Part Time PA
I desperately need a part time PA, Fulham SW6. Hours to suit. john@stonborough.com
End of the Road Kill?
A staggering 75 million people signed up for a Twitter account in 2009, but in December only 17 percent of them sent even a single Tweet. An all-time low say research company RJMetrics. That’s still nearly 13 million Tweeters but I wonder if there is too little commercial application for it work. I have tweeted journalists, without any noticeable benefit over picking up the phone. But my friend PR Queen Liz Male @lizmale swears by it.
Ocean Spirit
It’s hard to believe it’s ten years since twenty of us crewed Ocean Spirit of Moray from Cadiz to Bermuda, in the Tall Ships Race. We were all ages from 17 to 70. Most of us had never met till the day we set sail. The fact that it was a huge success (2nd boat over the line) and great fun, was down to the skipper Ian Lerner. My job, in addition to story telling was making a home vid. Not easy, ocean passages are hours and hours of nothing much, with bursts of jolting high drama; too dark, too rough, too wet, too busy, too tired, too scared to film. Once safely back home, creating ‘sturm und drang’ out of the footage I did get, was relatively easy, but what I just couldn’t distil was the endlessness of 3 weeks at sea. The feeling of never arriving, always being in the middle of your own horizon. So, sitting at my PC, I put on my favourite Carlos Santana track, Samba Pa Ti and started again. (YouTube clip)
Who Done It? PD James Did Today.
Did you hear the author Phyllis James - a most delightful woman to meet incidentally - interview (rip into) BBC DG Mark Thompson on the Today prog just now? She said the BBC, which is nearly as old as her (90), is unwieldy, bureaucratic, ageist, overbloated and had lost its way. As an ex-BBC Governor, Lady James had the info to hand to prove her case. He didn’t stand a chance!
I wonder if, when the BBC invited this ’sweet little old lady’ to be a guest editor on Today, they had any idea what an intellect more lethal than a gin-trap actually means. Well they know now!
Arresting Radio
From today’s California Chronicle; Sam, the Man in the Know
http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/139090495
Q: What was the only on-air arrest? (asks) Geoff Martin, Motherwell
A: The Capital Radio show PDQ was hosted by John Stonborough. In March, 1983, he interviewed Derek Barnes about his minicab firm. When accused of fraud, Barnes tried to walk out but ex-policeman JS made a citizen’s arrest. Since it was sub judice, the episode could not be broadcast until the following October when Barnes was jailed for four years at Reading Crown Court.
What Sam doesn’t know is that Barnes wrote to me from Reading jail and asked for a ‘cassette’ of the programme, which he had missed. What I want to know is why a chap living in Motherwell, Glasgow presumably, is writing to a Californian news web-site?
Ofcom: Your Time’s Up (or Down actually)
I am just finalising an Ofcom Fairness complaint about a C4 programme for a client. Nothing new there. The rule is, or was until today, that TV complaints had to be submitted to Ofcom within 90 days. NOT any more. The new limit is 20 days. If you need to contact them for an extension, here is the address.
Ofcom
OCC Broadcast Team Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road London
SE1 9HA
Tel: 020 7981 3040 Fax: 020 7981 3334
Email: occbroadcast@ofcom.org.uk
And the new 2009 Ofcom Broadcasting Code is here: http://bit.ly/58kUPP
Me and Hillary
Just 3 degrees separate Hillary and me. Since the elevation of Baroness Ashton to High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the EU, it’s only a hop skip and a jump from my house to the White House. It goes like this: Me, Peter Kellner - my fellow Associate at Project Associates and founding President of YouGov - his wife Cathy (Baroness Ashton) to the Secretary of State herself. How cool is that?
Not very, if you read the British broadsheets. Even today they continue to spew insults instead of rejoicing, that an English woman has been awarded one of the most important jobs in the world. In time people will recognise it for what is, a remarkable individual achievement and a milestone for Britain in Europe. I don’t mind if it’s the Daily-Mail-on-Sunday accusing her of being a commie, or worse still a federalist (a dirty word if ever I heard one), I expect nothing else, but that the heavies should join in the scoffing fit, concerns me more.
The fact is, it’s a hideous difficult job, where raw intellect, persuasiveness and force of personality must replace the lack of any fire power. She has no army (unless you include her fell host of faceless bureaucratii ) and no chance of consensus among 27 EU Heads of State; yet she now represents half a billion of us at the top table. Bizarre? yes, but that is the reality of Europe.
I know there would have been more venom had Mandelson or Miliband got the job, though Gordon even managed to Balls that up. Personally, I am delighted that Peter’s wife got it. As he said to me, she never asked for, applied for, or campaigned for it. But they chose her. Now we must give her a chance, it will be only a matter of days before she is tested. Let’s reserve our judgement until year one is over. Its my hunch that she will do fine.
