The upshot of this week’s PR Week crisis comms event should have PR practitioners breaking out in sweaty palms.

And why not? After all, it seems like common sense that journalists don’t like being lied to.

To emphasise the point - and with great foreboding - The Times home news editor Martin Barrow warned PROs: ‘If we know you’re lying, we will work extra hard to ensure we expose you and your company.’

In the steaming cauldron of PR sins, saying “no comment” suggests you have something to hide; trying to “spin” your communications is a way of dressing up something nasty as something nice and, finally, “lying” is just plain stupid.

Anyone with the job of speaking to the media on behalf of their organisation could do worse than take the advice put succinctly in Frank Jefkins’ book, Public Relations: “If PR is to be credible, it must avoid false image making…the media are prejudiced about PR to the extent of expecting false image polishing.”

If you’re lucky, the instances of having to break bad news to the wider world while journalists or bloggers bay for blood at your gates will be rare. And when it does happen, there are ways of tackling it - but lying isn’t one of them.

And, on the topic of Peter Mandelson’s return to Government, it wasn’t long before the knives were out.

Already, the Tories are accusing the new business minister of stage managing his return to the department, with hooting supporters suitably placed for maximum effect. Of course Mandelson denied it, but the Prince of Darkness, architect of SPIN, will be a difficult reputation to shift.

SPIN - that concept feels like it belongs to the era when the Milennium Dome seemed like a great idea. Yet it’s become part of the lexicon, to the point where I hear people in companies talking about how they’d like to “spin it” this way or that. Maybe they don’t mean “spin” in its purest sense; but it’s still a dangerous place from which to start your communications campaign.

The Oxford Dictionary defines spin, rather politely, as “a favourable bias given to a news story”. Journalist and broadcast, Andrew Marr, was somewhat more blunt, calling it “Evasion, truth-shaving, manipulation, bullying.”

Whether you’re pushing a sexed-up WMD dossier to justify invading a country, or a new product launch, spin is best avoided. Resorting to it would suggest a cover up of something that won’t withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, there is always someone willing to scrutinise and find you out,  which risks harming your reputation.

And today, with the spread of social media, it gives voice to many, many more people scrutinising and - potentially - lampooning your claims in cyberspace forums and blogs, which have a habit of showing up in Google searches.

Mandelson might be back, but some of the tactics he pioneered should be confined to history. Let DJs do the spinning.

They say that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, well step forward Lembit Opik. Former beau of both weather girl, Sian Lloyd and one of the Cheeky Girls, has enlisted the services of Bell Pottinger in Liverpool to try and buff his image sufficient to get him elected as Lib Dem President.

Bell Pottinger have plenty of form in moulding the profile of unpopular politicians but why choose the Liverpool office? I guess as a Lib Dem, the head of BP Liverpool, Richard Clein, has a personal relationship with Lembit.

This is definitely part of a trend in our media obsessed world. Disgraced former Lib dem front bencher, Mark Oaten, has been using the services of a former Lib Dem spin doctor to try and repair his public image. There’s nothing wrong in this. I’ve done a fair bit of this kind of work myself and its extremely interesting. No word on whether Lembit is paying Bell Pottinger but Guido has a way of finding these things out:)

The next thing you know, we’ll be seeing fading politicians staging a comeback by appearing on reality shows.