Jacqui's Handbrake Skid Policy U-turn

Knife crime is the media scare of the moment and on Sunday Jacqui Smith spun Sky News that "something would be done". The knife carrying and stabbing classes would be taken to hospital A&Es to confront the results of their crimes.

See the snag? Sounds tough and progressive to triangulating wonks. Sounds more like adding insult to injury when you are lying on a trolley bleeding, hoping you won't catch MRSA - "Here's Wayne, he is very sorry he stabbed you". Doctors and the opposition went ballistic. By lunchtime today the plan was dropped.

Is this a new record time for a U-turn?

UPDATE 18.41 : A co-conspirator explains the skidding spinning:

Earlier today the Home Office issued a release claiming the A&E story was down to a "misunderstanding" with a reporter - presumably Boulton's interview. They briefed the BBC on this, and the BBC were happy to run it (on the basis that they hadn't got it "wrong" - i.e. they got scooped on Sunday by Sky and didn't have the story). When the Home Office was confronted with the email it had sent to most of the Lobby on Saturday, and the fact that all of them had apparently suffered the same failure of understanding, and shown the PA copy which stemmed from it, and challenged about this "misunderstanding", they went into reverse (again - twice in a day). However, by then they'd got the friendly Beeb to run the line on PM (incredibly including the reporter suggesting the press release was ambiguous and therefore open to misinterpretation) and were happy.

Spin within spin within spin.

Another Day, Another Downing Street Rat...

Andrew Porter reports that Martin Sheehan, Gordon's Head of Strategic Communications, is making the dash for cash to PR firm Portland.

Martin Sheehan says: "The opportunity to join Portland at this stage in the company's growth is one I couldn't refuse. Working for two Prime Ministers has been a fantastic experience. After spending eight of the last ten years in Downing Street, it's time for a new challenge." Translation: a year of the Prime Mentalist is enough for me...

Downing Street Rat Dashes for Cash

As Guido pointed out yesterday, the captain is taking down the Labour ship with him and as this email from Fiona Gordon (his Downing Street political secretary) shows, the rats are doing the proverbial:

Dear Colleague,

Tomorrow will be my last day as Gordon Brown's Political Secretary. It has been a privilege to work for Gordon and the wider team here at No 10 and I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity. It has been a fascinating and hectic year.

I have also been lucky to work closely with you, not only in my current post but as the first women PLP Secretary. I will be taking away very many happy memories, particularly of the evening we gathered in the Chamber for the photograph to mark the Centenary of the PLP.

My next venture is to start my own communications business which I am very excited about.

My mobile number will remain the same xxxxxxx, my new email address is xxx@xxx.com Joe Irvin has been appointed to replace me. Joe has for the past year worked as a special adviser to the Prime Minister on trade union, employment and housing issues.

He is a lifelong Labour Party member and previously worked as special adviser to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott 1996-2001, and was for many years a trade union official. I know you will give him all your support.

With my best wishes
Fiona

She is obviously going to try in cash in over the next year before her contacts become worthless...

Open Government in Practice

The Register tried to interview a senior Civil Servant about another IT related fiasco, a Home Office press officer called soon after to say that "I'm not impressed by that... you [The Register] do not do that, you come through us. If you do you will not get any response [at all to your queries]".

They asked if it was Home office policy to threaten journalists with excommunication if they try talking to senior civil servants. "No," she said. "It's just the way it is." They really have forgotten who pays their wages...

Haven't We Bin Here Before?

Gordon says he is listening. He is listening to the people of Britain. What has he heard? Cut stealth taxes? Restore the great pension grab which wrecked Britain's pension system? Abandon the wasteful ID Cards plan? Drop 42-days detention without trial? No.

He is going to drop plans for local bin taxes. Was that really what the people of Britain wanted most? Hold on a second, who had the rubbish idea for bin taxes in the first place?

It is hardly a major tax break - the cost was expected to be £50 per annum. Hang on another second, he has already said he wasn't going to go ahead with bin taxes last October! What a con! He has already U-turned on this...

Hat-tip: Sam Coates

Crackers Speedily Spun Off

David Cracknell surprised many three months ago by leaving political journalism at the Sunday Times to join sleazy lobbyists LLM as chairman and also becoming an MD of Financial Dynamics.

