Legg Shoots Himself in the Foot?

If, and it is a big if, media reports are to be believe, then the crisis handling of MPs expenses is getting worse.

There is a crisis, based on real public anger at what is going on in the Westminster village, but those with an understanding of crisis management will not understand how it is being handled. First, no single person seems to be charge. Second, some of the solutions now being offered don't even address the key questions being asked.

Stopping the second mortgages is defensible, and I always thought that MPs should rent, possibly in one or two specially built locations. At one time Dolphin Square would have been ideal. But why focus on MPs employees? Yes, nepotism does go on, as it does in other sectors. There are individual cases, such as Derek Conway, that appear to the public to be seriously wrong, and possibly worthy of prosecution, but by and large this is not and never really has been systematically a major issue. Many will consider that it is perfectly legitimate for an MP to employ their spouse to help keep their marriage together, if they beleive it will and the spouse can do the job.

The real concern is with the major abuses such as flipping mortgages to avoid stamp duty, ostentatious expenses such as the moat cleaning and duck abodes and some potentially fraudulent claims. I am more interested in hearing about these, not that an MPs wife might be unfairly made constructively redundant. If an MPs spouse goes to an employment tribunal, will they cite their husband/wife or the parliamentary authorities?

Sir Thomas please reload up your gun and aim at the right target this time, or you will go down in history as part of the problem and not the solution.

Question Nick Griffin Time

Well apparently the BBC's viewing figures for Question Time were high Thursday. Having watched the show on view again I have a few comments on the show.

I have not seen much of Nick Griffin before, and ignoring what he actually says, he is not a very impressive politician, He did not appear in control of his facts, figures and ideas. In short, he had not mastered his brief. He looked like a fairly new local council backbencher, and was largely out of his depth. When faced with a difficult point his default response was to smile, laugh or use an inane grin. This suggests, erronously or not, that he does not have an answer. Again I stress my comment is more on his performance rather than what he said.

Griffin is no Oswald Mosely, Enoch Powell or even Alf Garnett.

David Dimbleby did I feel stray beyond the normal role of impartial Chair, and some of the most effective put-downs came from him, such as the "why are you smiling about the holocaust" comment he made. To be honest the panel was not that brillant. Chris Huhme was perfectly decent, but very grey and a bit anonymous. Jack Straw, in my mind got it wrong. He came across as all sound bite. Whatver, we might say, Griffin did have one high-ranking card in his hand, namely the perception (if not the reality) that immigration is rising significantly. What is slightly amusing is that the person who played that card the best was not Griffin. Rather, Baroness Warsi put Straw onto the back foot on the issue, and her comment of "you are in denial" struck home. For me the best panelist was the American-born non-politician Bonnie Greer, she used humour, detail and rational argument to pull apart Griffin's rhetoric. There was something rather ironic about Bonnie giving a Cambridge history graduate a lesson about the history of the British Isles.

That said I am not sure the BBC got the format right. As noted in the title it was not Question Time, rather it was questioning Nick Griffin time. I suspect this might have been the wrong approach. That said, I have spoken to several people not normally interested in politics and they all saw the prgramme live or later, and if it has led to more interest in politics that can be no mean thing.

There has been a lot of public wailing and gnashing of teeth over this programme (not least from the BNP themselves), but I very much doubt that the viewers of this programme are the real BNP target.

MyConservatives v MembersNet

There was some interesting discussion in PR Week recently. When the Conservative Party launched MyConservatives.com it was suggested in mirrowing Obama's campaign, the Conservatives were taking the lead in cyberspace campaigning. Yet Labour online campaigner Mark Hanson suggested that the Tories were a year after Labour's MembersNet.

Looking at both sites, there is a clear difernece in strategy, one almost mirrowing that of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. MyConservatives.com is, like Obama who used www.mybarackobama.com (MyBo), seeking to reach out to the undecideds as well as party supporters. Whereas, like John McCain, MembersNet seems to focus on party supporters and appears to ignore the floating voter. What matters, therefore, it not just the tools used, but the philosophy behind each communication channel.

Political persuasion in action

When considering political persuasion most would probably concern themselves with voting behaviour, the exercise of political power and the yah-boo sucks politics of political parties and individual elected representatives.