A Real Tweet
I gave a talk to some 50 post grad students at Cardiff Uni yesterday. Nice bright bunch. Suddenly mid talk I got a ‘tweet’ from one of them saying ‘Hi Jon, enjoying the guest lecture’. Thanks, but what happens if they hate you? Does it say ‘eff off Jon!’.This Mother’s Love is Enough for 10.
Did you see my friend Rosa Monckton’s film ” When a mother’s love is not enough” on BBC1. It was as devastating as Cathy Come Home. Rosa has a handicapped child - Domenica (my god-daughter). Rosa roamed the country visiting other parents of desperately handicapped children. Their plight didn’t just make me cry as a parent, but livid that our social services, instead of helping, trusses them in shaming red tape. Just how they cope is what Rosa captured so bleakly in her remarkable documentary. Perhaps now with a PM with a handicapped son and a PM-in-waiting (who Rosa interviewed about his son who died aged 6) there is a chance of something being done. God knows those parents deserve it. Catch it while you can on BBC iPlayer.Bah! Code
“Would you like it sent straight to your mobile?”
“You bet”, I thought.
And there it was.
An SMS from SWISS
(heaven forbid you call it Swiss Air) and
this Thing.
My boarding-card was now bar-code.
Would it work?
What if the phone was nicked,
or the battery died?
No need to worry.
I sashayed my cool PDA through ZRH
(fast-bag-drop! who-needs-it!).
Scanned that cell past the bloke in the cubicle,
who said something in Züridüütsch about
Vorsprung durch Technik;
and I was Airside.
Simples!
The flight gets called, I stand up.
No phone.
I’d left it in the café by the Duty Free.
Take my advice,
for a stress free life.
Stick to paper.
psst! PCC, Pass it on…
Just received this interesting letter from the fair Catherine Speller at the fast free Press Complaints Commission.
Dear John, I know from your blog that you already know about us - and indeed refer to the Code - but it might be helpful for me to give you some information about some of the other work we do in addition to dealing with complaints about published articles. We also have an increasingly important role to play in helping individuals in other ways. We run a very effective 24-hour anti-harassment service, for example, which has been praised by a wide range of individuals who have used it; and can also advise people on a pre-publication basis about stories that are about to be published. As you may 
know, we pro-actively contact those who find themselves in the media spotlight - for example, after a major incident or accident etc - and offer our services if they are having problems either with press behaviour or published material. (Recently, for example, I was in touch with the care home in Scotland where the two girls who tragically took their own lives were based - as well as the local police force - to remind them what we could do to help if necessary).
Traditionally, we have focussed our PR efforts on ensuring that those representing vulnerable people are fully briefed about our work: police forces and family liaison officers, Coroners, Hospitals etc, through meetings and presentations, mailings and events. However, I am now expanding this work to include media and PR consultants who are offering media advisory services, as I think this is another really important area for us to focus on. I hope that the information I’m sending you proves to be useful - do please feel free to pass it on to clients if appropriate. Kind regards, Catherine
The PCC is an independent self-regulatory body which deals with complaints about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines (and their websites). They keep industry standards high by training journalists and editors, and work pro-actively behind the scenes to prevent harassment and media intrusion” Unlike Ofcom (and the BBC) they can intervene pre-publication.
Sent to Coventry
John Mair (left) has invited me to have a ‘Coventry Conversation’ with him at Coventry University on the 29th, http://www.scribd.com/doc/17567786/Coventry-Conversations-Autumn-2009 . The topic is PR’s “Blocking investigation or ensuring truth for clients”. It’s a good subject, discussing the vital role of PRs in the investigative process with John Mair, Senior Lecturer now but once a formidable investigative documentary maker for the Beeb and Granada’s World in Action series. I should know, I had more than one ding dong with him. But, as Lord (Manny) Shinwell said, ‘when all your friends are dead, your enemies become your friends’.
Come along; watch the fur fly. It’s free.
PCC Code Tweak
The Press Complaints Commission has made a couple of important amendments to their Editors Code; one is about media harassment. It says i) Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit. and ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist; nor remain on their property when asked to leave and must not follow them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom they represent. And here is a handy tip, to save a lot of time, if you need to get in touch with the Committee Secretary Ian Beales, here are his details. Tel: 01453 860577. Mobile: 0771 577 0400. Email: ianbeales@mac.com
LinkedIn spam alert.
LinkedIn keeps raiding my MS Outlook contacts (1100 names) without my permission and spams everybody. Sorry people, wasn’t me!
Out of Order, Order.
Michael Martin has had his peerage quietly confirmed.
“He don’t look like no pier to me”, says NY Port Authority Police Chief
See God Helps Those that Help Themselves below.
Georgia on my mind 2
This story was in the Guardian on Monday 24th August. ‘ PR groups cash in on Russian conflict: Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are using public relations firms to influence the western media, writes David Teather
It amplifies my earlier blog ‘Georgia on my Mind. And look at the fees they are being charged! Read more.