Now he is off, saying “The valuable time spent here has opened my eyes to a number of opportunities outside the firm which it would not be possible to take up were I to continue. FD has been kind enough to release me and I am very grateful for that...." blah blah blah... Everyone is being suspiciously nice about things and smiling.

This should be a warning to the recent crop of hacks leaving journalism for the thicker pay packets of spin...

PR Week Now the Official Journal of Record

Mark Flanagan's appointment as No. 10's Web Guru was rumoured, nowadays post-Carter we have to wait for the official announcement in PR Week before we can be sure.

Guido seems to recall that Flanagan was in the running to be Bromley and Chislehurst's candidate for Labour. His blog seems to have disappeared however...

Exclusive : Which? Spinner to Spin for Brown

Word reaches Guido that Gordon Brown's new "Strategic Communications Adviser" will be Nick Stace, who is currently Director of Campaigns and Communications at the Consumers' Association (Which?).

Gordon must be in a real mess as Stace is not what you would regard as high calibre - he so badly mishandled the whole Home Information Packs (HIPs) stuff that the Consumers' Association went from supporting the government to half supporting the government, to eventually disowning the government plan. Or something like that, it all got a little confusing.

Also as early as next week a new Head of Press and Broadcasting for the Labour Party will be appointed - expect it to be an internal appointment. This follows the appointment of Stephen Carter over Damian McBride in Downing Street.

Gordon is said to have performance concerns about McSnide's ever increasing tendency to be found propping up the bar. Guido sympathises - spinning for Gordon would drive anyone to drink...

Labour's Anathematising of Hain & Morgan the Organ

Guido has heard that it was made clear to Steve Morgan, Peter Hain's sleazy campaign manager, that this year he was not welcome at the recent Welsh Labour Party conference. Guido has checked with the Labour Party press office and they will only confirm that Morgan did not attend. (Nor incidentally did the disgraced former Secretary of State for Wales).

That is a little strange for a man who likes to think of himself as an important Welsh Labour Party mover and shaker, usually he can be found glad handing and ingratiating himself with the Welsh Labour Party's big-wigs in the bars. Wonder why he didn't attend? Why miss out on all those photo and client-opportunities?

Could it be that he was a little embarrassed about his efforts on behalf of Hillary Clinton? Surely not. Could it be that despite all the spin from Morgan Allen Moore about the lobbyist industry's APPC professional standards investigation going nowhere, it is getting seriously embarrassing for Morgan?

Morgan spun a line to the public affairs trade press that the complaint had been lodged by an aggrieved Tory ex-employee and would go nowhere. However when the APPC Management Committee met on 5 February they concluded there was a cause for complaint and referred it to the APPC’s Professional Practices Panel.

International spin merchants Grayling were rumoured to be on the verge of a multi-million pound takeover deal for MAM until this scandal blew-up and they pulled out days before the deal was to be agreed. Grayling were one of the founders of the APPC. Guido tried to get confirmation from David Thomas, Grayling's finance director, without success...

Lobbyist Regulator to Investigate Morgan the Organ Further

The Spin Industry's APPC Management Committee (background here) has decided to consider and investigate the complaint against Morgan Allen Moore further. The Committee is looking for more information about the conduct of MAM and Morgan the Organ. Further evidence and consideration of specific charges under the APPC Code of Conduct will be considered at a meeting on February 4.

So you have another 24 hours to put in any further complaints...

APPC Calls Emergency Meeting Over Hain Lobby Firm

PR Week is reporting that the spin industry's self regulatory organisation, the Association of Professional Political Consultants, has called an emergency meeting of its management committee on 28 January to look into a complaint about Morgan Allen Moore, the public aff­airs firm linked to the Peter Hain's donations.

APPC chair Gill Morris called the meeting after receiving a formal complaints concerning a number of breaches of the lobbyists code of conduct by Morgan Allen Moore.

Morgan the Organ made a £5,000 donation to the fake think-tank and allowed the Hain4Labour campaign to use Morgan Allen Moore off­ices. Cheques to Hain4Labour were sent via the Cardiff offices of Morgan Allen Moore before ending up in the campaign coffers. The fake think tank shares an address with Morgan Allen Moore as well.

These actions breach section 12 of the APPC code of conduct, which states that members

must keep strictly separate from their duties and activities as political consultants any personal activity or inv­olvement on behalf of a pol­itical party.

