There is something narcotic about the language now used to sell war.Listen carefully to the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and his attack dog, Pete Hegseth, and you notice a troubling potency to it. The words are small. Brutal. Blunt, punchy syllables delivered directly into the bloodstream of modern media.Iran bad. America strong. Strike hard. […]
Sad news. I’ve just learned that the mighty Paul Elliott — theatre producer extraordinaire — has died.Paul produced pantomimes across the UK when I first met him in 1979, but he also belonged to a now-diminishing tribe: the impresario. Instinctive. Theatrical. Unafraid of a bit of danger. A man who understood that mischief, when properly […]
There’s a temptation to gorge on the Beckham tabloid chaos as a spectacular soap-opera episode on steroids, a family dysfunction inflated into content, a morality play and audience participation event all at once. In truth, we’re watching a very tragic modern tragedy play out and mistaking it for entertainment. However, a lesson is hiding in plain […]
If Reform were deliberately staging the worst publicity stunt of the year, squatting rights for Robert Jenrick would be inspired. Not a mistake. Not a wobble. A full-blooded, two-footed own goal, studs up, VAR waived. Think Jamie Carragher in 1999 two own goals against Manchester United then earnestly explaining to the camera that it was […]
It’s been a strange start to the New Year. Against the broader dystopia of global events, January has produced a familiar chorus: PR is dead, the media is broken, nothing works anymore. This view usually comes from people still counting influence in headlines and hyperlinks, like Victorian naturalists insisting the dodo will bounce back. From […]
I owe Theo Cowan a job I never got.At twenty, I tried to persuade him to employ me. Instead, he gently redirected me to Stratford East, deciding my maverick instincts would be better deployed somewhere noisier and less upholstered. He was right. He usually was.Theo Cowan affable, amused, instinctively civil was Britain’s first proper PR […]
Every now and again, in the blur of identikit post-match interviews, those dutiful little exchanges where a sweaty footballer mumbles clichés and a presenter politely nods them along, someone actually cuts through.This week, it was Alex Aljoe. On Tuesday night, speaking to my new Chelsea hero, the wunderkind Estevao Willian, she proved why she’s a […]
The BBC faces existential tremors; a long-cracking institution straddling huge fault lines. Its latest Panorama failings sat with the governors for six months. They did nothing. They went quiet. Until it exploded. Now it’s too late for cries of “putsch” or mealy-mouthed apologies. Lets face it the BBC has been battling negative headlines for years.The […]
A trillion dollars. Once the stuff of galaxies and government debt, now it’s just another Tuesday in late-stage capitalism. We used to look at that number with awe. Now it barely registers. That’s the point the number’s so big it’s meaningless. A measure of success detached from impact, purpose, or humanity.I’ve spent a career watching […]
They telegraphed the breakfast briefing for days a pre-scripted play of excuses before the inevitable tax U-turn.So by the time Rachel Reeves stepped into the briefing in No.10, we already knew the plot. What followed was theatre without tension: a Middle England headmistress defending a poor Ofsted rating, fluent in risk management and managerial calm.A […]