A mere toenail in the body politic

This is a fascinating interview, Boris may be perceived as a bumbling fool but there is a very quick brain behind the shaggy mop. Maybe it is the training received on Have I Got News For You that stands him in good stead, but he is able to really undermine Jeremy Paxman who was not going for the jugular but was perhaps hoping Boris would go off message. The turning of the tables and being allowed to basically give a party political broadcast is wonderful - something between bluster and fillybuster, perhaps it demonstrates a better and more skillful side to media management than the stonewalling that most politicians offer.

(Shame the BBC wont allow the embedding of videos!!!)

No spin, no rhetoric, no bull, no idea

Have you ever wondered what politicians would be like if they had no special advisors, no spin doctors, they just appeared on camera and spoke like the ordinary guy in the street. This is the late Australian Labour Party senator Bob Collins, he had a rather chequered career but his has to be a high point. I would love to see Paxman's reaction to someone like this.

And its about style

Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show does an amusing critique of Obama's persona during press conferences compared to those of his soon to be predecessor.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

President Goofus and President Gallant - Peer Pressers

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

What is remarkable is the difference, the respect paid to journalists, the honesty and transparent style - in particular saying it would be disingenuous to suggest there would be no political appointments to ambassadorships. It suggests a different style of presidency consistent with his change and man of the people brand. It also suggests a more controlled and measured President. Bush appears to spend a significant amount of time thinking on his feet and getting it wrong. Obama also shows he is thinking on his feet, he may face criticism for appearing to pause and think, but this may also show he is considering not just what the answer is but how to phrase it. It is a style which will be important, he will face the media a lot and the way he faces the tough questions will be increasingly important. As Stewart says there are some areas where he needs to up his game but he also needs to keep that humility.

Palin: How Obama Won

A fascinating interview that has been canned by PR Junkie, which calls this as proof that she needs media training. However there are actually some interesting points, on whether a candidate's family should be foregrounded by the media and particularly that anonymous bloggers should not be used as sources of fact.

But some of the lines she defends, such as when asked what media she reads saying 'all of them'; and suggesting had she been Obama's Vice President the voters would have loved her, tenuous? Yes perhaps she needs some advise on dealing with journalists such as Katie Couric. But it also raises some interesting questions about the role of the media within an election campaign and how low they should be allowed to go despite the fact Palin is not a great performer, and independent of her politics, there are some interesting points in this. If she does reappear as a candidate in 2012 could she celebrate her inability to perform in front of the media or emerge as a professional communicator?

Sex, Leaks and Media Hype

Does it matter that Ken Livingstone has five children by three different women, is the issue one of his honesty and integrity or is it true that, as he claims, the public have no interest in his private life. Should we read anything at all into the fact that Nick Clegg 'may have' slept with 'no more than 30 women' in his life? Should we agree with the suggested title for a blog post on the Independent of "Why Political Pundits are Gossip Obsessed Twats". Of course being in the public eye invites scrutiny, and deservedly so; and if like Clegg you allow Piers Morgan to interview you for GQ you get what you deserve, but the obsession with gossip and the sex lives of politicians can detract from the real issues. In terms of media management, while Livingstone is under fire for criticising a Yougov poll that shows Boris Johnson with a 12% lead and the focus is on the marginality of the race, maybe a more personal story is of use to Livingstone. Thus stories such as this may well be liked by journalists but can also be leaked to cover up worse stories that really do have political impact.

Professional = Centralised

I commented on my annoyance about the 'clones', the Labour ministers who repeat the official lines with the appearance of being unable to think independently. But this is the professional communication model it seems. Former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell argued today that he had tried to "professionalise" the party to make it "more up-to-date" and "more fit for 24-hour-a-day news". The ongoing problem for the party, Campbell claims, is that the party has "too many alternative power sources".

Basically Campbell argues that the media has become a news machine that needs feeding and that will throw out stories based on any "vocal public expression" that seems to offer a contrary perspective or, in the case of the LibDems, comments about the age of Campbell as leader. Parties, it appears, must control all expression in order that the media can only report on information from other sources and the party has the opportunity to close down debate.

