War of Jennifer's Ear - Election Broadcast

Election Broadcast

In the midst of the 1992 general election campaign, on 24 March, Labour ran a Party Election Broadcast about a five year old girl with glue ear who waited a year for the simple operation to insert vents. This case was contrasted with the ability of those able to afford private treatment – which had been granted tax breaks by the Conservatives – to get treatment quickly. The party hoped to highlight what it saw as the mismanagement and underfunding of the National Health Service (NHS) under the Conservative government. Labour leader Neil Kinnock employed the slogan: "If you want to vote Conservative, don't fall ill".

Under British election regulations, such broadcasts are rationed by formula among main parties, and terrestrial broadcasters are obliged to run them on set days, in peaktime schedules. Each broadcast therefore has more impact on political debate than in unregulated systems.

The story of the broadcast was described by one press officer – Julie Hall, Neil Kinnock's press secretary, as based on an actual case. In fact while a particular case had been the starting point of the creative team that had produced the broadcast – working from a letter by the girl's parent to Robin Cook, the shadow health secretary, they denied it was meant to be a recounting of her case.

Unfortunately for the Labour Party, the girl in question was the granddaughter of a Conservative Party member, who gave the Conservatives advance warning of the claims to be made in the broadcast. Conflicting accounts of the details of the case quickly surfaced. The mass circulation tabloid, The Sun, ran the story: "If Kinnock will tell lies about a sick little girl, will he ever tell the truth about anything?". This was one of several anti-Kinnock headlines that the tabloid ran in the run-up to the 1992 general election, and it has often been said that The Sun's unshakeable support for the Tories and opposition to Labour helped win the election for the Tories. The story though was broken by Peter Hitchens, then of the Daily Express.