I am reminded by Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks, that political persuasion is more that partisan or governing politics. Political persuasion also includes how we shape opinion and influence personal behaviour on a range of non-partisan issues. This short interview talks about how a report on climate change might influence wider opinion.

I am particularly intrigued by Robert Gifford's suggestion that an effective message is comprised of five elements. I think these, especially the fourth and fifth are achievable within such issues as personal health and global warming, but I don't think that party politicians use all of this five element approach. One, two and three - yes - but not the last two. It would be interesting to see if politcians turned matters on their heads and said that the electrorate are the real heroes.

How to handle the BNP?

I have already blogged this week my angst about whether we should ignore or directly address the BNP.

Nick Robinson in his blog takes a very interesting slant on what is a very complex, and emotional issue, by offering an analysis of the changing political communication strategy being used to combat the BNP. He notes that thus far the parties have coluded to essentially ignore the BNP, believing that this approach will starve the party of publicity. However, Robinson notes that sections of the establishment and some party figures have abandoned this strategy by taking on the BNP head on. The goalposts, therefore, appear to be moving and it will be interesting to see what happens in the months ahead.

But given that the Battle of Britain appears to have become a political football, I shall dust down my airfix model of a Spitfire MkIV and remember that the few were fighting against fascism and for a free, tolerant society.

MPs and communicating the Legg letter

I mentioned last week that Tom Levitt had explained in his e-newsletter that he had received a letter from Sir Thomas Legg. I noted that he had made a holding statement, and should ideally follow this up later with more detail.

I am pleased to say that is exactly what Tom has done (I doubt very much it has to do with this blog, rather he is committed to communicating with his constituents):

"Confirmed that Sir Thomas Legg has asked me to return £389 in respect of a 2004 claim for a sofa bed which he said was ‘extravagant.’ Agreed, but if it had been judged as such at the time I would happily have paid the difference then, without all this bother."

You can almost here the exasperation in this message. There are, I am sure, some MPs who saw their expenses as a top-up of their salary, but I also suspect many/most did not. I suspect if I was asked to pay back money for an expense I claimed, and was given, five years ago I too would be a tad annoyed.

I can't help feeling that chasing such minor claims, many of which were within the rules at the time, is hitting the wrong target. Rather, I would be much happier if the focus was on the bigger misdemeanours, and for some I think that there is a case for criminal proceedings. Putting those who have crossed the line into the dock to answer for what they have done would be much more preferable, than what is currently happening. In trying to lance the boil and address real concerns, I think they are focusing too much on patients with a mild winter cough, rather than the those with an incurable disease.

This was never an easy PR issue to address, but the startegy taken seems to be making it worse, not better.

Should we hear the BNP or not?

There has a been a lot of discussion recently about the BBC's decision to have invite Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, and MEP, to be on the flagship programme Question Time's panel for this Thursday's show. Amongst others, well-known anti-racism campaigner, Peter Hain has argued against the invite. In part, he justifies his argument that the BNPs consistution breaks equality laws. Personally I think that arguement is not central. The key question is should parties such as the BNP, that are widely perceived to promote racist policies, be allowed to have their voice heard?

I had always personally assumed that the best thing was to get the debate out in the open, and let the BNP hoist itself by its own petard. That when exposed to rational argument as opposed to relying on emotional rhetoric, they would be undermined.

However, I have one nagging concern, that by letting the cat out of the bag, we may make opinions many of us find unacceptable, have a veneer of acceptability. Elisabeth Noell-Neumann suggested in the 1970s that public opinion could be managed in such a way to encourage or discourage certain opinions. Her spiral of silence theory suggests that most individuals will keep to themselves opinions which the rest of society feels are unacceptable. This does not mean that they change their opinion, rather that they just don't voice it.

Noelle-Neumann criticised this spiral of silence by suggesting that in a mediated society, the media shapes those opinions we can voice. Therefore, she noted that in order to change, society needs individuals who don't always toe the norm. Thus when I was a child drink driving did not seem a big deal, but gradually more and more voices have been heard to suggest that it is wrong, and moreover a very big wrong.

