It seems a political lifetime since I met Peter Rous, Barack Obama's chief of staff, two years ago. How times change. Then, unless you were from the U.S, the name would have meant little to most people in the UK. The timing of his election, coinciding with two wars, financial meltdown and trade recession, presents a daily menu that would make any politician shudder. Here, Gordon Brown has chameleon-like morphed from Stalin to Mr Bean and now to international Superman.
The balancing act, that now exists for our politicians, between expectation, hope and inevitable reality will keep the opinion pollsters busy as their charts rise and fall like the FTSE.
In the communications world, the inevitable business reaction to recession means that advertising is down, companies are making no money and PR budgets and people are being axed across the board. Having weathered previous downturns, it is to be hoped that CEOs will remember that communications are as vital in bad times, as in good. Obama's first challenge is that everyone will now assume that his magic will bring about miraculous change as soon as he steps into the White House. Here, how will Gordon Brown manage to burnish his current image when thousands more lose their jobs, savings plummet and many find their homes re-possessed?
Effective communications will have to balance expectation with reality, otherwise the media will do the job for politicians and business alike. Massive budgets may now be gone, but well thought-out and delivered messages will be more vital than ever in ensuring that business is understood and that consumers and shareholders are not left in the dark. If communication is jettisoned, then the damage to corporate reputation when the good times return will require huge effort and investment. By all means, reduce the flow from the tap now, but don't turn it off.
The other day, I was at the Institute for Engineering and Technology in London listening to Professor James Gimzewski talking about nanotechnology. Having worked in biotechnology for six years was educational, but very few in PR, or even the media, seem to take much notice of the enormous changes that these new technologies are having on society.
Gimzewski, from the UCLA, unlike many scientists, managed to explain the technology in a sufficiently easy way to make the enormity of his tale appealing. Perhaps it was his Glaswegian accent tempered by years in California, but more likely was his own appreciation that nanotechnology was a science little understood (despite the audience consisting of grey-haired professors). Even more noticeable for a PR person was his closing section devoted entirely to the work he did with the Los Angeles community, demonstrating what his work was about.
So, if nanotechnology has a low profile, the NGO world took a very different approach a decade ago to that other science, biotechnology. We will have to see whether they turn their sights now on this micro scale technology. Prince Charles, the man with a quote for all seasons, has already ventured into the field with predictable opposition.
Potentially, within the next decade or two, there could be millions of nanotechnology applications, and there will need to be sufficient safety tests before each is implemented. There will be work aplenty for PR people. But what will the NGOs do? Perhaps the success in the meantime of biotechnology will warn them off. Only time will tell.
It is mostly comedians who unwittingly create catchphrases. Sometimes, others also prove adept at the art. I sometimes wish that I had had a pound for every time I heard Gordon Brown, when UK finance minister over the last decade, utter the phrase 'no return to boom and bust'.
For someone like Brown who spent a lifetime studying economics, this was perhaps a foolhardy thing to promise. Just look at the UK's history during the present and last century. Pendulum economics, often created by war, was the norm. For every good time, there was always a reckoning to come. Desperate to report bad news, the media appear desperate to scream recession from their headlines, but for those in the communications industry, a downturn in economic fortunes can offer both challenges and opportunities.
Recent rises in the cost of fuel and food will certainly have created the need for creative thinking and marketing in those industries. In others, where the accountants reign supreme, it is a fair bet that PR budgets and staffing will now be under threat. Instead of thinking how relationships between business and customers can be reinforced, my experience is that marketing budgets are the first to suffer.
Operating environments might become harder, but what the media minimises is the fact that life carries on. A downturn might provide the impetus for companies to consider how they can still achieve results, but in more cost-effective ways. Once working in a public affairs environment, the budgets were slashed by over 80%. Events and presentations that cost money were no longer viable. The alternative was an increased programme of contact with key opinion formers, either in person or even by phone. The beneficial results, that prepared the way for the inevitable improvement, astonished those who correlated the size of budget to the scale of results.
