‘The Old Pals’ Protection Society’? The Colonial Office and the British Press on the Eve of Decolonisation

TL;DRAbstract

As the 1950s drew to a close, there was a growing awareness on the part of British ministers and officials of the power of the media and the need for ‘news management’. As Harold Macmillan noted in his memoirs, by 1959 he and his colleagues fought elections in the company of two new developments: television and opinion polls.1 Yet there remained a tradition under which civil servants were expected to remain relatively aloof from the world of journalism, and ministers expected a degree of deference from the press. The Colonial Office (CO) in particular was keen to keep its own affairs from the critical scrutiny not only of the media but of Parliament itself, fearing that public disagreements about policy within the metropole would weaken the authority of its personnel in the colonies.2 In this regard the issues of press coverage and parliamentary scrutiny were closely interlinked. Through the mechanism of parliamentary questions, MPs may well have played a more significant role than jou

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