What worries me, is that in this instance the spiral of silence theory is being turned on its head. By giving a voice to Griffin, are we encouraging more and more people to publicly agree with him. This does not mean that more citizens will suddenly become racist or support the BNP, but those who are/do privately may be more encouraged to say so publicly. This is especially so since this is not a one-off. Given the number of seats that the BNP are likely to be contesting at the general election they will have some free acess to air through Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs).

Politician's hinterland

When I saw that a minor media story was being made out of the 3 main party leaders' interest in biscuits - my initial response was "on please who cares." But when you read the story, then you realise that it is an example of two-way communciation when mumsnet visitors asked Gordon Brown the question.

However, myself and Darren Lilleker have been recently looking at how politician's might deliberately seek to create a sense of hinterland, so that citizen's get a sense of them as an individual human beings. The logic is that if politician's talk about their personal intersts such as music tastes, sporting interests and hobbies, then then are creating a fuller picture of themselves. You could argue that talking about their choice of biscuit, and whether they dunk or not, does provide some 'colpour and give a sense of this hinterland, no matter how silly and inconsequential choice of biscuit really is.

MPs surveying their constituents

The old view of the representative process was that on policy issues MPs formulated their ideas, and then sought to 'sell' these to their electorate. In other words, individual politicians and political parties sought to promote their ideology, rather than responding directly to constituents demands. This is not to say that there was not interaction with the elected representative, but it tended to be on local and/or non-partisan issues.

However, a political marketing approach stresses that political actors in constructing their policies actively seek out citizens' views. I have some problems with how this might be achieved methodologically, especially Labour's famed focus groups and opinion polls under Tony Blair organised by Philip Gould. However, of greater attraction is when individual MPs seek their constituents opinion. There are a number of MPs who do this well, and Lynne Featherstone's blog contains a recent example of such political market research.

Obviously Lynne Featherstone is shaping the answers through the questions she sets, but nonetheless it provides a good opportunity for constituents to respond on issues of relevance to them. In short, they are encouraged to believe that their opinions count. The key to this tactic of engagement working is that the results are publicised, and the MPs response to the findings made clear. My only criticism is that it is difficult to see if Lynne has made such feedback publicly available before. It may be that she has, but if so it is not easy to find (perhaps a link to it from this years survey would help).

The confusion of MP's expenses

Sir Thomas Legg's letter last week has angered a lot of MPs because of its retrospective nature in assessing some expenses. By and large I suspect most people outside of the political bubble are not that sympathetic to MPs on this issue. However, the best argument I have seen written against what is currently happening is from Frank Field. This is someone who clearly has credibility, and he is quite damming in his criticism. Moreover, his analogy concerning speeding fines is an injustice most of us could identify with.

I am not suggesting that MPs should be allowed to 'get away with it', but from the outset the whole issue of MPs' expenses has been presented in clear black and white, right and wrong terms. The reality is that this issue is much more complex than sound bites allow. This is as much a rationally based issue, as an emotive, yet so far most disucssion has focused on the emotional issues.

Part of this problem is created by the fact that MPs have increasingly become from the political class of lobbyists, PR people and others involved in the body politic. As professional communicators they want and expect salaries similar to ones they have to give up to take a seat. However, my fear is that we may get rid of this political class and replace it with a wealthy amateur political class. This is what we had early in the past, and I don't think it worked then either.

Labour's Future

Given that many commentators are now (possibly prematurely) predicting that a) Labour will lose the next election and b) be out of office for some time, I note with interest an attempt by Labour backbenchers to consider the vision of where they wnat society developing.

Labour Future founded this month by ten party names seeks to discuss ideas. It claims not to be a faction seeking to promote a particular leadership candidate, rather the pamphlet/website seeks to revitalise Labour's approach through ideas. I think this is welcome. It covers twelve topics. I would like to see more of this in politics, and some critics might argue that not all parties are transparent on where they see the future.

However, I found the analysis quite sound, but there was a lack of detailed policy ideas of how to reach a better society. Groupings of thinkers like this within all parties (and preferably across parties) is welcome, and I hope they develop some detail. Yet I suspect this initiative comes too late for the current government.

Political Stunts

Probably the most innovative and best political stunt I have heard of took place recently. Normally stunts are short-lived high impact psuedo events, that in themselves have no real meaning. To work, the visual aspect of the stunt must dovetail with the message.

