Message to Damian McBride and the remaining Labour Party spin-machine: Barack Obama, arguably the most respected politician on earth, said of himself: “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man . . . I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind.” Read on ›

The PR travails of the British police over the death of bystander Ian Tomlinson at the G20 summit in London reminded me of the lessons in crisis management learned from the shooting of Charles de Mendez and the crisis at Three Mile Island in 1979. The reason is simple: first impressions count. Read on ›

Initial reports suggested Gordon Brown’s Labour Party gained three percentage points in the opinion polls after last week’s G20 summit in London. However, a poll in today’s The Times suggests that the “New World Order” bounce for Brown was lost in the row over MPs’ expenses and in the post-summit analysis that exposed Gordon’s spin. Read on ›

If we want a glimpse of where PR might go over the next ten years, we should examine Japan. The world’s second-largest economy’s property bubble burst 20 years ago. Since then deflation, recession and reality have broken the country’s commitment to consensus building, as Leo Lewis argues in “Japan’s harsh new reality” in today’s Times. Read on ›

The British National Party (BNP) is thrashing the mainstream parties – but only online. This says as much about the internet as it does about politics, and I don’t think the mainstream should overdo its response. Read on ›

There’s a timely call in today’sTimes for bank bosses to take the lead in restoring the reputations of their own institutions. Some have, but the message remains valuable. Read on ›

Richard Edelman argues on his blog 6 AM that we are entering a new era of Mutual Social Responsibility, in which companies will operate differently, partner differently and market differently. Really? Read on ›

After my post in homage to Jade Goody and Max Clifford, CIPR President Kevin Taylor left a comment on my blog, and Max Clifford kindly got in touch. The latter tells me that he’s not surprised by the comment of Kevin Taylor condemning him. Read on ›

Today’s Jade Goody story in the Sun is very touching. The PR trade needs to get over its aversion to Max Clifford and his brilliant manipulation of a story at once luminiously modern and as old as time. He’s on the side of the angels. Read on ›

This is when I miss London. It stages the debates we need. Last night Polis, the London School of Economics media think tank organised: Why Did Nobody See It Coming? Reporting The Crash – The Debate. The panel was distinguished and Charlie Beckett thankfully gives a good account of it today on his blog. Read on ›