Where Campbell seems to be wrong is that it just doesn't work. Dissent can always be found and, one would imagine, that the larger the party the more alternative voices could be found. But even when power over official communication is centralised and controlled, the speak your weight machine style of communication does not close down a story. The election that never was is a large nail in the coffin of Brown's premiership despite the 'getting on the with job' response being issued by just about everyone who has been asked. Perhaps there is a journalistic rebellion against the centralisation and they are determined to pick away at the party machine until the story unravels. Whatever the case, while it may be professional to have a party line but one wonders if it is tenable under the 24 news cycle's microscope that the tactic is designed to counter.

Hogging the News

It is perhaps bad enough for David Cameron and the Conservatives that their conference runs parallel with the inquiry into the Menezes murder (as the offense would be if anyone else but the police made that sort of mistake - point made?) and the Diana/Dodi Inquest but Brown is also running his own spoiler campaign. Not only does he make a visit to Iraq but announces the withdrawal of 1000 troops, you might have to be a very interested and perhaps loyal Conservative to find out what happened today in Brighton as it will not get much coverage on tonight's news!

A bit shell-shocked

The BBC's Nick Assinder offers a review of Jacqui Smith's first week in office as Home Secretary, one in which the threat of terrorist attacks again raised its ugly head. He is very complementary: "Ms Smith's approach was entirely different [to predecessors], offering instead that calm, considered approach which is likely to maximise the cross-party support for any future changes she may propose". The BBC really need to get a different picture of the Home Sec though, the one they use does not suggest calm and considered, more shocked and confused.

The last great act of defiance

Blair's speech on Tuesday, where he criticised the media for causing public cynicism in politics, caused a surge of responses across the media and the blogosphere. Within the speech there were interesting observations and admissions. In his early years the party paid "inordinate attention... to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media"; though he did not mention the term manipulating which may be more accurate. He also argued that a response and rebuttal machine was an imperative as "you can't let speculation stay out there for longer than an instant", and hinted that MPs now think more about their media presence than their parliamentary work: "If you are a backbench MP today, you learn to give a press release first and a good Parliamentary speech second". These are admissions that are not usually made by insiders, never mind an architect of the party machine.

But it was the criticisms that was the focus of attention. Accuracy, within media coverage, was deemed as "secondary to impact", and that the media elided "opinion and fact... as a matter of course" through the process by which the media focus as much on the "interpretation of what a politician is saying as [them] actually saying it" causing politicians to focus their energies on "rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended". It is hard to deny that these happen, one often gets the sense that the serious political journalists such as Nick Robinson and Jon Snow believe their opinions to be of more value than anything said by a politician and they infer meaning constantly; this must be frustrating. Equally the focus on sensationalism, the tabloidisation of news, means that serious politics can be pushed to the fringes. However, despite the earlier admissions Blair refused to effectively link the two. Labour's spin machine's raison d'etre is to hide anything that could be construed as negative from the media, hence what politicians say may have broader meaning but that the meaning is couched in hyperbole. Therefore as soon as there is a whiff of spin, the Westminster pack begin to sniff for the story that is obscured from them: a vicious circle!

Perhaps strangely Blair only chose to lay blame at the doors firstly of the BBC to an extent, but then the Independent "a viewspaper not merely a newspaper". This devalued Blair's position even more than attempting to dominate the moral high ground. Yes the independent has an ideological bias, but so do all newspapers so levelling accusations against the one that most vehemently opposed Blair's policies across the Middle East seems to be just sour grapes: an odd move for a man skilled in judging public and media reactions. Thus it appeared to be Blair raising the defiant finger to his left-wing critics and not beginning a real debate on the future of the relationship between the media, the political sphere and the public.

