Swift resolution should have seen off Suarez shame

It’s rare that a sportsman adorns both the front and back pages of national weekend papers, and it normally means one of two things. An heroic achievement beyond the norm, or a public indiscretion beyond the pale. Unfortunately for Liverpool player Luis Suarez, he finds himself rooted firmly in the latter camp - the new poster boy of sport’s ‘Hall of Shame’. Refusing to shake the hand of Manchester United player Patrice Evra would in most circumstances simply be seen as bad manners, or a crude attempt at the time honoured sporting practice of ‘mind games’. But in the context of this match, and the two players’ personal history, it was dynamite.


After being found guilty of misconduct and fined £40,000 for racially abusing Patrice Evra, Suarez has found himself at the centre of a wider debate on race and racial discrimination. Suarez’s comments came amidst a media still digesting the recent conviction of two of the murderers of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. For many commentators, there was an obvious link to be made between the Stephen Lawrence case and his comments, with the latter a clear indication of the persistence of racism on terraces and within British society; racism responsible for Stephen’s death. Fair or not, Suarez’s comments neatly dovetailed with current social commentary.


Given this combustible context, Suarez and his manager Kenny Dalglish’s actions represent a huge own goal for Liverpool (sorry!) on two important communications principles. Firstly, make sure there are clear channels for internal communications. In times of crisis, it is vital that people within an organisation are aware of each other’s future actions and sing from the same sheet. A number of people have suggested that Dalglish was shocked that Suarez refused to shake Evra’s hand, this can only have occurred through a breakdown in internal communications. Secondly, identify an opportunity to draw a line under bad publicity. The handshake at the start of Liverpool’s game against Manchester United presented the perfect chance to bring a resolution to the issue. Instead, Suarez’s actions meant both he and Liverpool were in the weekend papers for all the wrong reasons. To make matters worse, Dalglish’s post-match comments criticising the media and refusing to condemn his player’s actions meant further opprobrium. As a blueprint for how to mess up external communications, it’s a pretty thorough one.


Race and racial prejudice is quite rightly an emotive issue, and coverage criticising Liverpool’s handling of the issue has spread as far as the New York Times. There have even been suggestions that lucrative sponsorship deals are under threat. The result has been an inevitable apology from player and manager, but the lesson learnt must be to never allow pride to get the better of effective communications.


John Hood
Consultant
john@linstockcommunications.com

Swimming against a Southern tide

Perhaps seeking to take advantage of the new devolutionary agenda a new movement for the North has recently sprung up, the Hannah MitchellFoundation. 

The call, from a group of Labour MPs, is for the North to be granted greater devolved powers to counter what they say has been years of recession while the South has sailed merrily along.

But we have been down this route before. Plans for a regional assembly in the North East were defeated in a referendum. The Northern Way has come and gone. The Regional Development Agencies are in their dying days. It would seem the regional agenda has moved on and off the political agenda.

The current Government are more interested in local economies. What drives them, how do we create more jobs, what is it that will stimulate the private sector?  Those with an interest in the future prosperity of the North might be better served to push at this more open door rather than resurrect previous models.  They will also need to demonstrate private sector backing for reform, and, as we have seen with Local Enterprise Partnerships, getting business involved is often the hardest part.

Businesses need to be persuaded that it is in their short and long term interests to devote time and resources to strategic issues that spread out far beyond their immediate responsibilities. Ultimately this may come down to cash investment. No doubt business support for a Mayor in Liverpool has been greatly boosted by the promised investment of more than £100m in the local economy.  But it seems unlikely that the private sector is going to be convinced that another wide ranging regional body is the answer.  With LEPS already set up across the north, perhaps the pragmatic approach is to encourage these bodies to work more closely together on the big ticket strategic issues of relevance to the north as a whole, rather than create a further tier of decision making. 

Whatever route they choose to pursue, one thing seems clear.  Governance structures come and go, but the issues remain the same.  But it’s better to work with what you’ve got than try to redraw the map, which can be expensive and in many ways exasperating for the private sector.

Tony Cox 

tony@lnstockcommunications.com

@tonylinstock

140 words on 140 characters

Twitter. Short and sweet. Its power lies in its simplicity. But power brings responsibility, and abandoning that responsibility can lead to an abuse of power.

Recently, a Labour MP and a Conservative Councillor have made the mistake of trying to condense a complex issue into 140 characters. Both of them are in the public eye and know that Twitter can be an immensely powerful platform for arguing, persuading and influencing.

