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Making a meal of it
Posted Colin Byrne on July 8th, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs
I blogged recently about the significance of timing in politics and communications. Today’s newspapers drive the mesage home again, with David Cameron ‘getting it’ and Gordon Brown potentially sinking further in public estimation – though today’s Populus poll in The Times suggests that, for now at least, Brown’s and Labour’s ratings have touched bottom. Cold comfort I would have thought.
Quite what prompted the incompetents – as they clearly are these days for all their fat salaries and big job titles and egos – in the No10 bunker to have the PM telling us to eat up our crusts one day and be photographed waving a glass of wine around the G8 dinner table as he tucked into the conger eel the next is beyond this simple communications guy’s understanding.
Meanwhile Cameron hits the nail on the head with his simple, Blairite, ‘good and bad, right and wrong’ message. He might think again on the issue of it being the poor’s choice to be poor – er, dont think so David, and I grew up in Salford not Eton – but in truth it is not the poor he is aiming the message at. It is the same Middle Britain and aspirational working class voters and commentariat that Blair and Thatcher before him messaged to. But overall it is Cameron who is winning the week and the war.
The one sobering detail of The Times’ poll for Cameron is that by two to one respondents think that he says what he thinks we want to hear rather than what he means – the same negative rating as Brown. But with the insult ‘loser!’ being the one that stings most in the school playground these days, he is rated a ‘winner’ by 60% compared to Brown being rated a ‘loser’ by 74%.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am
This is more like it.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:19 am
How is anyone supposed to be able to read anything on this page when its light grey text at 10pt size on a black background?
And your supposed to be a ‘communicator’
LOL
July 11th, 2008 at 9:20 am
SP…you’re. thankfully I’m not paid to be a ‘communicator’ LOL
July 11th, 2008 at 9:31 am
This is without doubt one of the most unreadable blog formats I have seen yet.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Spectacular blunder by no 10; Carter must be suicidal these days.
I like the point about Call-Me-Dave, my guess is that he will, like Blair, be a very populist figure, and will continue to do what is necessary to win. Two things Blair and Dave share, a broad public appeal and being unrepresentative of their own backbenchers. Big flaw in the current party system this; it is no longer about bringing across policy but rather the pursuit and acquisition of power acquired through slick personal presentation. Perhaps it was ever thus…
July 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I’m sure it is a good article – Guido directed me here; but grey on black for someone in their mid 50s with specs is a no-no.
Did no-one tell you about accessibility?
Must try harder ….
July 11th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Interesting message, shame about the delivery. Just like PR in general…
July 11th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Does anyone know how the golden chlid Muir is faring. Must be wondering why he left WPP for all this!
July 11th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Tips for readers like me who find this and other sites hard to read:
To increase the size of the text hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key and press the ‘+’ key one or more times.
To get rid of the hard to read colours, select ‘view’ in the menu at the top, select ‘Page Style’ and then ‘No Style’. The layout will be a mess but the text will be nice and easy to read. (FireFox only but I’m sure there is some way to do this in Internet Explorer too)
July 11th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
[...] Week and Lance Price, ex political spin doctor and occasional Guardian commentator, saw Colin’s exasperated post on the recent mismanagement of communications by No.10 and wrote stories quoting it. But Colin, a [...]
July 11th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Chris H. It was worth visiting this blog just to get your tips on how to make it readable. Well done.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I don’t believe Brown/Labour have reached rock bottom quite yet though; they’ve still got another 2 years to go so there’s plenty more to come out of the woodwork yet.
The “it can’t get any worse” argument doesn’t hold much sway in my view; in my old job I never believed that argument when the company I worked for was doing increasingly worse; my boss was an idiot so with him in charge I knew that either the company would go under or the directors would fire him, or he’d resign before he was pushed; there was no other possible outcome, just those 3.
Those are also the only options that apply to Brown/Labour.
white/pink text on a black background; ah, that takes me back to the good old days of the ZX Spectrum.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Yes, but he is a “winner” by default – because he is clearly more “Middle England” than GB could ever be.
One more nail in the union then…
July 13th, 2008 at 11:43 am
New Labour lost its PR/Media edge in 2000-01. It’s been downhill ever since, managing muddle. Brown is a politician who needs to stand above the fray. Its time Balls, the Millibrands, Cooper, Burnham et al stepped up to the plate and talked to the public, clearly and succinctly. There is a growing generational shift taking place. The Saga/Baby Boomers (born 1940-70) and those born since 1970. Brown could position himself transgenerationally between the two groups. A study of Pierre Trudeau’s media strategy 1976-83 would be useful. As would Trudeau’s use of 4 to 5 strong ministers to lead on domestic and international issues. The government should be very wary of charismatic populist nationalists. By the by, this bespectacled 57 yr old has no problem with site!
July 13th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
[...] former Labour party spin doctor using his blog has branded Gordon Brown’s Downing Street team “incompetents”, with “no one [...]