Visit me in Tripoli, but hurry.
Apparently I had swine flu. I went to the Doc today as I’ve had this vicious earache, sore throat and a general feeling of malaise since returning from holiday.
‘I said, I think I have got something terminal, Doc. He said, that’s what you said last time you were here. I said, where is it written I can’t have two terminal diseases at once, if I want? I’m private, not NHS.’
The symptoms were so mild at first (cough) I didn’t know I had it. The secondary infection has laid me low. So low, they are sending me to Libya.
Georgia on my mind.
I was at a dinner in New York. We were discussing Georgia - no the other one. The Russians had barged through South Ossetia and feelings were running high. That was a year ago this week.
I said, somewhat provocatively, that the worst thing (for the West) about Mikheil Saakashvili, the charismatic President, is that he looks and sounds like the American educated lawyer he is. 
If he looked like the Georgian über-brigand with the big black moustache, we would dismiss him as a warlord and the whole disastrous escapade as a clashing of clans.
Various people jumped down my throat at the same time, explaining we had a duty to support newly independent democratic states; that he was a democrat, freely elected, an advocate of the free market and of open society. I know I know, I said, but a DUTY to support? I don’t think so. This is about oil again, only this time it’s in a pipe (2 in fact) not in the ground. I said I thought Saakashvili’s militant nationalism was foolish – the Russians baited him and he snapped; but NATO was much to blame for pretending that we could aid him. I added that NATO, stood for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and wondered which bit of the Trans-Caucasus littoral bordered our mutual Ocean. Cold Wars start with super power stand-offs and World Wars start because of treaties with faraway places that get invaded.
None of this won me friends on the Upper East Side. One year on, Georgia and Russia are simmering again. But surprisingly the anniversary went un-noticed in the West. The EU are monitoring the border, the Americans rightly refused. And mercifully talk of Georgia joining NATO is now demoted to a ‘goal’ along with shopping trips to Mars.
If Russia’s horizons ended on the snowy summits of the Caucasus, wrote General Fadeev in 1850, then the whole of the western half of the Asian continent would be outside our sphere of influence and … would not long wait for another master. He was referring, interestingly, to Great Britain!
But why the change of heart – what happened to the Little Country that Can whom my dinner friends supported so passionately?
Well, sometimes I watch Russian TV (Russia Today) along with Al Jazeera and a lot of other stuff (Nigerian and Brazilian telly are fun) and I stumbled on this. Allegedly ITN’s Julian Manyon thinks Saakashvili is ‘a lunatic’, furthermore it is claimed by a Russian freelance, he is not allowed by his News Desk to say so.
Who knows if this hearsay is true? It was on Russian TV so it can’t be, It’s all anti Georgia propaganda. Innit?
I don’t know Manyon, but he might consider Saakashvili a bit nutty (for any foreigners reading this blog, this is slang not a medical term). After all who in his right mind would provoke a fight with a massive Russian army aiding South Ossetians who wish to be part of Russia not Georgia. Manyon knows better than most that every time anybody (mostly Muslims) cries independence in the Caucasus, they are ruthlessly suppressed. This was true in Chechnya, Dagestan as well as the Sufi-led revolts of the mid 19th Century to name just a few. No good comes of anything like that in the Caucasus, ever.
But it does raise the issue of partiality in news reporting. We are encouraged to side with brave Georgia and its telegenic President and not to trust the other lot. But, yesterday Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News wrote in the Times ‘our job is to represent all sides in an argument accurately and fairly and test them as rigorously as we can to allow audiences to reach their own judgements.’ So if one of the most experienced foreign correspondents in the English speaking world (albeit on ITV but governed by similar strictures) has concerns about Saakashvili - and has evidence to support it, I think we should be told more. It would clarify if this was just a lie (= ham-fisted Russian propaganda), or whether those New York diners were right in their support or very naive (see NY Times Aug 5). In the meantime I am reminding myself why Lenin ordered the Red Army into Georgia in 1921. It was to do with Ossetians and Abkhazians not wanting to be part of Georgia. Only back then there was no oil, no NATO, no US 6th Fleet and no President on TV in a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt and tassel loafers, to engorge liberal hearts in NYC but risk dragging the rest of us in into another load of trouble. Yes, I support Georgia, but a duty to support, because Saakashvili looks nice? Fiddlesticks.
‘I’m sending out an SMS ..’
I never thought I would pray for a mobile phone not to work. No, I am not on a train, listening to some ****hole. I am writing a book. It’s a novel, well, more of a thriller really, based on a handsome TV reporter – of course, what else. His name is Orlando Pound. I wrote another book about him some fifteen years ago. That one is on a memory stick somewhere. The modern equivalent of a drawer. The only fundamental change in the two stories is (are?) the gadgets I can place at his disposal.
