the labour campaign was very tightly controlled by the party officials, under the director of communications peter mandelson. heal held no public meetings and the morning press conferences were limited to 20 minutes (with senior party figures often replying rather than heal); most of her campaign was conducted on personal appearances in pubs and clubs and 'red rose rallies'. the other parties were angered by this approach, with liberal democrat leader paddy ashdown denouncing the way sylvia heal was "packaged and handled .. as if she was some walworth road barbie woman", and that her leaflets said nothing about her ideas or labour policies. after initially implying that heal was a 'birdbrain', the conservatives switched to claiming her control by the party was done in order to conceal labour policies. the "daily mail" sent a reporter armed with a long list of questions to try to get answers from heal, but her minder peter snape determined to stop him. the conservatives noted that at the 1989 labour party conference heal had supported a motion to cut defence spending by £5 billion.