In 1994 Tony Blair promised to turn the UK into a “stakeholder society” when he declared New Labour, New Britain. It was the cornerstone of his “Third Way” politics. But nobody’s talking about either term in the current UK General Election. Maybe the wheels will come off the “stakeholder” rhetoric in business too.   Read on ›

When local boy Roman Geiser, Burson-Marsteller’s Swiss CEO, was catapulted into the stratosphere as Chief Operating Officer for EMEA, I just had to make the twenty-minute train ride to Zurich to interview him. Read on ›

Gordon Brown has been almost universally condemned for his silence over the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. So it is left to me to speak up for the prime minister’s right to remain silent in the heat of battle. 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 ›

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 ›

Boyd Neil has written a valuable manifesto in favour of CSR entitled “CR on the Hotseat” on his PR blog The Intangibles. Here’s my manifesto and it isn’t against Corporate Social Responsibility. I just put honesty as the highest responsibility. And I do think CSR has such a bad image it should be ditched in favour of sustainability, eventually. Read on ›

Barclay’s Chief Executive, John Varley, has been brilliant on Sky TV, the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (and later this week on Panorama). Not a moment before time, we have a senior current banking figure not only talking (that’s very rare) but talking like a human being. Read on ›

As I dug in to my morning Muesli here on the Zurich lake I caught up with yesterday’s FT. There I read an amusing editorial about Barclays being the listening, theatrical bank that headed off a shareholder revolt by the skin of its teeth. It’s true though: in a very clumsy fashion, Barclays and its shareholders are forging a brave new world. The implications for financial PR are profound. Read on ›

It is easy to dismiss Tim Berners-Lee as seeking to create a Ministry of Truth or Ministry of Trust on the internet as if he had taken Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four or The Inquisition as a blueprint. But he’s not that extreme and PR has an interest here. Read on ›

Today’s article by Juliette Jowit in The Guardian previews the imminent release of Salter Baxter’s eighth corporate responsibility report entitled Sustainability Gets Tough. It reveals the diminishing returns to be had from CSR PR. Read on ›