How not to organise a photo-op

In eleven months' time, Ed Miliband could be the Prime Minister of Britain. This is not by any means certain - thank God - and both Labour and the Conservatives have everything to play for, but for that very reason, you would think he and his staff would be straining every sinew to make him look like someone who could be trusted with the nation's highest office.

Which makes his behaviour over the photo-opp for the Sun all the more extraordinary.

The bacon butty incident could have happened to anyone, although it was a sign of a slack media operation that the pictures were allowed to appear in the newspapers - Campbell and Mandelson, or indeed Sir Bernard Ingham - would have found a way to "persuade" journalists or editors not to use them.

But appearing in a promotion for the highest circulation newspaper one day, and then issuing a sort of not-quite-apology the following day - that is elevating clumsiness into an art form. If this is what he makes of the job of being Leader of the Opposition, God help the country if Miliband ever becomes PM and has to take really difficult decisions.

There is a very telling blog post by Atul Hawtal describing what some of the Labour party's own people thought about this shambles at "Labour Uncut" here.

And as former Labour activist and official Dan Hodges argues in the Daily Telegraph here, it was not Ed Miliband's advisors who fouled up. It was Ed himself.

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