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.
Just weeks into the job as The European Union’s Foreign Affairs Minister defended her decision not to show Europe’s support for the people of Haiti by saying “I’m neither a doctor nor a fireman”. Well, Hilary Clinton is neither of those things, but she flew to Haiti within hours of hearing of the country’s devastation.
While on Air Force One she called her European counterpart. No reply from the office of Britain’s High Representative. Why? It had gone six pm and the Baroness was on the train to London, heading for an early start to the weekend at home. So the US, whose aid is one quarter that of the EU, got all the publicity, and Hilary was seen on screens throughout the world. As French journalists are saying of the Baroness Ashton, she doesn’t cut “le moutard”.
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