At a time of recession, it might appear facile to say that corporate communications need to be tied even closer to what consumers wish to hear, but some sectors either pretend that there has been no change to the environment, or terminate their dialogue with consumers entirely. This week, I was trying to book some tickets with an airline which had just reported a collapse in profits. After grappling with an inoperative website, I gave up. A local retailer, rather than responding to a diminishing wallet in the pocket, carries on extolling environmental messages which patently do not resonate as much as they might have done some months ago. Look at the current success of stores like Aldi and Lidl versus the others. That tells its own story.
Creating relationships with customers and opinion formers during difficult times might require more effort than in boom times, but in my experience, these tend to produce longer-term dividends. If there was ever a time that showed how PR can work in the medium to longer term, we are now there.
We will soon see which PR people seize the opportunities created by the new economic circumstances. I hope they outnumber those who fail to rise to the challenges.
Last week, I was in Brussels. Having worked there for six years, only now on a return visit, can you see what remains the same and what has changed. As ever, it was good to see some old faces and make new acquaintances.
European Voice, an approximation for an in-house weekly newspaper for the EU nomenklatura, is almost the only channel for non-EU experts to discover any idea as to what might be happening at this level of European government. It seldom fails to produce a story that is of interest to one group of lobbyists or the other. Its lead story was 'Barroso lacks sherpas for GM escape route'
It is now ten years since the NGO community set Europe apart from the rest of the world with a bewildering range of claims about the dangers of genetically modified food. The French see GM as a symbol of the dangers of the 'Anglo-Saxon' globalised economy. For the UK organic community, represented by many a Prince, a Lord, a Sir and other categories of nobility, it was a challenge to what their inferiors might call a 'nice little earner'. Others predicted a tsunami of cancer cases and some blamed GM for the decline of the honey bee. An otherwise charming woman at a GM conference in Vienna asserted that biotechnology was to blame for the spread of MRSA in NHS hospitals and an aggressive US foreign policy that had led to the invasion of Iraq.
Of course, in the UK, there are plenty of people who bemoan the ability of the EU to churn out volumes of laws and regulations every hour. Yet, in the case of GM, after a successful US-led WTO challenge to the current rules, ten years seems insufficient for the civil servants to have realised that world food production is now a deadly serious economic issue.
Recent increases in food prices have persuaded some to think again. For Michel Barnier, the French agriculture minister, the answer to unspent CAP funds is to divert even more money to EU (read French) farmers. The UK government's approach seems as hesitant as ever, despite many in the NFU demanding the same rights as farmers in other EU states to use the GM technology. But the media seems to be looking at the issue afresh. From today's Sunday Times - 'Scientists have genetically engineered some fruit and vegetables to help fight disease and provide far more nutrients. They are the first modifications to offer nutritional benefits to consumers.' Five years ago, who would have predicted that might appear in a UK newspaper?!
But as more and more now fall into EU food poverty, how can the European Voice discover that a lack of junior staff, Sherpas in Brussels-speak, is now delaying a decision on GM yet further? And it's not just about rising staple food costs - as Graham Brookes, an agricultural economist puts it in the Sunday Times: ' Since 1996, British farmers have missed out on an estimated £500-£600 million of additional income'
Maybe, after the next Brussels visit, things may have changed. I am not banking on it.
Some years ago, Sarah Macauley, as she then was, persuaded me to sponsor a conference on the role of referendums in political life. For those of my age and coming from Wales, our introduction to such assessments of public opinion came from very formal processes to assess whether pubs and bars could be open on a Sunday.
Today, it is Sarah's husband, Gordon Brown, who has to ponder the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and where the EU might go from here. I did obtain a copy of the Treaty and tried to read it. I do wonder whether anyone managed to get beyond page 3. There has been plenty of debate about the role of communication from the EU to the 450 million people who now live within the Union, but I am yet to see any activity. Certainly, when I worked in Brussels, I encountered the peculiar EU language of bureaucracy and the creation of many words and phrases that seemed to only exist within the corridors of the Commission and the Parliament. Indeed, my old colleague, Paul Adamson, at The Centre, produced a lexicon that sought to throw some light onto some of the more bizarre creations.
