Who is in charge of UK Government communications at the moment ? Either nobody is, or whoever is in charge is entirely incompetent. The Government's communications are a shambles; their policy announcements seem completely random & uncoordinated; & the Government itself is creating problems for itself over and over again which are foreseeable & avoidable. An instance of the last was Francis Maude's advice to "keep a jerry can of petrol in the garage" in case the tanker drivers go on strike: in fact it is illegal to store more than 30 litres of fuel in such a way, & that has to be stored in a very specific manner, because of the obvious fire risk. Why didn't he check his facts before speaking ? Or someone check them for him. I verified this information in 5 seconds with one visit to the HSE website. I'm not running the country.
It is a mark of the weakness of the Opposition at this time that they are not exploiting the muddle that the Government is in more effectively. In terms of communications, both the Conservatives & Labour are hopeless right now.
I don't want us to return to the days of Alastair Campbell: but on the other hand all of this makes me realise what it was Alastair Campbell actually DID, before he became too visible & had to go. It also makes me reflect how formidable, for good or ill, the team of Blair/Brown/Campbell/Mandelson was, by contrast with the present shower in both main parties.
No comments:
Post a Comment