To raise awareness about the impact of global warning on low-level countries such as themselves, the maldives cabinet held a meeting underwater. This is a brillant political stunt that clearly the story fits with the message. Moreover, it has gained quite significant coverage, especially given the video and photographs provided.

I look forward to our cabinet meeting takign the same approach to raise an issue they think is key in the form of a stunt.

Freedom of Speech and Trefigura

In America public relations owes its origins more to the concept of relations with publics. So organisations use communication as the means to reach their customers. In Europe, however, there is historically a different, more politically related use of PR. Ever since the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries what we now know as PR has evolved from the desire to establish freedom of speech.

It is in this light that I interpret what did, or rather what almost did not happpen, this week with the case of Trefigura. It would appear that The Guardian were facing an attempt by Trefigura not to publicise information about their activities in another country. This in itself, where companies or individuals might seek an injunction is not unusual. What I think transforms this case is the rather bizarre situation is that Trefigura, in the form of their libel lawyers, Carter Ruck, appear to have tried to prevent The Guardian and other newspapers reporting that an MP, Paul Farelly, in his normal duty as an MP will be askign an oral parliamentary question to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw.

Whilst clearly Carter Ruck were not trying to directly gag an MP, it was a tactical mistake to in effect try to do so indirectly, by trying to prevent journalists reporting what was happening in Parliament. First, it would be impossible to prevent both Farelly's question and Straw's answer from getting out, as both are made public in Hansard and on parliament's website. Second, parliamentarians would jump on the issue, using parliamentary priviledge. With Sir Thomas Legg's recent letter, MPs are feeling the pressure, and this would have been an open goal. MPs could have gained public sympathy as the defender of our human rights. As Manchester United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson often blames referee's when his side play badly to distract attention, had this issue grown it would have been a gift for the body politic.

In terms of handling crises, the consistent advice is that organisations need to be open and engage with their key stakeholders. Lawyers may see how to handle crises very differently because their eye is on the courts, not the media. This seems to be an example where the advice of the legal team has held sway over that of Trefigura's communication team. I suggest that this was a tactical mistake. Rather than putting a lid on the issue, they have actually stoked it, suggesting that it will get bigger. I am sure I would have given the story a very limited glance (if the media I regulalry consult actually gave it an airing). Now I and many others shall continue to look to see what is happening. Moreover, parliamentarians are showing great interest, and the issue was even raised in Prime Minister's Questions.

I suggest that the appropriate response here tactically would have been to consult experienced crisis managers.

The lid was blown off this story because of the use of blogs and microblogs as explained by another interested party, The Independent newspaper. Once a story gets out into cyberspace then issues take off rapidly.

One aspect of this story which surprises me is that Paul Farelly does not appear to have made hay, standing up for the rights of parliamentarians to defend citizens rights. Looking on his website I see no mention of what happened, yet surely his input would be well-reported.

The Internet at the Next General Election

Most nights at present I watch BBC 2's Masterchef. Each evening the two star michelin chef Michel Roux Jnr considers each dish he tastes, and gives a highly polished critique of each one. In doing so he demonstrates a highly developed palette. And then comes comes Gregg Wallace, whose main fame is that he was well known for promoting vegetables. For each dish he tries to find a way of repeating what Roux says, but using different language. Each night my wife and I joke that all Wallace needs to do is point his eyes at his co-host and say "what he says mate".

I read Bill Thompson's piece on the BBC website on the role of the Internet at the next General Election. And despite being one of those commentators he criticises, my response is "what he says mate". I only probably disagree with one substantive point, namely that I think the Internet will have an effect in terms of mobilising resources (it did to a lesser extent in 2005). In essence, the Internet is only a communication channel , what matters more is the culture, strategy and vision behind the overall campaign of which the online arm is only a part. The Internet will not drive a party's election campaign, rather it will reflect it.

A party for independent candidates?

I was very intrigued to come across a meeting last month of the Independent Network, organised by PR firm Parker, Wayne & Kent.

The day was designed to help provide advice on media relations (would Esther Rantzen, Terry Waite and Martin Bell need this?), and on the use of ICT technologies such as social networking sites. Effectively this PR agency, presumably funded by someone, is playing one of the roles that central party organisations provide of supporting individual candidates. This outsourcing model is very interesting, and in theory suggests that party's are not as importnat as we might think. Obviously, this approach draws heavily from the US model, and i am not sure whether it will work here or not, but it does make you think.

