Archive for the ‘politicians’ Category

No.10 Downing Street has been abuzz with speculations of the alleged bullying tactics of  the  British PM Gordon Brown. Meanwhile the founder of the National Bullying Charity helpline has told the media that they are receiving fresh calls for help from Downing Street Staff. Though the  Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell came up with a quick denial and brushed aside the concerns with Brown as mere media speculation, a book  has come up with the news that the cabinet secretary had in fact asked Brown to curb his “volcanic temper”. Amidst all the allegations and counter allegations, the public is left wondering.

Well, going by the signs, all is not well at the No.10 Downing Street and it is only a matter of time before these bickering might snowball into a major controversy. Prima facie, the whole episode  appears as a PR mishandling issue and these internal issues might prove a major embarrassment to the Prime Minister’s office if more 10 Downing Street employees choose to take the matter to the media. Mr. Brown has to gather his acts smartly and make sure that the PR practices are in place in the highest office.

What is more worrying about the Gordon Brown revelations is not just the vile temper of the PM but the fact that the National  Bullying Helpline having felt the need to intervene. For many, the alleged outbursts of Mr. Brown might appear childish but the fact that these have come out into the open from within the iron walls of the Downing street in itself is a warning call for the Prime minister’s office  to set out on an urgent damage control and reputation management exercise to stall his rating from plummeting in the public eye.

3 Labour MPs Elliott Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and a Tory peer Lord Hanningfield will face criminal charges over alleged misuse of their expenses. They will be charged under section 17 of the Theft Act relating to false accounting; if found guilty the four could land in jail for seven years.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer while announcing the charges said ‘that one other case was still being investigated, as there was insufficient evidence to charge the Labour peer Lord Clarke of Hampstead.

According to Sir Thomas Legg, who carried out the audit of the expenses, stated the system as “deeply flawed”. Hundreds of MPs were ordered to pay back a total of £1.12 million.

So what’s next?
Do we start thinking about reforming the British Politics and Democracy? High-time to give it a thought, the public fuming about the expenses scandal is justified, so faith needs to be restored.

Have the public lost faith in MPs? The expenses file shows MPs more than half the entire House of Commons are involved in the controversial expenses scandal. They exploited the system of parliamentary allowances to promote their lifestyles and homes. The revelation has angered many voters and the reputation of the MPs has taken a beating.

People at large knew nothing until the scandal was out in the open and how MPs claimed for items far beyond what was allowed. Change in the system was voiced, but unfortunately there weren’t many takers. The after effect of not heeding that advise is all out in black & white.

It’s not easy to get this scandal off the mind of the taxpayers. While some MPs are guilty for the wrongdoing it has tarnished everyone in the house of Commons with the same brush.

So what does this mean? Is there a need for an urgent damage control to restore public faith?

A need for a strategic reputation management to get back the lost glory. There is no quick-fix method to fix the problem, but MPs need to realize that they are  the representatives of their constituency and are not traders.

Politics and politicians are definitely not immune to bad press or negative comments, the above scandal shows how a politicians online reputation can go for a ride even if you are not at fault. You need to apprise the public your accomplishments, and what you are planning to do. This will allow people to respond positively and garner faith in the system.

David Cameron, when said ‘all MPs who do not repay will be sacked and be termed not eligible for election. This is a welcome statement and will infuse confidence in public, and also minimize the resentment in public for those in the House of Commons.

Politician’s reputation holds greater significance as electorate comprising of different age and group will have a common thinking about their representative, which makes sense to them. Let your positive image be known to the public, after all that is all you need to face the polls.

Mrs Bercow Twittered  EyeSpyMP “I am not an MP. I just live here. So stop reporting my movements.”  Mrs Bercow who is the wife of the Commons Speaker.

EyeSpyMP reply to Mrs Bercow”You Twitter your movements far more than we do. You love the limelight.”

EyeSpyMP has reported sightings of Mrs Bercow drinking coffee and playing with her daughter.