At the same time, in the UK, we have the resignation and by-election caused by David Davis' fears about the loss of constitutional freedoms. I am currently writing a book about the influence of new technologies on the traditional relationships between citizens, banks, shops and the state. Hardly a day goes by without another complex issue raising its head and the arrival of such technologies as Phorm which have the potential to radically change the worlds of PR and advertising.
Meanwhile, the BBC Trust has published a report on the issues of reporting politics in a devolved UK environment. Read a Scottish daily and you will find little coverage of events from the other parts of the UK. In Wales, most of the newspapers read are produced in England and seek to serve a larger English audience. Current affairs and commentary- rather than political reporting - now seem to be the staple of most newspapers. Major political issues are invariably reported from a Westminster perspective as if devolution had never occurred. The ban on smoking in public places, which had different start dates throughout the UK, was woefully and inaccurately reported. There is no wonder that cultural divides - and antagonisms - between the UK's constituent parts has become part of the status quo. And if that was not enough of a challenge, I also read this week that only 15% of UK residents ever read a newspaper.
This growing disconnect will be a major concern to politicians and the public affairs industry at large. In Brussels, I met enough notable figures whose views basically were that democracy had no real role in the 'Project' and that EU citizens were too mentally-challenged to either have a view or to play any part in the future of the bloc. In the UK, some will argue that the media no longer reports politics, but that politics divines its policies from the pages of the tabloid press.
To this complex set of issues is added today a US dimension. George Bush is in London today bidding adieu to both Blair and Brown. The broadcasters and traditional media appear to suggest that once Bush retires, then US politics will return to normal and all current global issues will ameliorate. Pages of newsprint and hours of satellite time have been devoted to the US process, with scarcely a word about possible future policies.
All these examples show a growing disconnect between politics and the people. The Irish referendum focussed on issues as diverse as abortion, agriculture, an EU army and neutrality. Anyone trying to analyse why Ireland said 'no' will have a real challenge on their hands. David Davis will now find out whether people are concerned about growing state intervention in their lives or whether they follow a tabloid line of detaining any possible terrorists for up to 42 days.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown will be in Brussels determining a way forward from the Irish vote. Perhaps Sarah will remind him of California which regularly uses referendums to assess public views and opinions. If I remember correctly, referendum voters there regularly vote to liberalise laws on drugs, and equally often vote for even more stringent penalties.
Quite how UK and European politicians rebuild this bridge to voters remains to be seen. There are now more PR people than journalists in the UK and it might well be that the communications industry should play a role in this. I would have welcomed a simple guide to the Lisbon Treaty, for example. Possibly, some Brussels lobbyists have already climbed this Everest. But the range of other issues now seems almost too complex to even attempt. There has to be informed discussion and debate within democracies and the PA industry has a major role to play there. In a disconnected society, quite what role communications will play in future remains to be seen.
A week away in the remotest part of the Outer Hebrides is probably a good place to be to avoid endless discussions about the travails of Gordon Brown. Yet, despite the local focus on newly born lambs, this year's brood of attentive chicks being cared for by birds you would never see in London and the rumours about the latest immigrants, a pair of snowy owls, it becomes ever clearer that the political world 660 miles north of London is fast diverging from that of London, Cardiff or Belfast.
You would not think that a radio programme about the Eurovision Song Contest would have much relevance in this connection. Yet, almost every caller wanted the end of a UK entry and the promotion next year of a Scottish entry. Again, elsewhere in broadcasting, the debate continues as to whether the BBC should produce its own edition of the Six O'Clock News. Already, respected broadcasters term RAF squadrons based in Scotland as the Scottish Air Force. The old phrase 'down South' meaning to indicate the three other parts of the UK are now described as 'countries across the border'.
Gordon Brown has talked about 'Britishness' for over a decade as if there was a need to protect and buttress a decaying edifice. Culture in Scotland has now a much more distinct shine from that elsewhere in the UK - although Hebridean culture that currently intends to turn a hotel and bar into a new church, might not reflect the entirety of the Scottish diaspora's views.