Most gadget innovations created new exciting opportunities for the writer. Who can forget Q? Or The Wasp, John Buchan’s yellow and black Hispano Suiza racing up the Great North Road. Even Willa Cather’s settlers in covered wagons could give a redskin a run for his money with the ultimate gadget, the Colt 45, so cynically named the Peacemaker.
But the mobile phone screws everything. I feel like Anjelica Huston in that Orange advert – you know the one. How can I create dramatic tension if the victim just needs to call up for a bit of roadside assistance, or worse still somebody rings my hero to say danger lurks around the next twist in my plot.
To give myself any kind of a chance, I now have to manipulate handsets away from the characters, when they need them most. So the phone has to be lost, the battery flat, the signal nonexistent, just when a text could save a life but kill a story. To get around the problem, I am looking to set my next book in er, ….… - I’ll twitter you exactly where later; when I find somewhere other than North Dorset where mobiles don’t work and a cry for help is a message in a bottle.
Thanks for the Meme-ory, Cornell.
Researchers at Cornell University say they can analyse why certain news stories ‘win out and others don’t’. This must be the holy grail to any PR, but as is so often the case, you have to hack away the hype. What they have done is analyse phrases and to a degree ‘memes’ – which are more than just phrases. A meme is a way of capturing a cultural shift by unitising the zeitgeist.
Richard Dawkins, who coined the term, calls a meme “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation’. Memes, he says, are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashion or even ways of building arches. There are those including me, who are sceptical that it is possible to bottle miasma or for computers to convert and measure everything in binary. I prefer to blame TV, SN sites and magazines for expressions, fashions or ideas which seem to catch hold for ‘no apparent reason’.
But that is not what these chaps at Cornell think. They believe they have a remarkable tool which can, through algorithm turn fads into code, foresee which stories and ideas are going to capture the moment and which won’t. If it’s true, it truly would be a most remarkable tool. You may want to look at their web site www.memetracker.org and see for yourself.
Their research throws up some interesting (albeit American-centric) facts. Blogs, they say, tend to follow traditional news media outlets by 2.5 hours. Not this one! In fact stories often now appear on journalist’s own blogs before they surface formally in the traditional news.
Another Gee Whiz fact is that only 3.5% of stories originating in blogs make it into the traditional media. (They haven’t included Twitter - probably because it did not exist way back, er, three weeks ago) This will be a comfort to the CEO’s who are obsessed with tracking the blogosphere for hostile comment. Just think of the money they would save if they could use a bit of software to spot the runners and take the necessary action. Chaps like me would be out of a job. And political PRO’s could just put their feet up on the desk and relax, knowing that Idea A is a cracker and Idea B is DOA.
I don’t think it’s going to happen just yet. There is nothing particularly new about data mining, but this research does take snipping cuttings out of the papers to a new level of sophistication. What it highlights is the importance of the catchy phrase. The sound bite becomes ever more imperative, now there are super computers at Cornell that can digest 1.6 million news and blog sites and 90 million articles and posts at one munch.
I’m at number 911,818 in the charts
I am so excited. According to Technorati.com I am at number 911,818 in the most popular blogs in the world chart. Dear reader, you are truly the chosen One.
God Helps Those that Help Themselves
What have Heinrich Postl and and the former Speaker in common? Everything and nothing. Heinrich Postl, in case his name doesn’t immediately strike a cord, was a coal miner from the Austrian village of Puchberg. He like Michael Martin, a sheet metal worker, came from a desperately poor family. And like Michael Martin, Heinrich Postl was musical. Martin plays the bagpipes, Postl sang. It was his voice that first brought Postl to the attention of the primary school teacher in Puchberg in 1922. One Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The story has it that Wittgenstein would hear the miners singing on their way home from work and was so taken with Postl’s fine tenor that he encouraged and paid for him to receive professional operatic coaching in Vienna. Postl’s singing career never took off. Still, he has earned a small corner in history, by asking his mentor a simple question. ‘What, he enquired, should he do to improve the world?’
Wittgenstein says he answered, ‘Just improve yourself, that is all you can do.’ Had you or I delivered that platitude, it would have been the end of the conversation, but because it was LW, it is hailed as the quiddity of Stoicism, ensuring Postl’s place as a philosophy foot-note.
I can confirm the remark hit home. When I knew Heinrich Postl he was already an old man, recently released from POW camp having been pressed into the German navy. He was my grandmother’s butler. Shiny bald, bushy browed and smiling, he would wear a white jacket and serve us at lunch. In the evenings he might sing Brahms or Schubert for us accompanied on the piano by Rudolf Koder. Sometimes, he would sit in the huge stuffed black leather ‘portier’ chair by the front door waiting for ‘Die Herrschaften’ to return. He spoke little or no English. But to pass the time would read English and French literature from our library, including Shakespeare’s sonnets. As far as I know he enjoyed them. On one, possibly two occasions he asked me to translate for him. As I was barely ten, I suspect I failed.