Twitter is also immediate. A thought can make the journey from brain to feed in seconds. (Twitterfolk are speedy readers too; hitting ‘delete’ can come too late.) So when it is used by people in the public eye, the threat of the stream of consciousness taking over presents a constant communications challenge.

Lessons? Don’t let Twitter’s need for speed let your tongue run away from itself. Think before you Tweet! 

Tom Yazdi

Consultant

tom@linstockcommunications.com 

Auto-enrolment and waiting for the train that never comes

At this time of year it’s not much fun to start a Monday morning waiting on a cold wintry platform for a train that never comes. For those of us London commuters we know the feeling all too well.

At first the announcer assures us the train is on its way; the service is experiencing minor delays; the train will be at the station in approximately 10 minutes; there are leaves on the track; the track is frozen in parts; there has been a small signalling problem in the Lower Sidcup area.

However, there is that nagging feeling that the train will never arrive.

That is the danger now facing the introduction of auto-enrolment.

Originally all staff from small firms who were not already members of their company pension scheme were going to be auto-enrolled from April 2014. This date will now be shifted to May 2015 for staff of firms with fewer than 50 employees.

There is a sound argument for reducing the burden on small firms at this difficult economic time. However, the risk is in the message it sends to small business owners.

It is employees of small firms that are most in need of pension support from NEST and auto-enrolment. And employers need to start preparing now. But how do we think they will react to this latest delay? They will breathe a collective sigh of relief and push the item to the agenda for 2014. The thought will also cross their mind about whether this will ever actually happen.

If the Government is serious about auto-enrolment it should stick to the current timetable and send a clear message to all employers that they need to put a system in place as soon as possible.

Otherwise those financial advisers and employee benefit consultants seeking to work with employers will receive short shrift when they approach firms and offer to help them make the necessary transition.

Tony Cox, Linstock Communications

Will proposed employment law changes lead to a diversity bypass in the workplace?

The recent employment law changes proposed by the Business Secretary Vince Cable have been described as the biggest shake up of the employment law system for decades. A potential loss of unfair dismissal rights, changes to tribunal entitlements and the ability to reduce the consultation process when a company is faced with redundancies would be major steps.

The government says that by simplifying the system it will deliver savings to business of more than £10m a year. And the changes have been well received by the British Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for Economic Affairs.

So what about employee protection? They have the right to feel secure in a job but what if they work in a company that doesn’t really care about human resources? Will the balance of power shift back to the employer? Will it be easier for unscrupulous companies to hire and fire as they please?

The clear message from Government is that employment laws will be less onerous in the future. But this message could obscure some important details. If employers forget their responsibilities to treat employees equally they could find unfair dismissal claims replaced with claims for ‘discrimination’ on the grounds of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age or disability under the Equalities Act of 2010; a retrograde step that would undermine the Governments initial objective of giving more flexibility to businesses. A clear communications strategy – to present the general direction of policy under the theme of ‘cutting red tape’ - should be underpinned by a clear message that employers still have responsibilities to uphold.


Ashnoor Nanji
Consultant
ashnoor@linstockcommunications.com

What’s the point of Conference?

Conference season is – mercifully – over.  They have been pretty dismal affairs this year: none of the leaders’ speeches were up to much; there were few significant policy announcements, and less substantive debate. And, as John Harris demonstrated in his brilliant conference videos, there’s a weird and worrying disconnect between the blinkered optimism of the party hacks and the economic reality in the world outside the conference centre.[*] When the most exciting things to happen were a speech by a sixteen year old (though these happen so regularly as to be almost ritual) and a flap about a cat, you know things are bad. 

So instead of looking at the winners, losers, ups and downs of the conference season – it’s hard to think of more than a handful of winners, in any case -  here at Linstock we thought we’d go a bit more existential and ask, do parties need conferences at all?

Traditionally, party leaders hoped to achieve two things at Conference: inspire the base and persuade the public.  Which of these is emphasised more varies from party to party, and on whether a party is in government or opposition.  So Lib Dem conferences have – traditionally –  been stronger on the former and weaker on the latter.  Their democratic party rules, which mean that real policy is made at conference, is brilliant for making activists feel like the party is really theirs.  When conference votes to decriminalise drugs, or unilaterally disarm, it’s been less brilliant at persuading the public that the Lib Dems are a serious party. 