What it does suggest, however, is that as with 2005 during the 2010 General Election campaign, we might find some of the more innovative and interactive uses of the Internet from smaller parties, who have limited opportunities to reach the electorate.

The Impact of Sir Thomas Legg

This week it was revealed that Sir Thomas Legg has written to most MPs stating that they may have to justify their past expenses. It appears that some MPs believe that Legg has overstepped his remit, and this seems to be building up pressure on the party leaders.

MPs are obviously having to respond to this issue when dealing with constituents. One typical reponse came my way from Tom Levitt, who stated in his recent e-newsletter:

"Like every other MP, I have received a letter from Sir Thomas Legg as part of his investigation into MPs’ expenses. The letter invites discussion on certain issues, it is not a bill to be paid as some parts of the press would have us believe. He will be replying to this private correspondence in due course."

Apart from the use of both "I" and "he", implying that the e-newsletter is written (not unreasonably) by the MPs staff (and I did not think that every MP had received a letter), I found this very interesting. It did suggest that the factual situation may not be exactly as reported in the press. Moreover, Levitt is demonstrating to constituents that he is not shying away from the issue. I view his statement as an initial holding statement, which later will be addresed in more depth (logically when Sir Thomas Legg publicises his report). However, if Levitt or any other MPs hope is that such statements will lance the boil, and are all they need to say, I suspect they are mistaken. This whole issue of MPs expenses has shaken the body politic, and to repair soem fo the damage individual MPs need to communciate more regularly than ever before with consitituents on matters that are of interest to constituents.

With Legg's report hanging over the election campaign, I do wonder whether things are now going too far. Do citizens now want closure? Is raking up older expenses going to serve any positive purpose? I don't know, MPs have sometimes been their own worse enemy, but there does have to be a point where you draw a point in the sand, and get on with the future.

Persuasion and selling cigarettes

This week the whole issue of access to cigarettes has come into focus when MPs passed an amendment in the Health Bill to outlaw the puiblic use of cigarette vending machines, though not everyone is happy with the move.

At the same time the BBC have produced a very interesting video on how cigarette companies have used persuasive advertising. Many of these adverts existed at a time when there were limited controls, and you can see that they try to create 'legends' which suggest using their product will enhance certain virues. Therefore, they might encourage the trait of being 'manly', or even make the user more likely to being successful in finding love. I can vaguely remember some of them, and I suspect they could have been quite powerful.

The persuasive techniques used are still being applied, you only have to look at some personal product adverts, especially for men, to see them in operation. So, the concern is currently with the product, I wonder whether eventually the concern will be with the message approach, whatever the product?

Political event management

One communciation tool used frequently by public relations practitioners is events management. An event might be organised to launch a product, raise the company profile or enhance corporate reputation, or whatever. But the reality is that events are an everyday part of the PR toolkit.

Yet in the political sphere, especially in the UK, events conceived for political reasons seem very low profile. In the US I found evidence of political event management, typically for fundraising and volunteer mobilising. One agency, EMBARK, refer to such events as a platform bringing together stakeholders. Another company Penner-Madison suggests that political events management in their area of operations, Thailand, plays a very low role, but they suggest that it should be much more important in political and electoral campaigns. They argue that events are a means for political campaigns to reach out to people. This is an interesting point, as in essence the key to Obama's use of the Internet was that he used it, a communciation channel, to reach out to people.

The fact that political event management, outside of party conferences, has a low profile in the UK, could be explained by the party as opposed to candidate system. Individual candidates need to raise their profile, secure funds and develop hype, political parties are far less likely to need to do so.

It is, however, quite possible that the role of events managemnt may increase in the UK as a means of direct communication to voters. If, and it is a big if, you accept those viewpoints that political campaigning is gradually moving away from one dominated by mass communciation channels, and hence media management, through to one where more direct communication is being used, then you can see the importance of events growing.