The only other snippet about Heinrich Postl I can share, is that he was unusually hairy. I know this because we children would hide in the bushes, when he had his weekly dip in the icy lake below the house. He always took a bar of soap with him and would lather himself robustly, until he resembled a foaming snowman. Then he would plunge under the water, bubbles everywhere. As entertainment this was about as good as it got, though I do now wonder if he was not aware of his giggling audience. Heinrich Postl retired in 1971, a kindly man, memorable for his innate nobility, his gentleness and the pride he took in improving himself for no reward other than knowledge itself.
I mention all this because self improvement seems to be the theme at the moment. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of that Victorian bestseller, Self Help, by Samuel Smiles. He was the father of self improvement, the man who, through his ‘illustrations of conduct and perseverance’, told the world that God helps those that help themselves. Apparently it’s still in print and you have only to go to an airport bookshop to see the industry he spawned.
I don’t know whether Michael Martin bothers with self improvement books on his trips from Westminster to Glasgow, but he is about to be elevated to the House of Lords. He should by rights be the earthly manifestation of everything that Samuel Smiles, Heinrich Postl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the pantheon of Stoics and Victorian Britain revered – the man who through his own effort, made the journey from a Glasgow slum to the highest Office. Yet the public reaction is dismay. Just yesterday even the Times described breathlessly how:
The vetting panel for the House of Lords warned Downing Street against awarding a peerage to Michael Martin, the former Commons Speaker, The House of Lords Appointments Commission suggested that elevating Mr. Martin, the first Speaker to be ousted in 300 years, would damage the reputation of the second chamber.
This sort of talk was once the territory of gossip columns. Now they are so aghast at the venality of our politicians it is a news story. But please marvel with me at the hypocrisy of it. An Old Leftie sees it as his hereditary ‘right’ as a retiring Speaker to be elevated to the (now no longer hereditary) House of Lords; no matter that he failed to stop the House of Commons from helping itself to anything that wasn’t tied down. Martin’s chippy friends say that this dismay is further proof of the anti-working class, anti Scottish, anti-Catholic bigotry that has dogged him ever since he became Speaker in 2000. And they would be wrong. The reality is that their man was never up to the job to which he was promoted as a token sop to Old Labour. His faux feelings of entitlement are not a substitute for deserving, failure is not the new success. A peerage, especially the sort of Peerage Lite that Labour have created for the undeserving, is not what that Socialist aesthete Wittgenstein envisaged when he said to Heinrich Postl ‘just improve yourself, that is all you can do.’ From a public figure evidence is required that the world was also improved.
Qatar Snipe
Qataris Shelve Chelsea Barracks Plan After Prince’s Criticism. That was headline on June 12th. The fury (of Lord Rogers, architect of the £1bn Chelsea barracks scheme) over Prince Charles’ interference has taken up rather more space since. But I can’t help wondering if I am not having sand blown in my face. There is no doubting Rogers’ ire or the overwhelming local support for Prince Charles. But who leaked the private letter from the Prince to the Prime Minister of Qatar. Why did the Qataris take any notice, so late on in the planning process. Surely nothing to do with the oil price dropping from $150 towards $30 a barrel recently? Just a thought.
Twin Peaks
It was June 1953. Jamie was feeling sick and had to be taken home. The rest of us, Ki-Ora’d and butter-kist’d waited for the main film. It was a cartoon about this girl who got lost in a forest and was rescued by some dwarves. It was OK, bit long. Even the 3/9d seats at the Tivoli cinema, Wimborne were prickly in shorts.
The best bit was the film which came first. It was about these two blokes climbing Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. One of them was called Sherpa Tenzing. The Queen was pleased because he and this other bloke stuck a Union Jack in the top, to celebrate her Coronation.
From the age of five, I could tell you the route Hillary and Tenzing took. Base camp, Khumbu Ice Fall, Lotse, South Col. And there was all that vocab too: crampons, seracs, crevasses, belays. To a small boy this was beyond exciting.
It wasn’t long before I accepted I would never reach the summit of Everest myself. Vertigo and chubbiness featured in my personal lexicon. But it didn’t stop me reading everything about Nepal, the Hindu Kush, K2, Anapurna and dreaming, as Belloc puts it, about ”peak and field and needle of intense ice, remote from the world, sky beneath them, sky above them, a steadfast legion, they glittered as with the armour of the immovable armies of Heaven.’
Reality was any wet Sunday at Sandroyd prep school, trying to keep up on a compulsory walk to South Lodge and back. A distance of no more than a mile and a half. Mr House was shouting at Nicky and me to catch up or risk having him pick me off the ground by my ear, or worse still, the hair by my ear.
At the front, some seniors were singing their gang song as they marched. Their leader was a lanky twelve year old called Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, who had recently arrived from South Africa. His dad was dead which is why he had the title. He was the only person I knew with a triple barreled name.
