‘Gotcha moments’ and ‘digital lynch mobs’: Political mastermind issues warning for democracy

London: Winston Churchill once dictated wartime speeches from the bath, glass of champagne in hand, cigar clenched between his teeth. But in an age of instant scrutiny and online pile-ons, Sir Lynton Crosby isn’t sure the old bulldog would have stood a chance.

“In today’s digital age, with a media obsession with gotcha moments, perpetual crises and issue trivialisation ... one wonders if [he] could survive the scrutiny,” Crosby pondered this week at a private dinner in London.

Winston Churchill dictated speeches from the bath.Credit: Press Association

“We exist in a perpetual now,” he said. “This has created information overload, shortened attention span and contributed to political polarisation as people can easily retreat into echo chambers that confirm their existing beliefs.”

The Australian political strategist, once dubbed The Wizard of Oz by the British press for masterminding Conservative victories in Britain, Australia and beyond, used an intimate address marking the restoration of the near-century life of the Britain-Australia Society’s archives to issue a searing critique of modern political discourse.

A former campaign adviser to John Howard, David Cameron and Boris Johnson, Crosby has made a career out of reading the public mood. His warning is that today’s political ecosystem – with its barrage of content, angry partisanship and collapsing trust in institutions – risks eroding the values that once underpinned stable democracy.

“The constant noise can make it difficult to distinguish between significant developments and temporary controversy,” Crosby, the executive chairman of CT Group, which funded the archives’ restoration, said. “At the same time, journalists have become activists, not reporters.”

Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, pictured in 2020.Credit: Magnus Agren

He said with “digital lynch mobs” roaming online, tolerance was often “in transition to intolerance”.

Established as the Australia Club in 1937, the organisation once served as a quiet power corridor in imperial London. It was here that prime ministers from both nations – Lyons, Curtin, Menzies, Holt, Fraser, Douglas-Home and Major – debated the biggest questions of their day: war, trade, defence and empire. Its archives include speeches from figures who helped shape the modern world.

Tracing a line back to 1937, a year he described as “nothing if not momentous”, he drew historical parallels that landed squarely on the contradictions of today’s turbocharged information age.

From the days when political news travelled slowly, curated by newspaper editors and radio hosts, to a hyper-connected world where “algorithms have become the new controller of what you see and hear”, Crosby, 68, warned the shift was now as cultural as it was technological.

Lynton Crosby speaks with John Howard at a Washington luncheon in 2002, also attended by Malcolm Turnbull (left).Credit: Andrew Taylor

Crosby’s pronouncements could be viewed cynically by some, given that the controversial playbook from a man branded a “master of the dark political arts” famously includes the deployment of the “dead cat strategy” of distraction and “wedge politics” – tactics that, his critics say, precisely contribute to the polarisation he now decries.

Yet, he said, a time when Joseph Lyons and Neville Chamberlain pondered threats from Hitler offered a rhythm of deliberation that modern politics lacked.

“The slower pace of 1937 allowed for deeper contemplation and more substantive policy discussions,” he said. The deepest transformation, Crosby argued, had been how people now consumed politics. Where once politicians barnstormed towns and addressed entire communities from train platforms, he said they now “maintain visibility through tweets, Instagram posts, TikTok videos and streaming appearances”.

In this environment, “campaign strategies deploy sophisticated data analytics, microtargeting specific voter segments with tailored messages and 24/7 content creation”.

Sir Lynton Crosby leaves Downing Street when he was David Cameron’s campaign manager in 2014.Credit: Steve Back

“Without the pressure of instant response, politicians could deploy nuanced positions and voters could digest information more thoroughly,” Crosby said.

“The shared information environment, whilst more narrow, created common ground for democratic discourse. Today’s instant connectivity has made politicians more susceptible to immediate public reaction.”

Crosby said perhaps no speech in the archives loomed larger than the one delivered by John Curtin in 1944 – a turning point in Australia’s strategic history.

He used Curtin’s break with Britain to highlight how Australia had always needed to balance sentiment with strategy. And, he warned, that lesson remained just as relevant today – particularly in a world of shifting power and fraying alliances.

“Curtin had famously turned to America, declaring that Australia looks to America free of any pangs,” Crosby said.“[He] would use this forum to articulate Australia’s wartime partnership with Britain while asserting our growing independence,” he said.

“By then, Australian forces were fighting in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific. While the homeland itself had experienced enemy attack for the first time, the strategic balance had shifted dramatically.”

And, in a callback to Sir Robert Menzies, who addressed the club 10 times between 1948 and 1965, Crosby concluded with a note of cautious optimism: “The old world is passing away and a new one emerges. Our task is not to cling desperately to familiar shores, but to navigate with confidence the uncharted waters ahead.”

The challenge now, Crosby said, was finding a way to do so without being drowned in noise.

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