Steve Morgan is going to try and claim that this was all done in a personal capacity. Think carefully Steve, Guido is watching...

Pressure on Lobbyist Transparency

If you go to the websites of some public affairs firms they boast that they can set up "grassroots networks" - fake campaigns to boost corporate interests. Big Pharma, for example, funds endless patient groups and fake think tanks that are really about increasing product demand, getting approval for their products or policy changes which boost their profits.

A number of left-wing groups have got together in the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency. Their key launch demands are:

* A mandatory public register of lobbyists, with full financial disclosure

* Enforceable ethics rules for all lobbyists

* Enhanced rules on ethics for politicians and public officials on the so-called ‘revolving-door’ syndrome between lobbyists and public bodies; to halt privileged access to decision makers.

This is necessary. A lot of public affairs firms are conning their business clients about what they can do, if they could do what they claim it would (or should) be illegal. It is a murky trade, it is one thing for businessman to lobby in self defence against over regulation, but as often as not they are lobbying for preferential treatment and corporate welfare. Vested interests are not in the common interest.

This seems to be an exclusively left-wing campaign when it is something that could equally easily be supported by groups like the Taxpayer's Alliance. If this turns out to just another left-wing anti-business campaign it will be a shame.

More Orwellian Behaviour

On Tuesday Guido drew attention to the Orwellian re-writing of speeches after they had been delivered by Gordon to cover-up mistakes. Today we have another 1930s Soviet-style propaganda technique being used by McStalin: airbrushed old photos being used in government publications.

The picture on the left is taken from Gordon's introduction to Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives published yesterday. The first picture looks ten years old, the picture of the unhealthy figure on the right was taken more recently. Who are they trying to kid, him or us?

Hat-tip : LFAT

Guido Writes, Downing Street Deletes

Nice to know that despite the change of regime from Blairites to Brownies, Guido still has a following in Downing Street (Wegg-Prosser and Matthew Taylor were avid Guido readers).

Yesterday morning Guido mocked Brown's speech where he innumerately claimed that a billion people were a third of humanity. The posted linked to the speech transcript on the Downing Street website.Within an hour of that post being published, some modern day successor to Winston Smith had deleted the wording from the transcript. Doubleplus ungood malquote.You see if they delete it from the transcript record, Gordon never made the mistake. Just like when Gordon says he will bring a "thousand troops home for Christmas", the Sun will report a thousand of our boys coming home for Christmas. We have always been at war with Eurasia... our glorious forces have achieved a total victory in Basra...

Brown Broke Pledge to Bring 1000 Troops Home for Christmas

Guido fears Brown's innumeracy may cost taxpayers dearly when a deal is done on Northern Rock. Two examples illustrate Gordon's tendency to be numerically misleading. On the Downing Street website Brown's second sentence in his recent speech on developing the English language reads "Today more than a billion people speak English, a third of humanity." Eh? The world population is estimated to be in excess of 6 billion. So he is only out by a margin of error of some 100%
More seriously, remember Gordon Brown's cynical pledge to bring 1,000 troops home by Christmas as promised during Tory Party Conference whilst on a visit to Iraq? There were some 5,030 personnel in the country a the time and on the 26 December, 2007 that was only reduced to 4,600. So actually only 430 troops came out of Iraq, they didn't even come home. According to the MoD, Operation Telic had some 6120 assigned to it before Gordon made his promise. A total of 6500 were assigned on December 26, an increase of 380. Cynical lies, playing politics with soldiers lives.

Incidentally, Guido was told about the above photo by a serving soldier, who said that there was a panic by MoD spin-doctors eager to find women and black soldiers to provide the right photo-op backdrop for Gordon. You can see what the real political priority was when he made that announcement. Making it look good.

Hat-tip : Cynosarges (via email).

Steve Morgan Sleaze Investigation

The Spin Industry's self regulatory body, the APPC, describes itself "as the representative and regulatory body for UK public affairs professionals in the consultancy sector." It was set up in the wake of brown-envelope lobbyist scandals by some of the more respectable lobbying firms to try and prevent the most egregious happenings that are endemic to a murky industry.

Guido has learnt that the APPC has received a complaint from James Davenport, a former employee of Morgan Allen Moore, concerning ten separate breaches of the APPC Code of Conduct by Steve Morgan, Hain's campaign manager. The book is well and truly being thrown at "Morgan the Organ"...