So what can we take from the speech? Clearly there is a problem. Firstly that politicians are too media-obsessed and concerned about receiving positive coverage; secondly that the media can focus too much on opining and not informing, and on the trivial, soap opera-esque aspects of the political drama rather than serious debate. Both of these can make politicians and politics seem detached and irrelevant among the public. But we cannot claim, as Blair did, that this causes cynicism. Media malaise research proves a link, however Pippa Norris found that entertaining reporting actually engaged the audience; so there are questions regarding the effects of democracy. So was this just sour grapes? Hard to tell. While Blair opened claiming to wish to "contemplate in a broader perspective the effects of a changing world on the issues of the future" his argument seemed curiously personal and rooted in today. His points are useful to an extent, but it would be hard to find unequivocal support from academic work in this area; so perhaps all we can do is take his points on board but see this really as his last act of defiance against a media he has always appeared to be trying, but failing, to control.

Tabloid Tories?

Sex, Affairs, Big Breasts, well that gets attention; could this be the way forward in political communication?

Iain Dale announces this morning that Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor, is to become the Conservatives' Director of Communications. He has a strong background in the media, but his involvement in politics could be seen as rather negative having presided over the Blunkett affair scoop described by more serious journalists as indefensible, and around whom many debates on privacy circulate following scoops on Princes Harry and William and the Beckhams. So one wonders what it is that he will offer the Conservatives.

Well he knows a thing or two about headline grabbing, but can a life in celebrity and controversy transfer over to politics? Well, Cameron clearly wants to have a celebrity status and image, and controversy clearly surrounds politics; but would Coulson know as easily how to suppress a story than defend it? He knows a thing or two about PR as well, but selling a newspaper that deals in the salacious is not the same as selling serious policies (read into that what you will). Moreover, as Dizzy notes, after the problems that Campbell as a tabloid journalist faced can Coulson do any better?

A lot of questions relate to this appointment. Will this mark a dramatic change in the Conservative Party's communication style, we shall see!

The vicious cycle

Nicholas Jones has long been a critic of the extent to which political communication has become coloured by spin. His work on the birth of spin culture through to an expose of the control freaks within No. 10 Downing Street is underlined today in an article which characterises the Blair years as "a decade of squalid and politically corrupt spin" which has created "a generation of political journalists who have acquired the freedom to embellish quotations and use them to help manufacture their own exclusive story lines". Hence, Jones explains, the Campbellisation of the flow of information from state to public has placed the SpAds (Special Advisers [or signals passed at danger in railway speak]) in a position of absolute power as traders of exclusive information.

The contrast sharply with the intended role of the Special Advisors, Professor Karen Yeung explains that they were created to be an adjunct between the government, including the civil service, and the party in power. Instead of politicising the civil servants, something Thatcher has often been accused of, people such as Jo Moore should be responsible for presenting party political information while the civil service stick to impartial information provision. What Blair has achieved, and perhaps it should be Blair-isation rather than Campbellisation, is to place the Special Advisors as the key informers of public. media and civil service it would seem. They dominate all information flowing within and between departments and from departments out to the broader community.

Jones looks to the unfettered, unregulated world that is the Internet to solve the problem as it offers "an ideal opportunity to match the pioneering work of Clem Attlee in promoting... the people's conscious and active participation in public affairs"; blogging and commenting basically. But to facilitate this, Jones hints, government must present information also via the blogosphere. Each department could, if the impetus was there, release the day's achievements in a simple and accessible format. Not the 5,000 page pdf file with clauses and appendices, also not the carefully worded, possibly sexed-up, policy statement. But a list of we did this, this is why, this is how it will impact on the lives of citizens. The problem is that this will never happen. We all spin, but parties feel they have to as if they do not then the door is open to opponents in Westminster, in the media and beyond. Hence there is a vicious cycle at work: parties spin, media critiques, public disengages with a shrug - there is a better way but it seems highly doubtful that anyone would have the guts to be just plain honest independent of how much they seek to do what the electorate wants or how much voters call for the end of spin in political communication.

Brown for Britain?

While the contenders for deputy tout themselves to their elected colleagues, Brown appears to be conducting a presidential campaign for the hearts and minds of the nation. Brown for Britain is not the slogan one would expect for a leadership campaign; equally touring marginal seats is synonymous with the technocratic, profit-oriented campaigning tactics of general elections; so is the strong focus on communicating via the mass media. So whose support is Brown trying to win. It would seem that it is the ordinary voters; possibly because he expects no serious competition in the contest to become Labour leader and hence Prime Minister.

