Interesting times for the UK and US’s leaders and leaders in waiting.

As Gordon Brown and the UK government is bailing out the banks, it leaves the Opposition with little to do apart from offer their (grudging) support. Anything else would look churlish and fly against the need for the public to see something done.

But while unable to attack Gordon Brown’s sudden decisiveness on the economic crisis, Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has felt the need to prick the way he claims Brown is coming across - as “triumphal”. Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer sees it differently, sketching the Prime Minister as lifted from his trademark moroseness by the current challenges. So, image goes a long way in politics.

And in the US, as election day approaches, poor John McCain looks like he might be his own worst enemy, becoming better known for his “short fuse” and “erratic leadership” than the statesmanship Barrack Obama is adopting, even referencing the great FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” quote in his current speeches. Obama is calmer while McCain hopes the final presidential debate will enable him to “whip Mr Obama’s you know what” (his words, apparently).

With image counting for so much in politics, I wouldn’t stake a half dollar on it.

What an interesting autumn of politics lies ahead. Here, the Labour party conference kicks off in a week while ministers re-run the Mutiny on the Bounty and, in the States, the final reckoning for Obama and McCain.

BBC4’s series about American politics last night featured the 1972 Robert Redford film, The Candidate, which looks incredibly prescient about the way politics has evolved in the UK. In it, a fundamentally good bloke with honest convictions gets absorbed into the business of winning elections, complete with the “style over content” manipulation of voters that Gordon Brown probably wishes he’d picked up from Tony Blair. Telling indeed is the final scene when, on realising he’s won, Redford’s character turns to his campaign manager, pleading: “What do we do now?” So much for the manifesto, then.

Meanwhile, in the US presidential race, a clear distinction has emerged between the candidates’ strategies. Michael Tomasky’s blog in The Guardian explains how McCain’s campaign is focused on winning the “news cycle”, in other words, attacking Obama through adverts and generating stories in the mainstream media. Obama, conversely, is concentrating on grass roots politics by having a greater number of local offices than his opponent in every state, registering voters and building support in advance of November 4.

These contrasting approaches seem to illustrate some of the tensions between old and new media tactics; whether it’s better to have the traditional media on your side or get through to people directly, as in the social media world.

Question is, will it work? As one of the campaign managers in The Candidate says to a bemused Redford: “We know this is all bullshit, but at least they’re believing it.”

PR Week have covered Gordon’s foray onto YouTube this week. I think its the best thing he’s done, hot on the heels of Paddick’s Twitter, the key to politicians on social media is to recreate the old days, when people were actually able to ask politicians things live! And then they would talk back!

Since TV took over politicians have gone into ‘top-down’ soundbite mode and people are now massively cynical about it. So Gordon has got the medium and the principles right but it will still be Gordon and that’s the bit PR Week have quoted me on!

Seems Drew B didn’t quite have his full view expressed as well:)

I actually stopped reading the Mail on Sunday because I got so fed up with tenuous stories about income, jewellery and baubles, supposedly gained by Cherie Blair or AN Other Labour minister as a result of them greedily abusing the trappings of state and generally filling their boots at the expense of ‘you and me’.

What struck me about these stories wasn’t so much the tone but the fact that these scoops were rarely followed up by their Sunday cousins or Monday’s news hungry lobby teams.Had that feeling though when I read the Sunday Times  scoop on Sarah Brown’s previous PR career. She used to be a partner in Hobsbawm Macaulay, who did some work for the British Council, which is funded by the Treasury, who were run by Gordon Brown, who knew and later married Sarah Brown. There’s no allegation of any wrongdoing on her part except that Gordon should have declared his interest. I’m sure if the Chancellor wants to divert funds into pet projects that benefit his network he can think of better ways! Number 10 didn’t exactly devote the Saturday to trying to kill the story, it was barely breathing anyway. This was their statement: “We are not dignifying this ridiculous smear with a response.”