I wanted to be in his gang. Quite why Fiennes would have an eight year old squirt in his gang never occurred to me. So I took the precaution of learning that song, just in case. I can still remember the refrain. It probably has its roots in Zulu or Xhosa.
Since then I have followed events on Everest and the adventures of our greatest living explorer. A friend of mine actually met Sherpa Tenzing. I heard Sir Edmond Hillary talk at the RGS. I nearly blew a gasket when someone claimed Sherpa Tenzing had carried Sir Edmond’s bags to the top.
I still dream of ascending Everest, but new words have slithered in. With vertigo and chubbiness come bad heart and senior citizen.
Finally, last month I did get to the top, not literally but vicariously, in my head and my imagination. Fiennes finally made it. Base camp, Khumbu Ice Fall, Lotse, South Col. Aged 65, with double by-pass surgery and missing most of his fingers and toes.
56 years to the month after seeing Snow White and Sherpa Tenzing at ‘the Tiv’, I still want to be in his gang.
The First Law of Holes - Stop Digging
In 2003 I visited Ireland to research the impact of their Freedom of Infomation Act on their members of Parliament. Here is what I wrote at the time.
Freedom of Information caused barely a stir in the Republic of Ireland until January 1999 when a Sunday Tribune reporter, with two weeks experience, requested the records of all Members expenses. His name was Richard Oakley.
From the outset the Oireachtas (Ireland’s parliament) refused on grounds of privacy. They argued that these records contained Members’ personal information, given by them in confidence. But media pressure was building. Richard Oakley and the Sunday Tribune turned to the Office of the Information Commissioner. In May 1999 The Oireachtas released partial records, but without the Members’ names.
Richard Oakley appealed again to the Information Commissioner to determine if the public interest over-ruled privacy and so force the Oireachtas to divulge those names as well. Believing the electorate might choose ‘cut price’ Members if they knew what each one was costing the Irish taxpayer, the Oireachtas used a number of legal and emotional arguments in defence of their decision to withhold.
They claimed, for example, that ‘the information would be used to make comparisons between Members’ and that the level of expenses was ‘not a valid indicator of that Member’s performance’. Other grounds included: ‘that the newspapers were likely to oversimplify figures’ and that ‘public curiosity was not ‘coterminous’ with the public interest’.Information
Commissioner Kevin Murphy was having none of it. He ruled that the public interest in ensuring accountability ‘far outweighed’ any right to privacy which Members might ‘enjoy’ in relation to their expenses. He threw out any suggestion that expenses could be considered ‘private papers of the Members’ or ‘official documents of the Houses’ adding, ‘he had great difficulty in seeing that details of expenses ….. are any more private than their salaries.’ Members, who had earlier voted themselves an IRL£5000 expenses increase, had all that summer to appeal the Commissioner’s decision. Wisely, on PR, not legal grounds, they decided to remain silent. The anticipated hostile publicity overriding their unease at the revelations. And so on 5th September 1999, nine months after Richard Oakley made his request, the Oireachtas released the names alongside the expenses paid to each of the two hundred and twenty five Members of the Dáil and Seanad Éireann.‘Tomorrow will not be a happy day for some of our politicians’ said the Irish Times gleefully (while inwardly smarting they had been scooped by a ‘boy’ at the Sunday Tribune).
To everyone’s amazement, the Oireachtas had no means of providing the financial information they held on computer in a user-friendly form. In the end, they had no choice but to release each record as raw data. One thousand pages of ‘screen dumps’ delivered to the nations’ media.
The press release said, ‘The word expense has come to have a surreptitious connotation, conjuring up in the sceptical mind a frivolous image of wining and dining.’
And worse was to come. The figures released and trumpeted by the papers, were not just their claims for the previous year, but the amounts actually paid to them. These included arrears from previous years plus expenses for work related foreign travel. This was particular hard on Tom Enright, an elderly Fine Gael TD. Of the IRL£ 45,000 he received in 1998, some £15,000 had been travelling as a member of the Council of Europe. But to the media Tom Enright was Ireland’s most expensive TD.
Closer analysis of the figures revealed still more anomalies for the media to pick over. Why were the significant differences between neighbouring Members? Why did Ministers claim so little? (Ministers’ expenses paid from departmental budgets, themselves became subject to Freedom of Information requests).
To counter this frenzy, the Oireachtas engaged in some damage limitation. Fianna Fail Chief Whip Seamus Brennan compiled a table showing that far from milking a gravy train, Members were actually losing money! Overnights in Dublin, he claimed, were so expensive that Members had just one pound left for dinner. And as for miscellaneous contributions to local causes and ‘drinks’ for helpers, they were ‘incalculable’.
Then adding ‘Any perusal of the figures will indicate that no profit ensues to Members from their expenses and disabuse any notion that expenses surreptitiously enhance salaries.’ The press met this with derision. Stories about a Member who reclaimed the entry fee to no less than seventeen golf tournaments or another who hid a heart attack on a train, because he was claiming mileage, circulated Dublin dinner tables.
