Sky News reports today that Bill Nighy, the veteran British actor, has obviously touched a raw nerve in the City.
Nighy’s endorsement of a global ‘Robin Hood Tax’ on the world’s banks attracted international media coverage earlier this week. In a short film to promote the launch, Nighy plays a banker who eventually agrees to a 0.05% tax on international bank transactions to raise up to £250bn annually to fight poverty and climate change in the UK and abroad.
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Another year, another list of blunders, where people left right and centre are faced with the consequences of their public relations crisis handling. Of course plenty of good things happened in 2009, but there also appeared to be a whole list of mistakes which left a lot of people rather red-faced.
When journalists wave chequebooks around, anything is possible. John Terry would be just another testosterone-fuelled zip-challenged booter if it weren’t for one thing – the World Cup.
Suddenly, the entire self-respect of a nation hangs on the actions of one man. No, not Terry. Max Clifford. Strange how when nobody can make sense of a confused situation Max is always there to steer the media and the actual people involved through it all.
When in trouble, always signal loud and clear that you understand the public’s views (even if you don’t agree with them) – that’s a golden rule we emphasise time and again throughout our crisis training courses. Would that the MPs, or the social worker in charge of the Baby Peter case had listened….and now the hapless Baroness Ashton finds herself in the firing line for the same reason.
It was all going so well down at the Chilcot enquiry. The suave former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith seemed to have no difficulty in swatting away his questioning by Sir Roderic Lyne. They may have been launched like exocets, but they arrived like flies.
Rather like former Home Secretary Michael Howard’s famously endless ability to twist and spin so that Jeremy Paxman’s questions failed again and again to elicit a straight answer, Lord Goldsmith answered a question with a question, posed philosophical conundrums and generally cast doubt about the very purpose of the entire enquiry.
Training some highly qualified and expert technicians currently driving the global rush towards 3D cinema and television, we were captivated and excited about the wonderful new world all this technology is opening up. Who would have thought that surround sound would work on a laptop?
And who needs it? All of us once we’ve tried it apparently. But in a media interview there’s an easy way to trip up even the most fervent evangelist. In this case, ask them if they actually have their wonderful systems installed in their own homes. Happily, they all did. And very proud of them they were, too.
Phew – many’s a spokesperson has been badly caught out with that one simple question.