Brown came in promising an end to spin yet six months later he is appointing Stephen Carter, head of the PR firm Brunswick, to be his "Principal Political Adviser". So a spin doctor is now in charge of all SpAds including (the unpopular with the Lobby) Damian McBride. Carter will be in overall charge of political strategy and communications.

He had been at Brunswick for only a year after failing to get the job of ITV chief before leaving the media industry regulator Ofcom. Spinning for Brown will keep him very busy.

So looks like the Smith Institute's Wilf Stevenson has missed out on the rumoured chief-fixer job. Matthew d'Ancona, the Daily Mail and the Indy seemed to think he was the front-runner. Or has he? Ah well...

UPDATE 17:22 : The Tories have just sent out a press release pointing out that Carter told the Guardian last year: ‘I'm not thinking of politics. I made that decision a long, long time ago’. A statement that is clearly untrue and inconsistent with reality, so he is perfect for Gordon. They also allege that Stephen Carter is being paid a salary of £137,000 to be "Gordon Brown’s spinner-in-chief". Memorable phrase that...

Tory Spin Breaks Fundamental Rule

CCHQ have just sent out a "Why, oh why" press release about the OFT ruling from the shadow Farms Minister, James Paice, headlined "The price of milk should not be fixed".

There really is no point crying over this...

Yvette's Spinners Do Non-Denial Over Fakery

Yesterday's story about another bit of "faking it" on the No. 10 website webchat resulted in a Guido first, an instant rebuttal in the comments from the Press Office of the Department for Communities and Local Government

Your story about the Number 10 webchat is incorrect. The individual you name does not work for the Government. This was a public webchat which was advertised on the websites of Number 10 and the Department for Communities and Local Government. The Government did not ask any specific individuals to take part in the questioning.

Guido read it over and realised that it was a non-denial. Read it again. Technically Karen Doran doesn't work for the government - she works for a goverment financed quango run out of what was formerly the Office of the Deputy PM, now known as the Department for Communities and Local Government. She is technically not on the government payroll, but is paid by the government.

Guido had a weird conversation with the press office where they accused him of "acting like Pravda". Karen Doran asked Yvette Cooper, who is effectively her sponsoring minister, a patsy question under the guise of "public engagement".

Why? The press office haven't got back to me on that yet...

Fake Ministerial Interaction

A co-conspirator has tipped Guido off to another bit of "faking it" from the government. Keen to show their commitment to e-Democracy (whatever that is) they have been putting great effort into hosting ministerial webchats on the Downing Street website. The trouble is that they only attract malcontents, the mischevious or almost no one at all. After all who really wants to webchat with the likes of Ed Miliband?

This morning's live webchat was with the Minister for "I'll have an affordable house with double mortgage subsidy"* and Housing, Yvette Cooper. Only ten people bothered to log in. One of them was Karen Doran.

Karen Doran: What is the government doing to make sure their policy on housing (regeneration and growth) is aligned to policies designed to promote economic growth. Could the Minister give practical examples of the opportunities this presents to local authorities in their place shaping role?

Yvette replies: You are right Karen that new homes need to be planned alongside new jobs -- as we are doing in the Thames Gateway, which is a major area of regeneration and housing growth. But housing and economic policies need to work closely together for existing communities too. Look at what cities like Manchester and Birmingham have done in their city centres -- creating new jobs, but bringing people back into the cities to live as well.

If that patsy question reads like a planted question, it is because it is almost certainly exactly that. Now why she needed to ask the question in a "public engagement" exercise is beyond Guido. Karen Doran works on the Community Housing Task Force (formerly part of the office of the Deputy Prime Minister) where she advises on "Communications and Consultation Strategy". So it seems unnecessary for her to pose as a member of the public to ask the housing minister a question.

We are today living in a government which follows a Potemkin strategy of public relations, merely artificial photo opportunities have now been replaced by completely faked photographs. Public engagement is now simulated, the only members of the public the PM interacts with are photogenic school children. When Potemkin built his villages they were intended to fool one person - Catherine the Great, now New Labour wants to fool everyone in Great Britain.

*Yvette is actually Mrs Balls, despite them having a joint household income of some quarter of a million pounds between them, Mr and Mrs Balls claim tens of thousands of pounds every year in mortgage subsidy to make their housing more affordable.