A startling 0% of UK PR professionals think Gordon Brown can communicate according to a poll just released by the industry’s professional body the CIPR.
Inaugural survey findings, May 2007
Topical issue:
1. Who do you think would make a better Prime Minister?
Gordon Brown – 41%
David Cameron – 55%
Ming Campbell – 4%
2. Who is a better communicator?
Gordon Brown – 0%
David Cameron – 28%
Tony Blair – 72%
3. Has the civil service press and PR function been politicised since 1997?
Yes – 87%
No – 13%
4. The opposition and the press say that Tony Blair has relied too much on ‘spin’. Do you think that this is fair?
Fair – 77%
Unfair – 23%
[tags]Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Tony Blair, PR[/tags]
sixtysecondview.blog 
Thinking about this now, I wonder if the survey says as much about the political make-up of the senior people in the UK PR industry as it does Gordon Brown . . . . OF COURSE IT DOES SILLY BOY.
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Hi David,
I have it on good authority that Brown is borderline autistic. Which might explain a lot. He has a brilliant brain. He has incredible focus and attention to detail. But when it comes to people-feely-touchy stuff he struggles (poor bugger). Cameron is the exact opposite (poor bugger).
I also think you’re right the political affiliations of the PR scene has always been blue-to-mauve rather than pink-to-red in the general colour scheme.
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I think it is evidence that some PR folk tend to blow with what they see as the winds of change. After all they read the papers more closely than more or less anyone.
That said, there is an interesting contra-theory. It proposes that ‘un-spun’ Gordon may be duller than Tony Blair but will over time prove more reassuring. Meanwhile David Cameron, undoubtedly an able communicator (and ex in house PR guy) is in danger of being painted as the true heir to Tony Blair, whom GB’s people assume the British public have had enough of.
Time will tell.
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Colin I agree. this was one of those things I saw late on Friday and banged a post up without fully engaging my brain . . . . . hence my comment on my own post about this saying as much about the political leanings of the 200 people the CIPR selected for this survey. Personally, and as you know, I have always found the idea that a Tory party that is led by David Cameron and whose ‘finest hours’ saw Sir Bernard Ingham inventing much of what they now label “spin” underqualified to complain about it now.
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