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Well, we never like to say I told you so.

But it was us (last Wednesday) who predicted an amazing SNP by-election victory in Glasgow East at 11/8!

Ten pounds on that would have seen you net a health £23.75 this morning. What's the odds of a 100 seat Tory majority at the next election? Or Gordon to go before the end of 2008?

Slimmer than they were yesterday morning, that's for sure...

Snippets

3 things for you this Thursday;

• A brand-new 'Day in the Life' piece, explaining what new lobbyists actually get up to all day, has now been uploaded to the Careers section.
  
• Also for those looking to make their first steps on the career ladder, there's an interesting post on the Fleishman-Hillard Public Affairs 2.0 blog worth looking at.
  
• And most enjoyably, a hilarious BBC article on a New Zealand court allowing a child to change her name. 'Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii' - embarrassing enough for you?

Video killed the political star

Our new 'Videos' section has been uploaded here for some light political relief.

Just as an introduction, here's a excellent bit of Boris Johnson doing what he does best.

Village People

One thing that lobbying and politics in general frequently finds itself guilty of is needlessly creating exclusivity. In part, this is because it can act as a selling point ('we are the only people who have access to the politician's eyes and ears'). Mostly however, it's an ego thing.

A phrase that neatly sums this up is 'the Westminster village'. It is extremely unlikely you will go through a lobbying career without this asinine concept cropping up on a monthly basis. 'Westminster village' is typically deployed in situations when something happens that seems momentous to people spending too much of their time involved in politics but is completely ignored by everyone else (as in 'it shocked the Westminster village, but you clearly couldn't give a toss, ignorant prole').

Essentially, the 'Westminster village' is the hallowed realm where decisions happen, and where people genuinely care about press releases and EDMs. Those who see themselves as inside it think of it as a leafy gated community, a place where political compromises can be made without the irksome distraction of reality and public opinion coming to the fore. The problem is that the both the phraseology and philosophy behind 'the Westminster village' is exactly the kind of thing the turns people - especially young people - off politics completely.

Working in the village can be fun. Just don't be the village idiot.

2p or nor 2p

Once you've been governing for a while, it gets trickier and trickier to please the electorate. In 1997, Labour MPs could earn plaudits and praise just for not being Tory MPs. Eleven years on, and an apparently positive move to postpone increases on fuel duty - a significant expense for consumers and business - has been greeted as cynical electioneering.

There are good grounds for this cynicism of course - with Glasgow East in the balance, the Government is desperate not to let what should be a staunch Labour seat fall to the reinvigorated Nationalists. But with everything in Scotland going against Labour; from the fiasco of finding a candidate in the first place to the fact that the Scottish Socialist Party candidate also has the surname Curran (and may therefore confuse the voters), the premonitions look bleak.

It remains to be seen whether this budgetary move shores up the worrying polls, or just adds fuel to the opposition's fire. If you're a gambler, odds on a SNP victory are 11/8...

PMs in a pod

Support came from an unexpected quarter this weekend for Gordon Brown as John Major expressed 'sympathy' for the Prime Minster. Mr Major, who led the country through his own fair share of economic strife in the 90s, also suggested that Brown was perhaps how being 'blamed more than he deserved', though emphasised that this balanced out the excessive plaudits he received during his years as Chancellor (the good stuff was all down to John, obviously).

Cold comfort for Brown perhaps, as it may remind the electorate how similar the two PMs are. Both following leaders who defined political eras, both losing embarrassing by-elections...

Watch the interview on iPlayer here (fast forward to 40:48 for the interview).

Interview Hints and Tips for Success

New sections on the website specially written for graduates and new joiners looking to get on in the industry - interview tips and our tips for success.

Good luck!

Davis bores home to victory as records tumble

No surprises in Haltemprice and Howden as David Davis sauntered to victory in a by-election story which started all over the front pages and finished as an embarrassing footnote.

On first glance, it's difficult to see who the real winner was in this particular contest. Although Davis picked up a massive absolute majority (74%) and increased his share of the vote by nearly a quarter, the withdrawal of the two main opposition parties and backbiting from his own Tory colleagues diminished any political capital he may have hoped to win. There were few positives for the other candidates to take home either, as they endured a routing at the hands of a politician roundly mocked in the media and Westminster village (though not by most of the public, it must be added) for his 'stunt politics'.

