Government banking PR strategy #fail

Tag Archives: John Prescott

Government banking PR strategy #fail

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darling10a
Doesn’t it seem perverse that the government is encouraging us to write a letter to RBS to “Give Up The Bonus”, when they are the major shareholder?

This campaign which last week was launched by @johnprecott seems in principle a populist move to try and attract grass roots voters from the working and middle classes. It sits nicely alongside Brown’s criticism of Cameron’s privileged Eton background.

I quite like the way @johnprescott campaigns and I have written about him on this blog before , but I think he is off the mark here.

Not only is this campaign simply electioneering, the tactic also detracts from the fact that at the G8, our Government and the Government’s around the world failed to agree adequate bonus payment ceilings to address the problem and also counter the issue of top talent leaving places like RBS for other organisations which will pay bonuses.

No one wants to see huge, vulgar bonuses being paid when there are millions unemployed but on the other hand the remuneration is fair if this is what the market is willing to pay.

There is a sense that the ship has sailed long ago at the G8 and now just picking on one bank would be handicapping an organisation which every taxpayer in the UK wants to see succeed, so it can payback the money it owes us.

For these reasons, doesn’t the Government’s “send a letter” sound wayward and shortsighted?

Even the concept of a windfall tax is insignificant. The amount raised would be next to nothing, but talk of a windfall tax plays the populist card and will perhaps attract ill-informed voters to the Labour Party, at least in the short term.

I hate to see short-termism in PR campaigns. In fact I hate to see short-termism anywhere. Unfortunately, this is what this campaign represents.

John Prescott is the Real Deal

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Obama should become more like British politician John Prescott.

In a week when Obama disclosed that he has never sent a tweet in his life, despite having over 2million followers, John Prescott’s web presence should be lauded.

Like him or loath him, in a world where PR tries to control every message, Prescott is keeping it real. His views are his own, his principles are there for all to see and it is this honesty that is part of his charisma.

You might not like his views on Unions etc but if the Tories win the next election, then we will go back to a day when Britain was run by old Etonians, who have some strange views on Europe and anywhere north of Luton.

The rest of the political world should be looking at the approach of John Prescott to social media. As there are some easy wins here. Especially on blogger engagement.

I am sure John would say that he’s not a techy, and I can see ways in which he can make better use of social media tools. (Get on Posterous or Tumblr John! They are great easily for sharing information), but this technical skill matters not.

What works for John is that he can shoot from the hip and by and large be on message. Social media is perfect for politicians who feel able to do that.

John is combative and also interacts with his audience and retweets things he agrees with.

His blogging is insightful and you warm to the guy because he makes statements that he believes in, whether you agree with him or not.

I used to work with a chap who was one of Prescott’s special advisers, Tony Sophoclides, and he told me what a genuinely great guy John is. At the time I didn’t believe him.

Bland political figures are ruining politics and feeding groups such as the BNP, so more open politicians are needed.

Thanks to social media you can now get up close and personal to politicians in a way in which you couldn’t before. In my view all politicians should follow the Prescott model – starting with Obama.

The Sun apology, Twitter maturity and Gordon Brown’s popularity

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The Sun apologised today for spelling incorrectly the name of Jacqui Janes’, who has just lost her son to the war in Afghanistan. A typo is, of course, just a typo unless hours earlier you have crucified the Prime Minister committing this same error. Then it becomes hypocrisy.

Media hypocrisy is usually a strong narrative, so why was it that when The Sun was forced to issue an apology there wasn’t more of an uproar? Especially as ‘Typogate’ had an intriguing subplot of tabloid exploitation.

One would think that competing media outlets would love to stick the boot into The Sun and run a mocking story about their blunder. Yet only The Guardian has published anything of note.

John Prescott didn’t mention it in his blog today either despite sticking it to The Sun in other ways. This might have been out of respect and not wanting to make political capital out of Jacqui Janes’ situation. This makes sense, although bringing up The Sun’s mistake wouldn’t really be seen as further exploitation of a grieving mum, given the wider circumstances and the scale of the row.

Most notably, those folk on Twitter were comparatively quiet on the subject. Twitter users aren’t known to hold back and the social media site has seen plenty of mob rule recently, what with Jan Moir , AA Gill and all sorts of people receiving a battering at the hands of an angry group of dissenting voices.

OK, so the Tweet on the newspaper’s apology is doing the rounds, but The Sun or Jacqui Janes aren’t even trending on Twitter and haven’t been all day. The apology has hardly registered.

The usual Twitter lobbyists and campaigners aren’t encouraging others to humiliate The Sun and show up their hypocrisy. Could it be that Twitter users are now choosing to use their lynch mob tokens a little more sparingly, given recent criticism of ‘mob rule’? There have been a lot of blogs this week stating that Twitter is maturing, based on the slowing subscription to the service, so maybe this lack of noise is a sign that its users are growing up too? Personally I would have been intrigued to have seen this issue ‘go nuclear’. Old Media versus New. It has been a while since the rabble have been roused.

gordonbrown-747161Or is the abstinence of the Twiterati more a statement on Gordon Brown’s popularity? Maybe Twitter users simply don’t want to defend the PM? I’m not sure this is a major factor.

In any case, The Sun’s apology goes further than being a political issue, and highlights shady tabloid journalistic tactics. For that reason I would have liked to see this story make more of an impact. The Sun is less likely to make an apology than Gordon Brown, and this rare action is worth the headlines.

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