It seems most likely to me that the Scottish experience will move further again from what you might expect in England. Wales, too, with plans for more Assembly powers, will appear a stranger land to many.
New Labour seem to have no plans for addressing the English aspect of this drawing apart. Any debate swiftly alights on free medical prescriptions in Wales and free university education and extensive free care for the elderly in Scotland. Part of the problem may be that very few people from England ever visit Scotland or Wales and thus have a media-driven view of what is happening to the UK.
If Scotland does enter the Eurovision Song Contest (and I will avoid the inevitable jokes this will create for English people), will there then be a category for EnglandandWalesand Northern Ireland? Will Scottish developments set a standard of policy and involvement that will have to be copied by the rest of the UK or will there be another plan? If the BBC produce a separate news service for Scotland (as they already do in Wales, but who cares), will there follow a demand that England has its own service, produced not from London but in Manchester? Indeed, are there that many institutions left that can truly be described as 'British' in nature?
Apart from a few academics, very few people seem to be considering the implications of this second phase in the devolution programme. Years ago, a colleague expressed astonishment when he finally concluded that devolution could result in the break-up of the UK. But Blair and Brown knew all the implications, surely?
But until something is done about the elephant in the corner of the room - England- it would take a brave and insightful person to predict where this all will take us.
PS When the Carinish Inn does become a church, I will let you know. Could this be a policy solution for lager louts and the under-age drinking problem in England?
On Tuesday, I attended a lecture at Oxford University organised by the James Martin 21st Century School. The question asked of Professors Sir John Sulston, John Harries and Richard Dawkins was 'what is science for?'
Having spent much of my career explaining sceince to non -scientists (of which I am one), I guessed that a Nobel Laureate like Sulston and Dawkins, recently called Darwin's Rottweiler for his controversial views, might have thought-provoking views. Whether science is to explore and to produce good (as Harries put it) or to create new forms of life to leap-frog the end of humankind certainly gave a wide enough landscape to produce some further deep philosophical questions. There was much talk of synthetic biology and the doubling of computer power every eighteen months. That was familiar enough from my time working on agricultural biotechnology where laboratories house as many computer terminals as petrie dishes. But if science is to make man immortal, as some suggested, does this deal with the current range of religious and ethical issues that surround current scientific research?
As ever, the old distinction between pure and applied science manifested itself in issues surrounding public and private funding of research - should science only pursue commercial outcomes? What is the role of patents and IP when scientists make those leaps forward in overall understanding?
As usual, when you get an Oxford debate going, the issues move quickly to complex philosophical areas and the seemingly simple question - 'what is science for?' - reminded me of those entry papers set for aspiring students at the University. If the intention of science in the 21st century is to create a new form of humankind, there were suitable challenges from the floor from Professor Colin Blakemore, formerly of the British Medical Research Council and Andrew Graham, the Master of Balliol College.
As I left thinking how lucky I am not to have to sit a three hour exam answering this simple enough question, I did ponder the range of issues that will face scientific PR people in the decades ahead. Will developments be stymied by ethical debates (just personal viewpoints according to Dawkins) or subjected to muddled thinking by the tabloid press? If nothing else, the debate highlighted again the urgent need for scientists to engage far more in communication to explain what they do.
John Harries did concede science would not allow everyone to avoid death and become immortal. There would be some selection (but by whom? who knows?). Call me a cynic, but what would you think of an immortal Gordon Brown or David Cameron?
In the House of Commons lobby in the mid-1990s, I heard a Tory MP declare to a colleague that he was off to a meeting to 'bury socialism forever'. Even at that time I found his comment memorable and showing a distinct lack of knowledge of British politics post World War II.
He had forgotten the recent trend over decades for British politics to follow the trajectory of a pendulum. Tired of Thatcherism, the UK turned to Tony Blair in the hope of new ideas and policies. Many were later startled to find that much of what was to follow was again distinctly Thatcherite in flavour. Last Thursday's election results showed a definite rejection of recent policy and tax ideas from Blair's successor, Gordon Brown. Many pundits may well have been right to point to historic downturns in local elections that were subsequently turned around at following elections. But again, it may have also been a decisive crank of the pendulum in another direction.