‘Oireachtas Members should apply the first Law of Holes’, ran the leader in the Irish Times,’ when you’re in one, stop digging.’
The Oireachtas admit this effort back fired. But they make the point that no matter how hard they tried to achieve balanced coverage, the media remained wedded to the far easier, chart topping TD story, rather than look for reasons. Their superficiality included confusing expenses with salary and, inevitably, stating that claims were paid ‘unvouched’ and tax free, whether relevant, true or not.
And so it continued for some weeks, both at a national, but also at a local level. Members were invited onto radio talk-shows to justify themselves and often made it worse through their ignorance of what expenses they were entitled to claim or even why.
Unlike the UK, the Irish parliament did not issue figures on a scheduled basis, but awaited FOIA requests. So when in December 1999, the Oireachtas issued the next tranche of figures, it was still under Freedom of Information though not under duress.
It was to become a dance. The Media applied, the Oireachtas released. The Media pounced; they discovered a new candidate for the most costly member award, and, as expected, bandied comparisons without much attempt at analysis.
The creation of league tables concerning the ‘top ten’ is invidious, misleading and tendentious. Sensational headlines obscure and ignore the circumstances that give rise to legitimate and statutorily based expenses. (from an Oireachtas press release 7 July 2001).
Interestingly, by the end of 2002, the Irish media appeared to have lost interest. The figures are mostly published alphabetically, not top down and without much comment. As for the Members, they survived.
My warnings to the Speaker over expenses
From The Sunday Times, May 17, 2009, by John Stonborough
It gives me no great pleasure to say “I told you so, Mr Speaker”, but had you heeded my advice in 2003, much of this need not have happened.
I was employed as media adviser to the Speaker and the House of Commons Commission in late 2001. My background, first as a London policeman, then as a radio and television reporter and finally as a PR man gave me the necessary skills to bring some new thinking to the House on handling a hostile media environment.My strategy when dealing with PR issues is, to use a German phrase, Die Flucht in die Wahrheit, which means “escape into the truth”. And it was my intention that openness would be the basis of my media strategy at the House of Commons. It wasn’t that easy.I was the first media adviser the House had ever employed and there was disquiet, with members asking questions on the floor of the Commons about my presence. Michael Martin even described PR people as “oily rags”, meaning why talk to the oily rag when you can talk to the engineer. The problem was the engineer wouldn’t talk.. One to one the Speaker and I got on well. He is an affable man and we both share an interest in pipe music. He plays the bagpipes and I was a side drummer in the Gordonstoun school pipe band. Several times we would sit in his flat in the Speaker’s House and over the three years that I worked at the House, he told me very interesting facts about his life and forebears. Martin’s grandmother nearly starved to death, trapped on a cod fishing boat in the ice-locked St Lawrence river in Canada.
He would also tell me about his early life as a shop steward in Glasgow and his childhood in a tenement in Anderston, Glasgow. It’s this background and his soft Glaswegian accent that caused a tabloid newspaper to dub him “Gorbals Mick”. I strove to stop it, explaining to one reporter that it was deeply offensive to Martin, as “Mick” is a derogatory term for a Catholic in sectarian Glasgow. The Speaker did joke though that Gorbals was a lot posher than Anderston where he grew up, but I knew the nickname wounded him badly. It stopped for a while.
Other than security, the main preoccupation in 2002 and 2003 was the impending publication of members’ expenses and allowances. This was to be a major departure from existing procedures but it was finally agreed that this would happen in the autumn of 2004.
The responsibility for the publication was administered by the fees office, which issues every new MP with an expenses bible that is known as the Green Book. It sets out what and how every elected member is entitled to claim for. It’s a complex document as every member is technically self employed, responsible for maintaining their own offices and staff in the constituency as well as needing an office and living accommodation in London.
One particular section deals with members paying their family for administrative jobs — the Speaker employed both his wife Mary and his daughter — and another section deals with members’ second homes, for which at that time they could claim about £21,000 per annum. My concern as media adviser was that the Speaker was still claiming for a second home while living at the taxpayer’s expense in a grace and favour flat in the Speaker’s House, a little palace on the bank of the Thames. I felt that this was a danger area. Irrespective of whether he was entitled to do so under the rules in the Green Book. I knew the media and the public would view it critically and it would cause him embarrassment. How right I was.
During 2003 the Green Book was in the process of being re-written. I was present on one occasion when the Speaker asked to see a draft.
I was aware that this document directly affected his own livelihood and he took a keen interest in the wording of any draft changes. I believe he kept the draft document for 10 days or possibly longer and rejected or reworded some of the changes recommended by his officials. One day I got wind that Michael Crick, the BBC Newsnight reporter, was investigating a senior Commons figure. Try as I might I couldn’t find out who. Eventually it was to be Iain Duncan Smith and the “Betsygate” affair. He was accused of claiming for his wife salary even though Crick alleged she did no parliamentary work. This was later proved to be unfounded but, nonetheless, I saw the result of the publicity and I was not about to let anything like that happen to the Speaker.