Whether you prescribe to the views of Blumler and Kavanagh's third age of communciation, or Pippa Norris's post-modern campaigning, this approach essentially suggests that there has been a historical development of political communications, and that the wheel is turning, if not circle, at least a crescent. Thus historically politicians relied on personal contacts/networks and public meetings. So that Gladstone is supposed to have won an election throug his Midlothian campaign, essentially a series of public meetings. Then with the advent of radio, communicators such as F.D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill were able to utilise the technology. Since the 1960s mass communciation, especially television, has dominated political communications. Commentators such as Norris and Dominic Wring, however, suggest that this dominance is being challenged. They, and many others suggest that this challenge is being driven by the use of the Internet by members of society. But I would add to this, and note that greater use of direct mail and politically motivated events can also bring citizens into closer contact with politicians or political ideas. I do not suggest that these three direct forms of communication have replaced mass communication channels as the dominant channel for political communications, but they certainly provide valid alternatives.

How do we persuade

A story on the beebs website caught my eye today about the likelihood of cigarette vending machines being outlawed.

As a non-smoker I have no active opinion on the possibility, but I am very interested in what this says about how society changes individuals' behaviour. We are all taught from a very early age that smoking is wrong, and generally most pre-pubescent children will accept that, but then around puberty some may start to see things differently. Similarly, most of us know that we should eat five pieces of fruit and vegatable a day, and why. Yet how many people actually do.?

Can you actually persuade someone to do something when it is patently goood for them? Indeed, do we as society have any right to seek to do so?

In terms of the former question, I think we come up with on the one hand what the brain says, and on the other what the heart says. Moreover, we cannot ignore the impact of socialisation, that it is seen in some peer groups as 'cool' to smoke. So is it a situation of rational arguement does not work? Or maybe we have not yet got the right rational/emotive message. For example, would a campaign aimed at encouraging teenagers and young adults to stop smoking if the message was 'kiss a non-smoker and enjoy the differnece'? I suspect not.

Rather the lesson from the smoking issue is that there needs to a stick, some sort of sanction or direct encouragement, to change behaviour.

Political Campaigning on the Net

Last Friday I was interviewed for Radio 4's technology focused programme, Click-On, on the subject of political campaigning on the net. Understandably this discussion is shaped by two events: first, the use of the Internet by Obama during the 2008 U.S. Presidential election; and second the fact that campaigning for the 2010 UK General Election has already started.

In reality, the example of Obama is not the first to get attention on the Internet, and the previous Presidential election also was viewed as a major watershed in political campaigning. During the 2004 Democrat Primaries, Howard Dean went very quickly from nowhere, to frontrunner to nowhere again. His imaginative use of the Internet, masterminded by Joe Trippi to gain funds and mobilise supporters. Trippi, as well as presumably being a fan of Gil Scott Heron , was able to substantially raise Dean's offline profile through the Internet. Yet, ultimately Dean was considered unelectable.

Obama learned the lesons from Dean, and indeed refined them so he generated more resources in terms of money and volunteers, but the key difference was that he was more electable.

The Internet is a communication channel, which in itself is not a magic bullet. The key to Obama's success in using the Internet was that his use of it fitted in very closely with his overall message and approach: namely to open out and reach people and pull them in.

Twitter: communication tool or pointless vanity?

The Hansard Society have an interesting discussion on 21st October which will discuss the potential of Twitter.

Generally, I have been sceptical of the use of digital technologies by individual politicians and political parties. Too often the politicians are jumping on a bandwagon, and the political parties want to (rather understandably) use the technology to gain a competitive advantage, and so seek to control each new medium. That said, the parties do have excellent staff who know how to use web technologies very effectively, and there is a group of pioneering elected representatives who are using these technologies imaginatively.

As a consequence, I am very interested in how Twitter might be used. There are two possible aspects to the possible impact of micro-blogs. First, it could assist elected representatives build up their relationships with constituents. The logic of this is that if citizens have a low opinion of politicians as a breed, if they have come into contact with their MP, their opinion will be modified. In short, they might not like MPs per se, but their MP is okay. Thus Twitter might help some citizens see the human side of their MP. Second, will Twitter encourage those who are not very interested in politics to become interested, almost by default.

I am not yet sure the answer to both questions, but the former is the holy grail for political organisers: can they use technology to win votes; and the latter is where academics tend to focus their attention: to enhance participation in civic society.