Mrs Bercow replied “I am going out now. To do school run. I am not an MP. I just live here. So stop reporting my movements. Thank you. “  This is just like pouring petrol on a fire…

Another tweet  “You are not being v. nice. You are clearly a bunch of Tories.”  Hmm not the smartest of responses…

John Bercow the elected Speaker last year, is a frequent Twitter user hopefully he is more selective about what he tweets.

If you are or have a partner are in the public eye, it’s always a good idea to have two accounts, a public profile and a private one for family and friends.  This goes for photos and any other personal matters you don’t want appearing on the net or in newspaper articles.

Also do not fire fight in public view, you can make things much worse, if you find negative things about you, try and resolve it out of the public eye and especially avoid using tools like Facebook or Twitter.  In public view no one ever wants to back down.

A good book to read is “How To Win Friends and Influence People”.

Two days ago, Obama was reeling from the loss of Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat to a Republican in what has been a staunch Democrat seat since before time; one speech and he is back on track. His proposals on bank reform will be universally popular simply because, just everybody hates Wall Street. Commentators were suggesting that these proposals are no done deal as they have to pass Congress, but it is hard to see any members of that august institution standing up for the banks. Let’s not forget the epithet attached to Goldman Sachs:  a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.

Two days ago, Obama suggested that he had been too focused on policy and not enough on connecting with voters. Wrong, he was too focused on the wrong policies. Voters have been aching for some substantive reform of financial institutions since they first bailed them out and then watched aghast as they declared massive profits and equally huge bonuses. Talk about making yourself a target! Bank reputation managers have done a woeful job of presenting Wall Street institutions as contrite and capable of self control.  As the Economist remarked a few months  ago it is not pretty seeing a whole sector committing political suicide.

For Obama, mired in Healthcare reform which has become increasingly partisan and confusing, resolving financial services reform is both long hanging fruit and popular with the electorate. Here is something that everybody agrees needs to be done. It could be argued that the administration’s failure to act on financial services was the problem all along. Voters felt that banks had not felt the pain like the rest of country and it even looked as though Obama and his “wonk” regime wasn’t going to do anything about it.  Timothy Geithner hardly came across as compelling.

The challenge for Obama is whether he can really push this through. His mandate was change and yet that change has become bogged down in increasingly partisan squabbles. Can he build cross-party support for his plans. Using Paul Volcker was a clever touch: he clearly knows his finance, he has been a stern critic of policy and Wall Street and yet he is no liberal softy. Here is the man who solves the inflation problem in the 1980s.

Obama has chosen his battleground well: now he just needs victory.

A year ago people all over the world rode the wave of hope when a man who seemed to want peace, who quoted Gandhi and Mandela was elected the 44th US President. Obama told the world “Yes we can” and a lot of us felt moved to expect something new.

Months later he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the President had to accept the award a few days after her ordered 30000 troops to Afghanistan. The irony was not lost on the world and now one year down the line a Republican has won the Massachusetts election!

Obama’s Popularity ratings are down, people are disillusioned and somewhere along the line, the audacity of hope – hope of promises being kept has been fading away. Oratory skills aside, Obama suffered most from being anointed the saviour. A Huffington Post article had this to say

According to an analysis by the non-partisan web site Politifact.com, Obama fulfilled only 91 of his 502 campaign promises. They rate 14 promises as “broken” and another 87 as “stalled.”

Guantanamo Bay closing down has been deferred time and again; unemployment’s on the rise and the Republicans have won in a Democratic strong-hold.  Be it health care, fighting terror or global warming nothing seemed to have really met the mark anywhere.

From a reputation management point of view – the President could rise up to the occasion now that he is finally out of the ‘messiah persona’ and use this reputation slide to his advantage and work on rebuilding popularity by working on the internal issues and promises.

A year from now, where do you think Obama’s Presidency ratings will be, any thoughts?

The race has begun between the Conservatives and the Labour party, with 5 months until the next general, what will be interesting is how much the Internet will play in the two parties campaigns.  As social network sites allow people to find like minded individuals easier than ever before, it can gain momentum and sabotage the message of a politician very easily.