Like Brown, Blair was touted to be leader by the media almost immediately after the untimely death of John Smith, and polls seemed to echo the media affection for Blair, though public opinion may simply have been driven by the media; however Blair used the media to full effect to drive home firstly victory within the party then in the country. This seems a stark contrast to the mixed approach of party first then nation via mass media that recent Conservative leadership contests have taken.

Brown clearly sees this contest as one where he can command centre stage and which could be used as a springboard for an general election victory, but can he succeed in the same way that Blair did? Is the Brown brand the right offering for the UK electorate? Can he sell himself during this campaign to convince the public that Brown is right for Britain? Clearly this is the intention as strategists within the Labour party continue to deliver a highly marketised, mass media focused campaign whether it is the right tactic or not. It may be deemed professional, but the real test is success short term in Sunday's polls and long term looking towards 2010 as the last possible date for the ultimate test of Brown as leader.

In search of unity

"If we question the path we are travelling then we question our very existence... if we allow our supreme leader to be opposed openly it will damage the very fabric of our society... any election must act as an expression of unity in the face of our opponents"

This is the interpretation of Joseph Stalin's arguments against democracy as offered by my political theory lecturer Geriant Williams as copied religiously from his slides. Bizarrely these sentiments are now being echoed in a Blairite led argument against Charles Clarke standing against Brown and so having a contest for leader of the party and nation.

A contest would be a distraction, it would divide the party, it would create camps, it would expose the arguments for not having Brown as leader. Well perhaps this is required, it may only give voice to sentiments that are already in the public sphere care of the media. But dividing the party is a big statement; the Cameron/Davis campaign did not split the Conservatives; even the disastrous events of the Liberal Democrat leadership contest did not create open battle lines. There appears to be a real fear within the Labour central office of the effects of a contest, however the fact that the deals and arguments are made public means everyone is aware of it all and it could be as damaging, if not more so, as a leadership contest. Perhaps this is the last gasp of control freakery.

I'm a Celebrity, elect me!

The polls could be closer, Segolene Royal on 22%, Nicolas Sarkozy on 30.5%, but with a quarter being undecided such gaps are trivial. The battle then is between the centre-right Sarkozy and the socialist Royal. Both are also fighting on a similar front, yes they have their politics, but they also have a far more important weapon; the perception of them as authentic, real people with a celebrity status.

Royal features often in glamour mags, even in a bikini. Sarkozy comments on football and is a darling of the chat show. Their shifting of politics to primetime TV has created a buzz around the election. But it has also bred uncertainty. Ideology is second place to personality as they market themselves as the product, not their political leanings. This new aspect of the post-modern or professional campaign appears to be both successful in gaining significant support but has also succeeded in confusing the French electorate. A nation where ideology means something needs politics of substance, but where is the substance here? It seems this is the question being asked: will they find an answer before the first round of voting on April 22nd?

Tools of the State(s)?

It seemed a neat little feat. The Iranians appear to have used the captured sailors as a tool of state PR, the British MoD went one further and allowed the media to produce an independent rebuttal and pay the former captives for the pleasure. While now it seems they have pulled the plug on the venture, as two have already been paid the stories are out. So perhaps it is a neat little feat after all. Faye Turney's fee of £100,000 for appearing on Tonight with Trevor McDonald and giving an exclusive to The Sun (and why not), secures the story in the limelight and that 'the truth' will be broadcast. Given the media training offered but the MoD this may well be the spin-processed version and will paint the picture HMG wants; this makes the role of services personnel as a 'weapon of the war' as quite different.

If the Tories win, will the Guardian change tack?

In a worrying little piece in The Independent media section on Monday, Stephen Glover notes that the Guardian maybe in trouble should the Tories come to power. A veleid threat by George Osborne suggested the government may shift some of its media planning towards an online strategy. If the Guardian lost public sector job adverts, Glover predicts "it would be near catastrophe"; a handy way of silencing a paper that will probably be no friend of Cameron and Osborne. Whoever claims governmental control of the press is impossible seems quite misguided!

