A single front page encapsulates the reason for New Labour's obsession with media management. On election day 1992 the Sun depicted the then party leader's head inside a lightbulb and warned: "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person in Britain please turn out the lights."
The headline amply demonstrated the party's media strategy was not working.
New Labour and the role of Alastair Campbell
Tony Blair wanted to escape from the ghetto of traditionally Labour-supporting papers - the Mirror and Guardian - and find support elsewhere, particularly from Rupert Murdoch's papers. Alastair Campbell, then assistant editor of the Murdoch-owned Today, was brought in as press secretary. He was convinced he could win over the Sun, and he was right. Five years after the Kinnock front page, Mr Blair was on the front page holding that day's paper, which read: "The Sun backs Blair ... The people need a leader with vision, purpose and courage who can inspire them and fire their imaginations."
Editors were wooed, and journalists were rewarded; among them were George Pascoe-Watson at the Sun, Philip Webster and Tom Baldwin at the Times, and Mr Campbell's hero, Anthony Bevins, at the Express and the Independent. In the early years, it could be extremely uncomfortable for a lobby reporter to be out of the Campbell loop. Peter Mandelson, expert at managing everybody's profile except his own, hovered in the shadows.
Mr Campbell believes the lessons of New Labour are commonly misunderstood, particularly by the Conservatives. He argues that the message only worked because the substance was real; and that he could succeed in a way Andy Coulson - former News of the World editor and David Cameron's new media chief - cannot, because Mr Campbell understood politics as well as the media.
Nonetheless, Mr Blair and Mr Campbell concede they made mistakes in trying to import some of their opposition tactics into government. No 10 briefings under Mr Campbell were combative, testy affairs; he carried on being part of the story, rather than its vessel. When, after the summer of 1997 when Mr Blair had an approval rating of 93%, coverage changed, first over the Ecclestone-tobacco sponsorship row, then over Mr Mandelson's first resignation, relations between the government and virtually all media organisations calcified. The political capital Labour had built up in opposition devalued fast.
Rapid rebuttal and the grid
In government, Labour professionalised and politicised media handling. In November 1997 Mr Campbell went on the record, albeit using the formula of requiring journalists to refer to him as "the prime minister's official spokesman", and set up a strategic communications unit to think beyond headlines and enhance the prime ministerial message, by trying to reach, for instance, women's magazines.
Behind-the-hand briefings continued. As in opposition, the high command tried to keep to a grid of media announcements, parcelling out releases to fit the government's narrative. The grid, held at Downing Street, metered out policy, controlling the agenda. Trouble was, as Mr Blair conceded yesterday, as 24/7 news and, later, web news took off, a daily grid became inadequate; news cycles shortened to hours. Journalists, particularly from the Mirror, joined the press machine. Ministerial special advisers asserted control over departmental press operations, and attempted to deliver good headlines - notoriously, Jo Moore, adviser to Stephen Byers, who suggested after the first plane hit the twin towers on 9/11 it was "now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury". Rebuttal was developed as never before in Whitehall. In opposition, Labour had its Excalibur computer, to provide material at an instant to combat Tory attacks. A similar system was brought into the Cabinet Office.
The Iraq dossier and David Kelly
To many, Mr Campbell's most famous feud was with the BBC, over the circumstances of Mr Blair's decision to go to war with Iraq. It provoked events which led to the suicide of scientist David Kelly, ensured or at the least hastened Mr Campbell's departure, and forced BBC chief Greg Dyke and chairman Gavyn Davies from office. Mr Campbell was largely exonerated by the Hutton inquiry.
Post-Campbell and new media
His departure in 2003 lowered the temperature. But relations with the media, though no longer a running feud, remain difficult. The prime minister's spokesmen, Godric Smith and Tom Kelly (a joint post until Mr Smith moved in 2004), were civil servants. Once Mr Campbell left, David Hill, arguably the original "spin doctor" in Whitehall, took over the political role.
No 10 is now on the web with a vengeance. It has a presence on YouTube, and the Downing Street website has petitions: 1.8 million signed on to condemn the government's road-pricing; one minister called the idea's originator a "prat".