Conversely, from when David Cameron became Conservative leader until the last election, Conference was when the Conservatives demonstrated that Cameron could lead and the party was reasonable.  Given that the leader’s speech is probably the only day of the year on which the opposition are guaranteed top billing on the evening news bulletins, it is no surprise that opposition parties tend to use Conference to reach out to the voters. 

Party leaders always hope that conference will do both, and sometimes they do.  Usually they achieve one or the other. When parties are in the midst of civil war, they can obviously be disastrous – as they were for the Tories under IDS – but it’s rare for all three parties to have bad conferences.

The striking thing about all the conferences this year is that, for the most part, none of them managed to either inspire activists or persuade voters.  For the first time in decades, the hall wasn’t full for the beginning of the Prime Minister’s conference speech.  Contrast this with early Blair, when the party had to lay on overflow rooms so many people wanted to hear him.

Now in government, grass roots debating and making of policy was inevitably far more muted than usual at Lib Dem Conference, with the party deliberately limiting hostile motions on the NHS bill.  And at all the conferences, there were far less activists than there used to be. According to the FT, less than a quarter of attendees were ordinary party members. This is at least partly to do with money: Conservative Home calculated the average cost of attending Conservative Conference to be over £700.  It’s hard to inspire your activists when they can’t even attend the conference.

This would matter less if party conferences had engaged the voters.  But evidence suggests that they have not. The YouGov daily tracker of voting intentions has recorded steady support for Labour at around 41% of the electorate since early September, Conference failed to produce even the smallest bounce in the opinion polls.  Similarly, the five YouGov polls published between the 12^th and 16^th of September all put the Lib Dems on 9% or 10%, as did the five most recent polls.  It’s possible that there may have been a slight improvement in the Tories’ position.  But it would be very slight – a point or two at most – and well within the margin of error.    

Of course, there is one other reason parties have conferences: fundraising.  It’s thought that the Conservative’s make £2 million from Conference, and all three parties turn a profit.  But if Conference no longer works as a forum with which to communicate with either party members or the public, parties should think again about what they’re supposed to be, or even if they need them at all.  Activists are far more likely to engage online than by going to conference, and sites such as Conservative Home are far more democratic and collaborative than conference has been for decades.  Nor do Conservatives and Lib Dems need conference to persuade voters: they have the bully-pit of government to do that. 

Labour, of course, don’t, but it’s still not clear that an annual national conference is the best way to talk to the public.  Several regional conferences, for example, might allow the leadership to reduce the distance between them, activists and the public.  Despite never taking place in London, conference still feels metropolitan and reinforces the disconnect between politicians and everyone else. Cynicism about politics and politicians is higher than it’s ever been, and politicians need to find a way to challenge this.  Conference isn’t it.  

Tom Lyttelton, Intern (thomas@linstockcommunications.com)

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[*] Read Hopi Sen on the delusions of conference attendees.

Conservative conference: Setting and controlling the news agenda

This week has seen another pitched battle between the party spin doctors, the media and the even more unpredictable wider world.

Things didn’t start smoothly for the Conservative Party with the comments from Andrew Tyrie about the lack of a serious growth plan. In the vein of David Batty and Graeme Le Saux (for those who remember the mid 90s Moscow mauling) the media are always keen for an argument among the same team and his perceived attack was quickly picked up and blown up.

But up stepped the spin doctors of No 10 who had a quiet word with Mr Tyrie, presumably to remind him who the team captain is. They unfortunately lost some of their mystery when the quiet word was captured by a camera crew, which was very The Thick of It.

David Cameron attempted to regain the initiative with his interviews on Sunday and a mea culpa over his attitude to women. No more calm down dear for Dave who wanted to express his deepest regret for recent comments. Although this generated some positive headlines, actions, as always, will speak louder than words.

The Chancellor then pulled a monetary rabbit out of what we had been told was a completely empty hat to offer a freeze on Council Tax. This certainly warmed the hearts of middle England and was warmly welcomed by the Daily Mail among others.

But questions remain over the plan for growth. The credit easing for small business was left field enough for many commentators to not know quite how to react. It has been positively received so far, although questions have begun to be raised about its implementation and implication for Government.

Overall it has been a relatively positive conference so far for the ruling party. The challenge now is for the Prime Minister to raise the level and try to leave the country with an upbeat message, despite the ongoing economic turmoil. Should be a restful night for Mr Cameron then…

Tony Cox