Posts Tagged ‘David Cameron’

A week is a long time in politics, so six months equates to an eternity. Just ask David Cameron who, six months ago, looked to be a shoe-in for the next Prime Minister.

I’ve been up in the smoke all week and the conversation, from left and right, is dominated by the possibility that the Tories might not win the election. It’s a simple case of making a couple of mistakes and watching confidence seep away. And the ill-advised Tory poster campaign, featuring an airbrushed David Cameron, is not so much a mistake as it is a PR disaster. Read the rest of this entry »

Bearing in mind my post from yesterday, I’m still a little unsure about how the appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time last night will pan out in the long run. There was too much passion from the panellists, too much shouting down for my tastes. It all seemed too much of a witch-hunt. It doesn’t help that Nick Griffin, ever the opportunist, has plonked himself back at the top of today’s news agenda by claiming that the BBC organised a lynch mob and is demanding that he get one on one debates with Jack Straw, David Cameron and others as reparation.

Whilst Griffin’s repulsive views were made apparent in amongst the barrage of anger let loose by the audience and panellists, and whilst I am sure that his horrible vacillations will turn some people off, I am also certain that the sight of him slick with sweat and laughing nervously, at times like a small boy in the playground surrounded by bullies, will make him seem sympathetic, even credible, in some quarters. I am also certain that the oxygen of publicity will make Griffin seem all the more credible in the eyes of the dispossessed voters who helped him gain a European seat. All in all, I think last night’s Question Time was a no win situation for all.

Except for Bonnie Greer.

Politicians of all stripes could learn a thing or two from Bonnie Greer’s peerless decimation of Griffin. She treated him seriously enough to draw him in, dealt with him as if he was not a lunatic and used the comfort zone she created between them – she was sat right next to him, which helped – to carefully, dryly and, with a measure of irony that was glorious to behold, offer him a good, solid rope with which he promptly hung himself. She only came close to losing her temper once, when Griffin suggested that David Duke was all right because he was an “almost non-violent” member of the Ku Klux Klan. Even this she passed off with not much more than seriously raised eyebrows and some careful argument.

Without Bonnie Greer and, to a lesser extent Lady Warsi, this would have been a very different programme; one which could have created a great deal more sympathy for Griffin. Politicians take note!

Nick Clegg’s been getting a great deal of attention in the press at the Lib Dem conference this weekend. What I’ve taken away from Clegg’s conference manoeuvres, however, has not been the substance so much as the style in which it is presented.

But then it’s been a weekend of style over substance: 30-year-old Alesha Dixon, the winner of Strictly Come Dancing, who was brought in at the expense of the previous judge Arlene Phillips (66) to “give the show some youthful glamour” failed to win the wholehearted approval of the viewing public that the BBC were hoping for in the wake of the ageism row that erupted after Philips’ sacking.

She was, it seems, brought in to make the old men on the panel appear to be a little more sexy, although the official story is that she was brought in to speak with the voice of the viewer. Dixon’s failure to connect with the Strictly Come Dancing audiences this weekend – the show lost out badly to X Factor in its first week of competition – is surely a sign that there are plenty of people out there who value substance over good looks. It is also proof beyond doubt that the voice of the viewer is perfectly well-served by the BBC message boards.

Politics has, in the last 20 years, followed a similar pattern. Clegg became the head of the Lib Dems because he is clean-cut, looks good in a suit and is prepared to pose for the cameras at the pier with his wife or standing on Bournemouth beach, skimming stones on the sea. He has been brought in to be the acceptable face of the Lib Dems; their very own Alesha Dixon.

He got the job at the expense of Vince Cable, the balding, middle-aged Voice of Integrity™ who is, across the political spectrum, acknowledged as the man with the ideas and the substance to make a difference for the party. Spin dogma suggests that “the voters” want an attractive, personable head of the party, that it will make the Lib Dems more electable.

What it boils down to is that one really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – and that it’s really time to make changes when the media start inspecting the dust jacket for signs of wear as well.

The Strictly Come Dancing results may indicate that the Lib Dems could have gambled on Cable and met the mood of the nation head on. Clegg has certainly been trying his hardest – he’s a decent politician, trying to provide substance – but the tax increases he’s been proposing will be a bitter pill for the public to swallow. Cable may be considered too old to be allowed to lead the party, but he’d surely be a more likely, trusted candidate to convince a sceptical public to accept these tax increases.

It’s against the norm for such things to happen, however. Every politician who takes a position of power has to be younger and more thrusting than the last – the pasty-faced old Etonian leaders of the opposition, Cameron and Osborne, are proof enough of this – and it may not stop until, finally, a good-looking and youthful celebrity is elected president of Britain, in a bizarre mockery of the American system, to distract from the underwhelming looks of the people who actually run the country.

Unless the Strictly Come Dancing audiences rise up and prevent it happening, of course. An armchair revolutionary is much more powerful now, thanks to the internet.

Style is just no substitute for integrity and brand authority and that seems, after this weekend, to have been made a little clearer to the world at large. We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of this realisation, however.

As the former editor of the News of the World turned PR man for David Cameron, Andy Coulson’s appearance before the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee the other day was always likely to be difficult – this is a high-pressure enquiry into the phone hacking scandal.

His performance was a masterstroke, however – a blend of careful honesty and equally careful image management. Coulson came across as forthright and honest – and he looked relaxed in a suit that could easily have graced the pages of GQ. Importantly, he did not battle the MPs he was facing but was carefully compliant.

There’s no doubt that he knows not to make himself the story – he kept his personality in the background and presented the facts as he saw them. It was abundantly clear, from this appearance, that he has been a major influence on the Tory front bench and on David Cameron in particular. Watching him conducting himself told us much about how he is working with the Tories.

