Posts Tagged ‘politicians’

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.

Labour seem to be working towards getting votes rather than dealing with the truth that the UK economies is struggling big time and what people want now is honesty.

Labour don’t seem to have come through on their mini budget with anything to really deal with the mounting debt the UK is in.  There is also talk that the UK may need to lend money from the International Monetary Fund.  The UK cannot afford to damage its reputation any further as a place for people and companies to invest their money.  Warnings that the UK’s international credit rating could be downgraded were suggested this week as sterling continued to drop in the money markets.

George Osborn said after Mr Darling presentation “We were promised a Pre-Budget Report and what we got was a pre-election report.”

Labour need to stand up and be counted, the UK’s economy is too important to be used for political gains.   Don’t put this country into more debt.  Don’t destroy the country’s reputation.  Do what is right; you are going to lose the next election anyway.  Make the hard decision now and just maybe people will look at labour in the years to come in a different light.  Choose to play this political game and labour will be out of the picture for a long time.

America should have been talking about the Obama Health plan, instead the focus is on those two words of Joe Wilson (Representative for North Carolina) who shouted, against all decorum, at the President – “You Lie”.

Wow did he do himself some damage! Constituents like their politicians to be passionate, but they also like them to respect the country. Shouting at the president broke that taboo and with it he has done his reputation as a politician some serious damage. (see our articles on Politician’s Reputation Management for more on this).

Normally, politicians destroy themselves with women, wine or money or some combination of the two. Voters don’t like it, but sometimes they shrug it off with a, “typical…”

What a politician says is very different and impacts much more widely on the reputation and attitude of voters. Witness California’s Mike Duvall. What has upset people is not that he an affair (or two) but the derogatory way he discussed it with a colleague and was overheard doing it. That was low and has killed him.

So politicians protect your reputations as follows: it’s not what you do but what you say that matters. Its also what you don’t say or how you respond to questions that matters. Witness Teddy Kennedy’s failure to answer questions after Chappaquidick and the  uncomfortable body language that spoke volumes about his guilt.