A little colour Labour didn’t need
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 by Jon ClementsThere 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.