He was as impressive as Alastair Campbell used to be in the same role for Tony Blair, although he cuts a very different dash from Campbell. Where Campbell was more of a Nobby Stiles, Coulson comes across as something of a Cardinal Richelieu, albeit a Richelieu who is prepared to admit his mistakes, which is more than can be said for some MPs.

But would he rather be the PR man for a likely future Prime Minister or to have remained in the editor’s chair at the News of the World? He fell on his sword for the sake of the Murdoch empire in 2007 after the phone tapping scandal involving rogue agents, having carefully built a career in journalism. I would imagine that there’s still a sense of loss about that lurking in the carefully polished depths.

At a time when Sunday newspapers are under ever greater pressure to land scoops – whatever the method and consequence – I imagine Coulson’s safe with the Tories for now, especially since he handled himself so effectively under pressure in front of the Commons select committee and given that his media management of the Tories has, on the whole, been equally effective. He certainly proved he’s an asset to David Cameron in front of the select committee and despite calls for his resignation, I would suggest that he’s not likely to leave this job at present.

It’s good to see that my client Noel Edmonds’ groundbreaking new show on Sky One, Noel’s HQ, is having some effect. This week, the programme, which aims to inspire people to acts of kindness and help transform lives, tackled the case of Joe Townsend, a 20-year-old veteran of the campaign in Afghanistan.

Townsend lost both his legs to a landmine and, to help him rehabilitate and get his life back on track, his grandfather offered to build a specially adapted bungalow on his own land in Sussex. They chose a spot that could not be seen from the road and canvassed locals, who had no objection to the plan. Wealden District Council refused permission, despite the absence of any objections.

It was after this that Noel’s HQ got involved; it’s a measure of the show’s effect that it managed to get quotes from David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown, all of which called for the council to reconsider.

Production staff at Noel’s HQ then called Wealden District Council’s press officer, Jim Van Den Bos, who sneered down the line, saying: “we don’t deal with entertainment shows”. It’s astonishing that Van Den Bos did this, clearly off the cuff and without research into the organization he was speaking to. The first rule of the press officer is that he or she is servant to the message.

If a TV show calls with a thorny issue to discuss, a press officer needs to ask if they can call back, look into what it is they do and find out what the threat level is. Then they need to deal with the situation appropriately and, if the pressure is on, remain respectful. They must try and understand the issues and make their side of the story known with as much care and neutrally as possible.

Arrogantly dismissing the caller only leads to trouble; in this instance, it left Noel free to tell his viewers that if Wealden “would sneer at what we are doing here” then they’re “sneering at millions of others”. Wealden District Council performed a swift volte face in the wake of the show.

There are plenty of press officers in local government producing award winning work; these are the people who know that when a press officer is in the firing line, they need to keep their best foot forward, their eye on Google, their temper in check and their professionalism cranked up to 11. They know full well that if they don’t they’ll end up, like Jim Van Den Bos, holding a smoking ACME bomb.

In the hoo-ha surrounding the Shannon Matthews case, I find myself wondering about her mother’s motivations behind kidnapping her own daughter. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, even among the most morally dubious of people, and given the amount of attention and sympathy – from most quarters anyway – that the McCaan’s received, it is, I believe, a reasonable supposition to think that someone as clearly desperate and needy as Karen Matthews might think: “I’d like a bit of that attention.”

The case may not be the “verdict on our broken society” that David Cameron recently suggested, but there are certainly elements within society who are sold on the idea of fame at any cost; enough that I wonder if we are not likely to see more such appalling plots to garner attention and money in the near future, especially as the recession bites deeper.

There have always been a few people deranged and unpleasant enough to go for a radical and awful solution to their woes, perceived or otherwise, and children, over the centuries, have often been used as collateral, whether they were shoved up chimneys or made to sell matches or kidnapped by their own mothers.

Hoaxes have been part of the national consciousness for years, too. The person behind the Hitler Diaries, for example, was not a lone voice in the wilderness – it was part of a long tradition of hoaxes and has influenced others since. It was part of an ongoing trend that surfaces and resurfaces every so often.

I hope I’m wrong, and that no one will be inspired to take Karen Matthews’ example a step further, but when people are made so aware of the processes behind such a cruel hoax and can see so clearly that, if they’re careful, they might just get the attention they crave – or even a great deal of money – if they just plan a little more carefully, then the temptation could be awfully strong.

All the madness engendered by the slumping, declining, crashing money markets has thrown up some interesting residue. One of the most immediate changes is the way that Gordon Brown seems to have reverted to his ruffled, dishevelled old skool persona and has dumped the carefully spun version like so much laundry – and I think he seems more real now than the neat persona his behind the scenes people created for him.

Every time Brown has taken centre stage since the crisis began, he has had the look of a world leader struggling long into the night, the captain at the helm, trying to stop the Titanic from sinking. This demonstrates that the meltdown is allowing Brown to save his own political bacon by showing the great unwashed that he really can be a leader who doesn’t need meaningless conversations about what he looks like or how he reconnects to his audiences.

If he does have impact during these times – and today’s headline in the Guardian telling us that “Eurozone countries agree on Brown rescue plan” suggests that he does – then he might just overshadow the presence of David Cameron and provide the necessary collateral to stop a humiliating electoral defeat, which would make for an astonishing reversal of fortune.

On a more surprising note, is Jade Goody becoming a martyr? Because of the widespread reporting of her cervical cancer, it would appear that more and more women are going to have scans because of Jade’s situation – certainly, recent figures suggest this is the case. Could Goody be doing some good, trading in her rent-a-gob low ranking celebrity status for a more iconic persona that could help many more people keep their health in check? Could a clever publicist give some much-needed substance to the Jade Goody persona? These are strange times indeed, but fear gives gravitas to many things…