A PR Snake In The Garden

Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around


I am getting increasingly concerned about the way slithering PR firms are relating to politics .
On the own hand there is the growth of soft funding. This is when a Party is subject to rules but a separate body that is supportive of a given Party like Doughty Street can be financed without any limit
It is going to be exceedingly hard to control moneys swilling around this nebulous terrain .A recipe for graft and the PR companies are bound to use the loophole to please important contacts . George Walden noted they are all part of an elite nexus anyway that constitute the new Establishment. At local level the standards board would be having apoplexy.

PR and the Constitutional and societal debate of Politics are becoming confused . Focus group lead policy and even legislation have cursed the Blair years and the malign influence of a Hilton or Campbell is the Evil Grand Vizier to every handsome Prince .
If PR, marketing and their attendant evils of amoral follower-ship have seeped into the polity then I fear an equally grave problem is money that seeps out of the Public purse into the hands of the PR gurus . As before it is not quite straightforward sinecures but rather related income streams .

The NHS consultation "Your health, your care, your say" which closed in November 2005 had a total bill to the taxpayer of £1.39 million out of the department's running cost budget. £1.05 million of that went to Opinion Leader Research. That is the same Opinion Leader Research headed by long standing Labour Party consultant, member of the Smith Institute, and friend to Gordon Brown, Deborah Mattinson. She of the bogus pro Brown Surveys conducted with 100 people and placed in the Sun, Guardian and Newstatesman The NHS running cost budget is ultimately in the hands of the Treasury .Subtle
.Consider this new example . Mike Lee the PR director and special adviser to Lord Coe on the Olympic bid has picked up a sexy beast of a new contract to advise “ Visit Britain” formerly known as the Tourist Board on how to use the Games to attract Tourists ! Public money in other words is building Good will in PR companies (in the technical sense). They make their money elsewhere but rely on political contacts. Well if that’s stays straight it will be the first time ever.

Conservatives should retain untwisted knickers . The Local Standards Board has been a foolish costly disaster by outlawing employing anyone known to the Council who might be qualified to do the job. In defence of a malicious action in its Kangaroo Court lately cost Islington Tax Payers £300,000 and for what ? We accept I think that business works on contacts and that personal recommendation is a benign corruption with much in its favour.
We must on the other hand be wary of Public Money indirectly funding political campaigns and the insidious creep of aforementioned Followership and media before principle.


More than ever we need good investigative Journalists to watch the money streams. In this complex new world some will certainly be flowing into the wrong bank account. Guidot is a hero but the dead tree press seem to have given up investigation. Lets not kill the PR snake ….but we had better tread carefully ….