On the July 1, 2003, I had one of my regular private meetings with the Speaker in his study overlooking the river. It was a friendly encounter, just the two of us, and I decided to mention this business of claiming for his second home. I think I had mentioned it once previously. I should not have needed to do this, but few Commons officials had the guts to voice their concerns to him. I did.
The Speaker went puce. He told me to stay where I was and summoned the Clerk of the House, Roger Sands, and made me repeat my “allegation” in front of him. I wrote to the Speaker afterwards saying I thought he had been a bit rough on me. Being an adviser is not a popularity contest. The Speaker never spoke to me again and like others before and after me I was cast out. This did not worry me overly, no more friendly chats about pibrochs and reels, but plenty to do for the commission in the run up to the publication of expenses, including monthly formal meetings of the commission which I attended.
Obviously I became very familiar with the Green Book. In my opinion it contained what are called “Spanish practices”. The term comes from the Elizabethan era, but is now used to describe deceitful workplace financial practices. The print unions (I was formerly a member of the NUJ) and the TV camera crews with whom I worked were famed for their officially sanctioned fiddles. To me as a former policeman and investigative reporter, some of the Green Book seemed to allow members to make claims that would not be acceptable in the commercial world.
Part of my job allowed me to address the commission. My opinion was that the House should over-publish details of expenses, knowing that in time the media would become bored and it would no longer be a story. This opinion was roundly over-ruled and ignored. Indeed on one senior official gently scolded me for talking too much at a commission meeting. When I first saw some of the expenses claims made by members, prior to their publication, I was surprised at the range of claims between individual MPs. It was obvious the press would have a field day and that there would be a leaderboard of the most expensive members. The Speaker to my relief did not come near the top. The publication day came and a tsunami of media assaulted us, but as it had been very carefully planned we dealt with it.
It was then I made a stupid mistake. I wrote a note to a friend in the office of Michael Howard, the then Tory leader, saying that in my opinion he should get a grip of those Tory members who were playing fast and loose with the rules but that Labour members were at it too. I had no business as an officer of the House sending any such partisan document, however private. To make matters worse, I managed to send it to the wrong person. All hell broke loose and I resigned my job immediately. Today, I still stand by every word of that e-mail, What is more, had the Speaker not bawled me out and the House of Commons Commission listened to wiser counsel (not just me) on matters relating to the employment of family members, the claims on second homes as well as adopting a policy of full disclosure instead of employing every tactic to maintain an untenable status quo, much of the catastrophe that has befallen the House today need not have happened. Michael Martin and the Commission of the House of Commons must take responsibility for this and in my opinion the Speaker should resign.
The Last Word In DIY
More excitements this week with a new client for Air Supremacy, media training B&Q in conjunction with Z-PR Ltd. An interview is of course the ultimate DIY experience.
M&S (Marx and Stonborough)
Big excitement on the business front, we have teamed up with Nici Marx, the former BBC news anchor and reporter. Nici has been at the sharp end of news and current affairs, anchoring live programmes for BBC World TV, BBC News 24, CNN International and Sky News for more than two decades. You can read more about her on the Air Supremacy website.
Nici has her own successful consultancy with clients anyone would be proud of. Last week she was training senior Ministry of Defence personnel. She was in the Middle East recently for the EU, advising on raising the profile of a major EU humanitarian project in Gaza and the West Bank. All fascinating stuff.
Nici will concentrate on Media Training and Broadcast Media Relations consultancy, bringing new insights to the wisdom and experience provided by Jane Renton and the rest of my excellent team. I am delighted to welcome her.
Just A Minute*
I worked with a woman at the House of Commons who said that she would like to have BBC Radio 4 as her boyfriend. Because, she said, its usually interesting, sometimes spectacular but you can always switch it off. Well, not always Liz. Not if you suffer from ‘Can’t Switch Off Syndrome’.
Paul Donovan, who writes the thoughtful, often amusing Radio Waves column in the Sunday Times (see Culture p77) is offering a bottle of Bolly, for the best ‘CSOS’ story from R4 addicts who’ve been glued to their cars to catch the end of something, even if it meant being late for something else.
Paul mentions the Afternoon Play but I can add: Analysis, The Now Show, Start the Week, Excess Baggage, Law in Action, Woman’s Hour, Midweek, FOOC, the News, File on 4, Crossing Continents, PM, The News Quiz, Today, I’m Sorry I …, The Moral Maze 
and anything at all with Fi Glover (left).
I remember once driving down Park Lane enjoying something Radio 4ish. Stylish, witty, slick, topical, relevant, provocative, essential. It was only after a few minutes I twigged it was a repeat of a prog I’d made some years earlier. Glued? No, bolted.