Sources of Persuasion

There is a lot of literature, in the form of self-help guides, sales books and academic textbooks which outline the central cognitive theories of persuasion. However, when trying to understand persuasion in general, and persuasion applied to political mesages, there is limited advice based on empirical research.

One website which is a good source of real hard-and-fast advice is influence at work, well-known academic psychologist Robert Cialdini's company. Go to the articles section and there are lots of interesting publciations, for example, on the best alternative to torture to gain information from suspected terrorists, how to get your children to tidy up at home and how to get hotel guests to use towels as often as possible to save the environment.

In the political sphere there is Drew Westen's The Political Brain which has influenced much right-wing thought about how individual's can be 'nudged' to make small changes which overall improve society. For example, in the U.S., Westen's analysis has led to a discussion on how workers can be encouraged to take out health insurance (the suggestion is that they have to opt-out, not opt-in as currently). It is argued, therefore, that such uses of persuasion can lead to societal changes but without needing strong government to achieve it.

The BBC had a fascinating series in 2002, Century of Self, which looked at the influence of the Freud's in the development of consumer society. Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays is often seen as the 'father of PR'. Bernays learned his craft during World War 1 within the American government's 'propaganda' unit, and during the 1930s he played a role in how Government's could, within a democratic society, persuade citizen's to do what they wanted.

The interesting thing about Bernays is that he started off within the propaganda school, but throughout his long career (1891-1995) gradually moved his interpretation of PR.

The Tweeting Classes

For many years those interested in politics, especially those who set the agenda, were often referred to as the chattering classes. By and large this was not a term of indearment.

I believe that the role of the Guardian reading, Radio 4 Today programme listening elite is being replaced by a tweeting elite. Lovies and others in the public eye, such as Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Lily Allen, are dominating the use of Twitter. Though apparently the latter has now stopped tweeting, which in itself is interesting. I have felt that Twitter may be a fad, which to do well over a long term will take a lot of effort. If Lily Allen is no longer tweeting, is she and other high-profile users getting bored of it?

Apparently Sarah Brown is the most popular tweeter. She currently has 849,000 followers, though she only follows 3,800. Brown's use of Twitter is perfectly decent, she clearly engages with other tweeters and it promotes her charitable projects. Overall it is worhtwhile, but in all reality I want to hear from Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, not the Prime Minister's wife. Therefore, in terms of political communication, Twitter is currently a sideshow, and not necessarily worthy of all the hype about it.

Greenpeace Roof Protest

Well thought through and executed stunts are a well-tried means for pressure groups to gain media coverage for their campaigns. Greenpeace have gained some success with their latest stunt, namely a rooftop protest on the Houses of Parliament.

Ideally I feel that the message and the stunt should dovetail, and this is not necessarily the case here, but like Fathers 4 Justice's stunts, I suspect Greenpeace would say they are targeting the right people.

This has a bit of feel of the Greenpeace Germany and Brent Spar incident in the early 1990s. Then they made great use of new technology - at that time video uplinks, now they have a blog, tweet and make use of YouTube. Clearly this is a well-thought out campaign, and I suspect will not be a one-off stunt. The only question mark I have is to what extent do Greenpeace actually want to get round the table with the Government or indeed MPs, and actually discuss a solution to environmental issues? Traditionally, Greenpeace has been an 'outsider' group that does not wish to compromise their aims or principles. I always felt that the mistake Fathers 4 Justice made was to gain high-profile coverage and a lot of sympathy, and then instead of agreeing to sit around the table with politicians and civil servants they continued to think up new stunts to push further their message. Eventually the public got bored, and politicians may well have concluded that they could not do business with them.

If Greenpeace are still occupying the roof of Parliament tomorrow when MPs return from their summer recess, it will be interesting to see if Greenpeace want discussions with decision makers and influencers or not. In other words is widespread publicity alone the short term goal, or is there some practical 'real-politic' objective?

The Daily Telegraph effect

The Daily Telegraph has reported that Sir Thomas Legg's investigation of MPs expenses may not be availble until quite close to the election.