It could well be another two years before anyone knows the answer to this conundrum and in two years no-one will be thinking of Boris Johnson being elected as London Mayor or losses in councils that few could identify on a map. The economy may well have recovered its equilibrium and issues such as Iraq may have ceased capturing any public attention. Although people in the UK hate the idea, the election of a new US President may have a global beneficial effect, perhaps not in terms of policy, but at least in a sense of certainty.
But as I have warned before - and before the PR industry paper 'PR Week' addressed the notion - these shifts in the pendulum will have an effect on politics and the public affairs industry. Mayor Boris (as he undoubtedly will be known) will be surrounded by a phalanx of new advisers on transport, economic affairs, environment and a host of other policy areas. There will be a desire on the part of the Tory High Command to use London as a test-bed for policies that they might subsequently introduce to the rest of the UK. How London's battery of New Labour public affairs agencies will handle that challenge will be worth observing.
For my US friends who read these thoughts and kindly explain the nuances of their politics to me, perhaps I could outline Gordon Brown's dilemma in a sentence? His local council where he lives in Scotland is now run by the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Parliament is run by the Scottish National Party. His local council for Downing Street in London is run by the Conservatives and the Mayor of the UK's capital city, for the first time, is now also a Conservative. Even in my home country of Wales, the Labour government only operates in a coalition with Plaid. More intriguingly, the 'S' word used by the Tory MP in the House of Commons fifteen years ago - socialism - is now almost obsolete in UK political usage.
No one can ever think that the PR and public affairs challenges remain unchanged.
2008 seems to feature some interesting elections. No, I am not focusing on Hillary and Barack, but on Ken, Boris and Brian. Perhaps to comply with the law, I should add Richard, Gerrard, Sian, Alan, Lindsey, Winston and Matt to that list (although Matt has given up before even the poll is held). Here in London, we have a strange election for the London Mayor and assembly in two days time, with three different ballot forms and two forms of voting. It is to be hoped that the problems that beset the last Scottish Parliamentary elections will not happen in London.
But when did politicians become to be known by their first names? Ken started the trend and his posters only say 'Vote Ken' - no mention of the Labour Party of any hue. Boris could only be Boris. A poster saying Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson might convey something quite different. And for a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to be just Brian has to be an innovation too.
Polls are showing a close race, but with a second choice on the ballot and many still undecided, how my research colleagues can make any sense of it I do not know. And despite K, B and B appearing like music hall artistes in any venue that will have them, the election has to be seen as a warm-up act for Gordon and David (although familiarity of first names seems inappropriate for them)
Yesterday, I was in a bookshop where there was a special display of the biographies of Ken and Brian and the more eclectic outpourings of Boris. Was it Barack or Nicolas (Sarkozy) that made a book publication part of the political campaign?
I have no idea who might win, but I did notice that the biography of Ken is now reduced by £3. Does someone think they will have problems shifting these after Thursday?
These days, any scientific discovery is invariably swiftly followed by a call for an ethical debate. It was only five years ago that the mapping of the human genome was completed. However, it was not long before the debate about the societal implications of predicting future illnesses from genetic tests started in earnest.
The US Senate has now passed legislation that would ban discrimination on the basis of findings from individuals' genetic factors. Whilst the bill still requires approval from the House of Representatives, Senator Edward Kennedy has already dubbed the law 'the first new civil rights bill of the new century'
The bill would forbid, for example, the refusal of insurance cover for those whose tests indicate a pre-disposition to suffer from some illnesses at some future date.
This debate is hardly new - there are real analogies with the concept of eugenics, first dreamed up in the UK, then applied with ghastly consequences in Germany and later in the US.
Even today in the UK, if you have an illness like diabetes, you will have an uphill struggle to purchase such products as travel insurance. As far as I know, there is as yet no evidence as to the statistical link between signs of genetic predisposition and the numbers who eventually fulfil that scientific prediction.
I hope that the US bill will become law and that the UK and the EU take a similar approach. The alternative will be the creation of a new world of discrimination - and possibly, by consequence, further public distrust of science and its applications.
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