Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives states that ‘anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment!’. From now on, I suspect, any political instance of this law in action will be known as the ‘Brown Variant’, after unguarded remarks about a woman he had just spoken to on a walkabout were broadcast to the…
The BBC have, without doubt, handed Nick Griffin and the BNP a potential PR coup by allowing him to appear on Question Time. It is very likely that Griffin will be working desperately hard to avoid belching racist bile, especially as the programme surrounds him – in the interests of the BBC’s “central principle of…
Twitter is the place on the net to have fun with publicity, as a brilliant new Halloween stunt, featured in The Sun, proves beyond doubt. “Twitter users will get the chance to communicate with departed showbiz stars this Halloween — in the world’s first online séance,” proclaims the paper. “Tweeters can choose which of their…
Accused of not letting slip any details of policies that would be employed should they form the next Government, the Tories came out in surprisingly brave style yesterday, thanks to George Osborne. He may have the charisma of a financial director of a small engineering firm in Colchester, but Osborne has been the boldest politician…
Gordon Brown is jinxed. At the Number 10 reception to mark the second anniversary of the Prime Minister’s Talent and Enterprise Taskforce, Perri Luc Kiely, the frizzy haired 13 year old dancer with Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity, took a tumble, hurt himself, burst into tears and is now taking top billing in the press…
The papers have been full of Prince Harry’s new girlfriend Caroline Flack, the presenter of Gladiators and, it has become clear, a full throttle Alpha Female and a hedonist of the first order. But now The Sun has announced that Harry’s dumped Flack because he misses Chelsy Davy, quoting him – through a friend –…
The 21st Century is a noisy old place to live, with millions of people going about their daily lives and thousands upon thousands of brands, celebrities, politicians, chancers and scoundrels trying to get some attention for whatever they are selling. And with the recession looming ever larger on the financial horizon, taking down long-standing brands…
What is the best present could Prince Charles hope to be unwrapping on his 60th birthday, today? He will get many, but I suspect that the period of calm that has prevailed at Clarence House over the last five years, interrupted occasionally by the binge drinking bouts and going-to-parties-dressed-in-Nazi-regalia adolescent antics of his 20-something sons,…
I received my old friend Julia Hobsbawn’s Editorial Intelligence report called The Power of The Commentariat. It features research which involved a self selecting small group of individuals from business, media, politics, public life, academia and a group set up by Editorial Intelligence on Facebook called Keep Up With The Commentariat to say who they…
The creeping erosion of PR standards is highlighted again by some poor practice in a resultant picture caption in this morning’s Sun newspaper. Emblazeoned across the lovely Vicky Newton “bizarre” column is a promo snap of Girls Aloud all brandishing mobile phones. Clearly it was staged to promote the handset. The problem is the story…