If this is the case, it could have quite an effect in some seats. Apart from the fact that we might see some MPs decide to call it all a day and not stand after-all, this could impact upon public discourse during the campaign. Whilst we might expect the media to apply some subtly to any last minute revelations, I can see that cyberspace could be awash with gossip. It is quite easy to see social networking sites, the bloggersphere and now the microbloggersphere repeating all sorts of stories. This could be from candidates themselves, but perhaps more likely from other commentators (some of whom might be aligned to a party/candidate and so have an 'agenda', and some might not).

In 2005 private blogs be they from candidates, commentators or the media were quite rare and had little impact upon the news agenda. 2010 is likely to be very different, so that political parties and the news media may face serious challenges to their control of the election agenda.

Don't Blame Mercury

The polls have been telling us for some time that the Labour Party is in some trouble, and is clearly on the back-foot. The recent Annual Conference has done little to address the party's overall image. But you know that any governing party realises that it is in trouble communciation wise, when it starts to blame the messenger. Using Twitter, Ben Bradshaw has complained that Radio 4s treatment of Conservative spokesperson was not robust enough. There is of course some irony in the fact that I found this story courtesy of the BBC.

The BBC is a major political football, but I suspect most viewers/listeners trust its covergae, by and large, to be impartial and journalists to ask appropriate questions.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the view that all the Conservative have to do is turn up and they will win the next election, rather I feel all is to play for. Certainly, the result of the Republic of Ireland's referendum on the Lisbon treaty has clearly put the Conservative Party on the back foot.

I suspect that the oncoming election campaign (which has in reality already started) will be quite negative in relative terms. But I am not convinced that this will be succesful. Perhaps senior Labour ministers should focus on their jobs of promoting policies, ideas and a vision, and let the journalists get on with theirs.

Is political tweeting taking off?

I was not going to comment on politician's use of Twitter for some time, but two recent items are worth highlighting.

First, Channel 4 news seem to have invested a lot of effort in covering Twitter. As well as many of their journalists tweeting from the party conferences, they have also hosted fringe meetings at conferences on Twitter. What is interesting is the assumption that Tweeting politics enhances politics as usual, and so their emphasis is on what Labour and Conservative politicians do in social networking sites and on micro-blogs, but the other parties seem largely ignored.

Second, the Congressional Research Service has published data on how Members of Congress use Twitter. This data suggests that in the US it is politcian's from the right and not the left, who are most likely to use it. They also note that those in the Hosue are more likely to tweet than Senators. A shame they did not posit why, perhaps there is a closer link to constituents.?

I am not yet convinced that Twitter is taking off, but the chattering classes do seem to becoming the tweeting classes.

One MP noted to me their view that needs to be a distinction betwen authentic and inauthentic tweeting, with the former being provided by the MP themsleves and not their staff. I beleive there is much in what they say, in that this is a fast-evolving technology, and those who just jumped on the bandwagon are facing hard choices of how they use Twitter in the run-up to the general election.

Olympic Powers of Persuasion?

Ronald Reagan was often termed 'the great communicator' and President Obama has similarly been tagged as 'the great persuader'. However, I suspect that Obama's ill-fated visit to Copenhagen last week to speak for Chicago in the 2016 Olympics bid, may have dented this reputation a bit.

Aristotle spoke of three components to persuasion: Ethos – the speaker; Logos – the message; and Pathos – the audience. Obama is clearly an effective speaker, but I think he got both the message and the audience wrong. Of what I saw of Obama's speech he seemed to focus on how much he wanted the Olympics, this did not strike me as the appropriate message. Moreover, his approach contrasted badly with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil who took a very emotive approach.

I heard it said that it spoke volumes that Obama took time out of his very busy schedule to visit Copenhagen. This makes it sound like the audience were 'lucky' to have him attend. This seems to be sending out the wrong message to the audience to me. Moroever, it would appear that Obama did not stay for long, whereas when 2012 was awarded to London, Tony Blair was assidulously arm-twisting until the last minute.

Even if Obama had stayed longer this might not have led to a different decision. It is still quite possible that the merit's of Chicago's bid was not strong enough, or that prejudices against the world's only superpower would mean that Chicago was unlikely to have won. Whatever is the case, I am not totally sure Obama went into the process 100%, adn consequently his image may be dented a bit.

Sometimes persuasive powers alone are not enough.