‘Speaking from his Atlanta Hotel Mr Breed said…’ – The Press Officer’s Guide Lesson 10 – Make sure the boss isn’t in bed!

When giving out telephone numbers it is important to check the time difference...

One of the problems with politics is ‘events dear boy.’ They happen to everybody and need to be dealt with successfully.

Political life winds down in August, whilst MPs, staff and constituents find the time to spend two weeks away and have a rest from busy lives.

In South East Cornwall Colin Breed and the local Lib Dems had been campaigning hard for an upgrade to the old Liskeard primary school and as such when the news came through, whilst Colin was on holiday, it was important that we reacted to the story quickly. 

As such I immediately drafted a press release and sent it out. Colin is a very relaxed employer and is happy for press releases to be published from people he trusts and so I sent it out.

At the time, 1996, Colin was away at the Atlanta Olympics, as he, and his family are keen followers of Olympic sport and have been to many of the summer games.

As such a number of calls came through for Colin including the local radio stations.  Because I wanted to people to know that he wasn’t around I had in fact used the phrase ‘speaking from his Atlanta hotel, Colin Breed said….’ as part of the press release.  However, because of the importance of the story they were very keen to get an interview over the phone, from Atlanta. 

So, after some shuffling of papers I gave out the number to the relevant journalists.

About thirty minutes later Colin called to thank me for the interviews that he had done, but subtly pointed out that in future, whilst in America, could we restrict interviews to waking hours as he had been woken at 4am to conduct the interviews and wasn’t too sure they were any good because he simply couldn’t remember a word he had said!

I agreed.

The Tory candidate who has dropped his Quadruple barrelled name as part of Cameron’s Detoffication Plan!

Would you change your quadruple barrelled name just to fit in? It certainly makes the posters that much easier...

Now plain Richard Drax you might think he is just a Bond villain with an exciting surname, but the Conservative candidate for Dorset South is really known as Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.

Plunkett-Ernle-Erl-Drax, 51, is an Old Etonian like Mr Cameron and lives in a small Elizabethan pad set in just 7,000 acres.

The descendant of Admiral The Honourable Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (1880-1967), says that he uses Richard Drax in real life but says:

“I come from a very privileged background but it shouldn’t make any difference. It is what is in your soul.”

I find it difficult to disagree that he comes from a privileged background and by all accounts Richard’s ancestor from whom he has earned such an extreme name was in fact the person upon which some of the more outlandish P.G. Wodehouse names are based.

So, if you want Bertie Wooster as your MP in Dorset this may be the man for the job!

I must confess I am a little disappointed that just ‘Drax’ will appear on the posters in Dorset South, they would be a true collectors item for the smallness of the font on the billboards, but I suspect the ballot papers will still need to be made a little larger to accomodate his official name.

The Daily Mirror has a bit more here.

Are the Tories creating clear Green water for the other parties to target?

Has the Tories increasing climate change scepticism made clear Green water for the other parties to occupy?

According to The Independent the Labour Party campaign managers have identified 31 seats where the increasingly sceptical Conservative tone over climate change might benefit them and the Liberal Democrats. 

In these seats, of which 7 are Lib Dem held seats, the Labour Party believes that it might be possible for incumbents to benefit from an above average Green Party level of support and squeeze it to support the non-Tory incumbent. 

This follows Gordon Brown’s comments about Nigel Lawson and David Davies and their “flat-earth” environmental comments.

According to The Independent, ‘in the 31 seats, the Green Party or Scottish Green Party had a 2 per cent or higher share of the vote – which could make the difference between the Tories winning or losing on a marginal swing.

‘The Tories need to win Tooting – target seat number 112 – with a notional Labour majority of 5,190, to win an outright majority. In this south London seat, the Greens won a 4.1 per cent share of the vote in 2005.’

Certainly the Tories apparently paper-thin interest in the environment might well now damage them, but I find it fascinating that Labour high command at Number 10 identify seven Lib Dem seats as being ones where this strategy should be adopted.