Taking a pragmatic view though, the real winner becomes clear - the Electoral Commission. For a kick off, a record 26 candidates lost their deposits - netting the EC £13,000 straight off the bat. As an additional bonus, turnout was semi-respectable at 34% (almost double the pathetic 19% in a 1999 Leeds Central by-election). Not a bad day's work at the ballot box for them - whether the same can be said of Mr Davis remains to be seen...

Scared of 2.0

Thanks to what it is - helping big organisations talk to politicians about things that may not always wholly be in the wider public interest - public affairs is seen as an unsurprisingly buttoned-up industry. In the Internet age, this reticence is making it look increasingly old-fashioned.

Unlike PR companies who bandy about their wares and opinions on blogs and YouTube, the lobbying side of the communications family has been slow to embrace new media and Web 2.0. Much slower than the politicians themselves in fact, who spend so much time on the Internet updating blogs and websites these days it is a wonder they have any time to meet anyone at all. Some forward-thinking UK firms, such as Edelman, have started a web conversation, but it seems that no-one else really fancies joining in (their blog gets as many comments as this one).

The reason why PR has embraced the web while PA has largely shunned it is very simple. Web 2.0 helps PR. It helps create buzz, augments innovative campaigning and reaches out to the 16-25 market traditionally so difficult to target. But Web 2.0 hurts PA.

Firstly, web 2.0 means that anyone; the local health association, the NIMBY neighbour who wants to block the bypass plans, any company in the world - has access to both the detailed political information and public support required to construct a basic lobbying campaign within ten minutes. With some nous and application, they don't need consultants at all.

Equally worrying to PA is the transparency the Internet brings. Now, good lobbyists, of which there are many, would contend that transparency is a good thing. It reassures clients, politicians and the public at large that nothing cloak and dagger is going on. Transparency is good for business.

The problem lies in the kind of transparency created by web 2.0. It's the kind of transparency that could have someone easily posting libellous and entirely false claims about me in the comments to this blog. It's the kind of openness which could lead a journalist taking a misquoted passage out of context and writing an entirely fictitious story which turns out to be extremely damaging for a business. In short, it is uncontrollable transparency. And while a good PR campaign should embrace a little chaos to help create that buzz, a solid PA campaign must be controlled to the last letter.

Finally, web 2.0 shows PA up for what it is in the communications world. While PR remains the gorgeous party animal, talking to everyone and enrapturing as she goes, lobbying remains the slightly geeky girl standing quietly in the corner, making intelligent but dull remarks about the decor.

And that's the part which really rankles.

Edelman triumph at awards

Back-slaps and champagne all round at Edelman after their triumph of being named as UK Consultancy of the Year at the 2008 Public Affairs News awards.

The ceremony, held this year at the swanky Cafe Royal in London, is an annual celebration of talent of the lobbying industry. Other winners included GPlus Europe, who took the European Consultancy of the Year title and Open Road as New Consultancy of the Year.

Vince Cable was the rather left-field choice as Politcian of the Year - presumably on the strength of his description of Gordon Brown as Mr Bean...

Former ministers - worth their premium?

The usual excellent backbiting stuff from Private Eye this month, running a typically sardonic eye over the less savoury elements of the UK public affairs crowd.

Receiving ire this time is the employment of former Ministers within political consultancies - David Jamieson and Ivor Caplin in this case, who both held Cabinet posts before resigning in 2005 to join Golden Arrow Communications and Foresight Communications respectively.

But in a twist on the normal complaint, Private Eye does not attack on the grounds that former MPs are using former contacts to get preferential treatment for their clients. Rather, it claims they aren't actually very good at it.

And when the likes of Jamieson are being a paid a reported £250 per hour for their services to clients, it raises an important question to be considered by all consultancies considering the appointment of a former member of the House. Ethical elements notwithstanding, is it really worth it?

Cracking the code

Public anger towards weak lobbyist regulation on the other side of the world today as Australia's new code of conduct for political consultants was rubbished by Prof. John Warhurst, a leading politics science academic.

The code, imposed by the Australian Senate last month, has been attacked for not being sufficiently comprehensive (failing to cover the lobbying of unions, industry associations, churches and charities or corporate executives).

This story could be seen as a boost for the self-regulatory regime currently in place in the UK. It is no surprise that when set against it, lobbyists prove to be pretty competent at lobbying for a dilution of something that curtails their own activities. But when it is in their own market interest to draw up and enforce a code, pushing for weaknesses does not lead to an optimum long-term gain for a consultancy.