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There is a long list of people in the media spotlight whose misjudged comment has landed them in trouble.

The reporting of Gerald Ratner’s infamous throw-away line about his high street jewellery shops’ product range as “crap” did nothing for business, just as Network Rail justifying late-running trains because of the “wrong type of leaves” on the line invited nationwide ridicule.

Thinking before speaking to the media or - yet more preferable - anticipating questions and preparing honest and considered responses is essential to minimise the risk of trashing your reputation in public - or at least avoiding a distracting media feeding frenzy.

I can only assume this wasn’t what business minister, Baroness Vadera, did when speaking to ITV news yesterday about the state of the economy, in which she claimed to have seen “a few green shoots of recovery”. The Baroness is, reputedly, no intellectual slouch and maybe her comments were taken out of context but this metaphor couldn’t have been more ill-judged on a bad day for job losses. 

Her gaffe was a gift to the media - the BBC’s 10 o’clock news had it as lead story - not least because abuse of the “green shoots” analogy had previous form with Tory chancellor, Norman Lamont, in the early 90s.  And it gave the opposition a golden opportunity to say the Baroness was inhabiting “a parallel universe” at a critical time for the Government.

As the news showed last night, there are some signs of positive economic activity  despite the overall outlook appearing bleak. Maybe if Vadera had alluded to those while leavening her comments with some realism about the economy - and leaving the botanical imagery in the garden shed - it could have been just another balanced ministerial comment buried in copy, not front page news.

As a journalist, the desk would sometimes ask me to do “a colour piece”. That colour can be elusive, unless politicians make it easy for you.

Now, unless you’ve been living on Mars or with that recently discovered tribe of rainforest indians, it can’t have escaped your notice that the economy’s in trouble.

So how can Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling’s comments in the Guardian be blamed directly for a fall in the pound and the FTSE?

Commentators have been banging on for months about the likely longevity of this financial crisis, so how do the Chancellor’s words have such a direct influence on the markets?

Well, maybe they do; maybe they don’t. But, the point is, the confluence of these two events is too tempting not to connect in the eyes of the media. That might be exposing my somewhat rudimentary grasp of international finance, but it goes to show that loose talk - if not costing lives in this instance - may not help Mr Darling come Cabinet reshuffle time.