Trouble in Stoke On Trent

Watching Peter Hain on Question Time last night wriggling and spinning around the semantics of the debate on WMD conjured in my mind a mental picture of King Canute trying to hold the sea back. The fundamentals of PR centre on trust and belief in the virtue of a product. The painfully loyal Tony Toady shook his head and stabbed remarks at fellow panellists like an aged punch drunk boxer. He quoted the findings of Hutton and attempted to shift blame on the BBC. Stoke was not fooled and he could not find a single thread of support. .Hein clearly did not hear the jeers from the Stoke on Trent audience does this disability pass through all the cabinet. No matter how many communication people the government employ the natives are restless.
To quote the last Stuntwatch. On the Dyke resignation

�There is one critical point that emerges from this, and it is this: who is the public more inclined to believe? Journalists such as Jeremy Paxman and John Humphreys, or a Machiavellian government and its well-oiled publicity machine? Journalists often get a bad press, sometimes rightly so, but their levels of self-interest are far and away outstripped by those who determine government policy and presentation, and the public knows it. The public knows that the BBC slipped from its oft-quoted status as the gold standard of news journalism. The public also knows that in its determination to reclaim its status, it will redouble its efforts to act with integrity and propriety. Its trustworthiness will actually be enhanced, after all the sound and fury of current events have subsided.

But the government? It never changes. All governments are duplicitous � it�s the nature of the beast. In which case, I suppose, you could say that the conduct and conclusions of the Hutton enquiry reveal that this particular government is one of the finest examples of the species this country has ever bred.�

But one day for this heroic yet futile act of appalling PR expect to hear the title Lord Peter Hain of Trafalgar Square.