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.

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.

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.