Blair on Youtube

Dizzy notes today that Labour's foray onto Youtube is less than a good idea as it shows how few hits each video gets. He uses Hazel Blears' posting as evidence. I had a look, intrepidly increasing their hit rate. Yet I found that Blair's welcome had no views, up to this point I was the only viewer; Ah the power of the pull technology, no pull no power!!

No wonder he looks a little downcast as he says this is a way of getting an unmediated message out to the voter, please, no, don't laugh, its not nice to mock! However he does get a few hits, 11,7001 for mind you not sure this is the message he wants to communicate.

Political Marketing - a failed idea?

Political Marketing was heralded by at least one authority as a potential solution to disengagement, instead it seems that it is a source of deepening disengagement and dissatisfaction. This, I contend, is not because the idea is flawed; but that the way marketing is used by political parties is actually not marketing but a form of marketised communication strategy.

A study of the UK parties use of marketing at the 2005 General Election noted that rhetorically Labour was most market-oriented but that on the whole the focus when creating policies was internal, it was the process of communication design that was external. This misreads marketing.

If the parties were interested in reconnecting they would not be limiting choice to the electorate, nor would voters be seeking the least worst option or looking more to the quality of local candidate than who should be Prime Minister. Parties approach corporate strategy and communication like magpies; if it looks shiny they will steal it, but anything too complex is left to the high street brands. Hence consumers have relationships with their favourite stores, yet the parties' loyal voters are becoming a feature of history.

Airbrushing History

The problem for any modern day politician is that they need to come to the job with no past, as any form of past could be used against them. Most of the time we should pity the politician, at other times burying parts of their history may well be strategic.

David Cameron is inventing himself as a new, 'green', family man, just an ordinary guy with the same cares and concerns as the rest of us. This brackets off his very privileged upbringing and his membership of one particular group for ultra-rich toffs. The Bullingdon Club is a socially exclusive student drinking society at Oxford University, infamous only for its members' wealth and destructive capacity. Membership is by invitation only, and prohibitively expensive for most. The Club was founded over 150 years ago, originally as a hunting and cricket club but now exists primarily as a dining club with a vestige of hunting in the support of the point to point. The club traditionally meets for an annual breakfast at the Bullingdon point to point, and a club dinner, as well as smaller initiation dinners, before which the rooms of new members are wrecked.

As the above picture shows members, the pictured includes Cameron, 2nd along the back row and Boris Johnson, front right seated, traditionally dressed for their annual dinner. The event they are going to would find them booking a private dining room under an assumed name, then physically destroying the place. Very large amounts of cash are then offered to the owners to pay them off for the destruction. The Bullingdon Club is satirised in Evelyn Waugh's novel Decline and Fall (1928), now why do you think that nice and ordinary Mr Cameron tried to restrict access to and publication of this photograph. What perception does this offer of him and his background, how authentic does he appear?

Political PR measurement

There are debates on measuring the extent to which investment in PR is value for money see here for a bibliography), however it largely seems to come down to one thing - column inches. Those investing see PR as simply media management and expect their PROs (in-house of agency) to get the brand name in the media. While some measurement schemes are sophisticated and employ semiotics to not just measure number but tone; it seems that the central edict is that any coverage is good.

Is it any wonder that PROs find it difficult to adapt their trade to politics. Most coverage is at best cynical and often two-sided. The political PR finds the national media sets the agenda, and the local media, particularly newspapers, can be similarly intractable. Hence there is a conundrum here. While most brands not facing a major crisis can probably get a story somewhere in the media, a political 'brand' cannot - hence measurement must be semiotic, comparing the actual briefing to the coverage and ensuring any bias began with the PRO. However, one cannot then claim success. A brand may get one bit of coverage, in one newspaper, in a corner of the rolling news schedule etc; a political brand may get a lot of coverage in one day and measurement will probably find that, on balance, the PRO has failed. So is there a role for PR for a political party?