkey jacket (which never was) but it's a completely differently level of intensity.
To bring it back to Blair, there's a case that Blair openly courted this knowing that on this (superficial) level he had an advantage over the conveyor belt of Tory leadership at the time. But then again, would he have adopted this tactic if he'd have known it wasn't something the public wanted. Chicken and egg.
As for Churchill, I think the post-war election result says a lot, as does the impression that (now) most people don't seem to realise or forget that the war time government was a war time coalition. Attlee didn't win the election out of the blue (no pun intended), both he and Labour played a significant role in Britain's war effort and the voters in 1945 were aware of that.
Maybe that's something to be also consider in context of Thatcher's funeral. 'Churchill got one because he won the war' being something that I heard a lot of over those two weeks.