The full List of seats according to The Independent is:

Finchley & Golders Green (L); Croydon Central (L); Battersea (L); Milton Keynes South (L); Hove (L); Cheltenham (LD); Stroud (L); Carshalton & Wallington (LD); Hastings & Rye (L); Calder Valley (L); Hereford & North Herefordshire (LD); Colne Valley (L); Brighton Kemptown (L); Swindon South (L); Milton Keynes North (C, notional L due to boundary changes); Watford (L); Birmingham Edgbaston (L); Worcester (L); Bradford West (L); Richmond Park (LD); Brentford & Isleworth (L); Edinburgh South (L); Leeds North West (LD); Ochil & South Perthshire (L); Stirling (L); Devon North (LD); Oxford West & Abingdon (LD); Poplar & Limehouse (L); Reading West (L); Waveney (L); Tooting (L)

Agent’s Training 11 – Polling Day is not an academic exercise!

Polling day is all about making sure you win, not watching the opposition win!

Agents, let’s face it, are not designed to be popular, that’s the job of the candidate.  It’s the agent’s job to make sure that an election campaign is delivered successfully.

This takes a range of skills from enthusing, encouraging, negotiating, arguing, urging and at times telling.

It was a long time ago, in the 1995 local council elections, when I arrived after chasing between South East Cornwall committee rooms back at the main office in Liskeard.

I arrived from very busy committee rooms back to serene silence.  The constituency secretary was sitting at a computer putting in data whilst pristine sheets of hand written shuttleworths sat untouched on long trestle tables around the room.

After the activity that others had been showing elsewhere I was momentarily stumped.  After a moment I asked the perennial question, ‘how’s it going?’  I received the response, ‘we’re doing ok in North but we appear to be losing in South. 

I then asked the question that received an even worse answer, ‘how many people are out knocking up.’ 

‘Nobody,’ came the reply.

As I could feel the red mist rising I asked what was going on with having a computer and the paper shuttleworths at the same time.  I was told it was easier to see how things were going by having the computer and paperwork too.

I walked swiftly over the computer, unplugged it and then walked over to the shuttleworths ripped off the three longest roads and sent the secretary on to the streets of Liskeard.

We won by 12 votes in Liskeard South and doubled our councillors that year on the local council.

Intern if you want to – The Case of the Smouldering Chalet

I arrived at the member's house to thank them for housing the intern to discover they had burned it down!

Working in politics you get to work with a lot of interesting, influential and even exciting people.  It’s one of the reasons that lots of people are attracted to work for the Liberal Democrats and other political parties as interns.

Over the years I have worked with many interns and many have found jobs in politics, discovered it wasn’t for them or gone on to great and better things.

During the last general election, in South East Cornwall, the party had two interns.  Both of them shared a chalet with each other in a very nice part of the constituency in a very rural location.

The chalet belonged to a member and they were happy to house the interns for the period of the election.  For one reason or another one of them moved out to be nearer the office leaving the other alone in the chalet.

Everything seemed to be fine for the period of the election, but there was some evidence that they perhaps hadn’t got on particularly well.  After one had moved out the other started coming in better dressed and less tired and this was welcome if a little surprising.  He seemed a little quiet, even sheepish, but he worked hard, which is what you want from an intern.

After the election was over and the seat was retained I went round to the member’s house to thank them for the accommodation they had provided to be met by a building that was black with smoke damage and clearly very badly burnt down!

In my shock I was told that apparently when one had left the other had taken to using candles for lighting and left one of the candles alight at night and burned down the chalet, and almost themselves with it.

The fire brigade had been out to deal with it and no one had said a word.  I was stunned.  It did however explain why the intern had gone quiet, and more importantly they had become better fed, washed and bedded.

So, my advice is, if you get an intern who suddenly starts to be cleaner, more rested and better fed, just check they haven’t burned down the place they are staying in.