In the past the parties were very focused on spin, nowadays people have had enough of such tactics and will fight back using sites like facebook.  It is very easy now for a party’s manifesto to be hijacked if one or two minor points really trigger a fury of people reacting to them and the bigger picture being lost.

So how it starts is very simple, someone creates a group or page on facebook and starts to invite friends to join, who in turn invite their friends.  Shortly people start bookmarking the page through sites like Digg and attracting even more traffic.  It doesn’t take long for journalists to pick up on the action through things like Google alerts and BINGO you also have the story appearing in the papers etc.

At the moment the Labour and Conservatives seem more determined to pick each others manifesto apart, I wonder how long it will be before more politicians reputations will be tested and what will come out of the closet over the next 5 months.

Unfortunately in today’s world it is often not what you are saying but how you are saying it which counts.

Shashi Tharoor tweeted again and explained why he was quiet while the visa controversy was going on everywhere on TV and the WWW. His boss Minister of External Affairs, S M Krishna went on to say that such matters should not be discussed on a public forum like Twitter. Tharoor however tweeted so this morning…

Was travelling outof range& missed brouhaha.Now that EAM Krishnaji,whom I respect,has spoken,I hv nothing 2add.Will discuss visa issue w him.

But thanks for all the kind words over the last 24hrs. Appreciate the support!

Support he had from everywhere but the politicians of both the ruling Congress party and the opposition. Debates went on on all major news channels on Tharoor’s tweets. People were amused and felt he has every right to tweet what he feels like while his party were left explaining. The difference of opinion between the MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) and the Home Ministry was discussed at length.

For the rest of the country it was a great day – a minister telling them things like it is. There’s hope for politicians in India after all, we may yet have a new breed of leaders who dare to be different.

Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs is no stranger to social networking and is the highest followed person in India on Twitter. Tharoor in fact popularised Twitter in India to a great extent with his now controversial Tweets and was even named “Twitteroor” for his political gaffes as far as his political party’s stances were concerned.

The minister is intellectual, tech-savvy and popular with the masses and has 537,478 followers on Twitter when this post was written. The problem with Tharoor is that his Tweets are a source of both admiration and political uproar at the same time. Even as he endears himself to the youngsters, the geriatric members of his often sycophantic Congress party look at him as an up-start of sorts.

That Tharoor was in the initial stages a close rival to the UN Secretary-General post of Ban Ki Moon and that he has numerous books to his name all accord him a celebrity status. What I like about him the most is his constant attempts at making his countrymen laugh at themselves. Here he is back in the news for tweeting against his own government’s tightening of tourist visas to India. This is what he tweeted -

Dilemma of our age: tough visa restrictions in hope of btr (better) security or openness & (and) liberality to encourage tourism & goodwill? I prefer latter.

When asked about the economy class of Air India he famously tweeted -

“absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!”

The slang was lost on most people in India and when he added the holy cows all hell broke loose.

That he has huge plans for his country and is not afraid to speak his mind and even against his own government makes him stand apart. But then these days how the mighty fall ( Tiger Woods) and before you know it, courting controversy can finally catch up. The minister sure needs some expert reputation management for continuing his work well and to be in the good books of the old war horses in the Congress party.

Being a busy man he needs the services of an army of experts to help him with online reputation management and being a celebrity and a politician the need only magnifies manifold.

Watching the coverage of the Pre Budget Report in the Houses of Commons, you can see from the television coverage why our parliament’s stock has fallen so low. It is not just the expenses. It is the greater sense that they are not relevant to us.

See the picture below of the House of Commons and the speech given by Vince Cable in response to Alistair Darling. This is the third most important speech of the day and yet most of the government benches are empty. Where are the MPs? What are they doing? Why are they not interested in hearing Mr Cable – an acknowledged expert on the crisis.

Vince Cable addressing empty house

No wonder MPs matter so little to us.