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opinion – columnistsed vaizeyMP COMMENTkevin maguireJOURNALIST COMMENTWhy it’s becoming tougher to ‘Transparency’ provides lowbe a parliamentary candidate hanging fruit for hungry hacks t’s quite common these days to find prominent figures from the public affairs sector making the move into frontline politics. In the past month alone Simon Nayyar and Darren Caplan – both PA professionals – have been chosen as Conservative candidates at the next election (see ‘Stakeholder’, p39). Public affairs practitioners may have a head start on other candidates.They should be able to write a mean press release, properly engage with supporters and opponents alike, and run successful campaigns.But they still face the same time pressures as other candidates in full-time work – as well as, quite frequently, the psychological hurdle of fighting a completely unwinnable seat (one such person in this position from the PA sector is Richard Mollet of the BPI, who has the daunting task of representing Labour in South West Surrey). The latter problem is easy to surmount. The human mind plays tricks, and I have no doubt that those fighting hopeless seats have convinced themselves that they will win, as I did when I fought a Labour seat in 1997. But what about the time pressure?When I first fought that seat in 1997, I simply made sure I had every other Friday off, and spent that religiously campaigning.Since then, life has got both easier and more difficult. Technology means that you can campaign 24/7, firing out press releases and emails from the comfort of your desk.But that also means that you are constantly thinking about your seat, and campaigning work is eating into your work schedule, simply because technology now Your opponents will be allows you to respond to everything. Then there are client conflicts to take into scrutinising your client account. How do you campaign against list, even if you aren’t binge-drinking if one of your clients is a prominent drinks company? Your opponents will be scrutinising your client list, even if you aren’t. Finally, there is the question of money.Thankfully, you won’t be caught in an expenses scandal, because you can’t claim your expenses. But it will be expensive. There are travel costs, and you will be expected to have a base in your seat, and contribute financially to the local party. ConservativeHome estimates the annual cost at anything between £25,000 and £50,000. I think it has become harder and harder to become a parliamentary candidate.The costs and time pressures have increased massively, at a time when MPs have voted themselves more and more propaganda money. But you can take comfort in the fact that whether you win or lose is probably ultimately up to David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg’s efforts, rather than yours. Famously, when one Tory MP once won by 83 votes, he told Mrs Thatcher he thought her last-minute visit had secured the 83 votes and tipped him over the edge to victory. She responded icily: “Those 83 votes were yours; the rest were mine”. PAN Ed Vaizey is shadow culture minister and MP for Wantage; he is a former director of the public affairs team of Consolidated CommunicationsIome time soon my name will appear on the list of guests invited to Chequers for Sunday lunch with Gordon Brown. Released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, it’ll be scrutinised line by line, not for the names of hacks like me but business bods and showbiz stars. The papers will then be full of stories about who broke bread – and why – with the prime minister. Greater transparency in politics and public life in general is proving a rich vein for the media, with every young journalist coming into my trade an expert on the workings of FoI. The one-time comptroller and auditor general, Sir John Bourn, has cause to regret this new openness after Private Eye published killer details of his high-living while scrutinising public spending. I cannot pretend Equally the Sir Humphrey Appleby of the Dethat greater partment for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory transparency has Reform must rue the legislation. Sir Brian Bender, been anything for it is he, was branded Whitehall’s hungriest other than a mandarin after he was shown to be breakfasting, lunching and dining on a truly heroic scale in the disaster for MPs cause of British industry. And then there are our MPs who, when not reclaiming mortgage payments or leafing through the John Lewis catalogue, now claim for mucky movies. MPs are stuck between a rock and a hard place, pilloried when they publish figures so as to be accountable, then flogged when others are leaked, in the style of Jacqui Smith’s Virgin Media bill. So I understand why most people involved in lobbying – sorry, public affairs – shudder at the very thought that January’s report by Tony Wright MP’s public administration select committee could end up giving the likes of me access to minutes, etc, of any contact with politicians and government officials. I’m instinctively in favour of sunlight, not just because I’m another reporter looking to pick a few extra pieces of low-hanging fruit, though that’s certainly a mouth-watering prospect. Openness is commended in principle and I believe will lead to better decision-making. The lobbying behind the scenes for Heathrow’s third runway, for example, resulted in a decision of dubious transport value that’s environmentally, socially and politically (for the government) wrong. Yet I cannot pretend that greater transparency has been anything other than a disaster for MPs as a group as well as individuals, successive jaw-dropping disclosures undermining public confidence. In the medium-to-long run, the behaviour of MPs will change for the good but, in the short-term, the damage is enormous. I can appear on the Chequers list and no-one bats an eyelid, but a chief executive or an entrepreneur arouses public curiosity. No wonder many readers of Public Affairs News will be sweating about enforced transparency! PAN Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) at the Daily MirrorSApril 2009 | PublicAffairsNews | 19 APRIL 2009www.publicaffairsnews.cinside this issueCelic departs HSBC for Prudential role By IAN HALLPreparing for power How would the Tories tackle their first 100 days? page 18 ‘The register does not work’ View from Brussels PAGE 13 A picture of health? Helen Bradburn pagES 20-21 Ed Vaizey Kevin newsRail regulator bags external affairs supremo Ken Young joins from the Pensions Regulator, which replaces him with former aide to pensions minister Rosie Winterton The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has recruited the Pensions Regulator’s head of communications to head its newly created 18-strong newsAlstom brief for Bell Pottinger Public Affairs Alstom has brought in Bell Pottinger Public Affairs to provide UK lobbying advice. The agency appointment, believed to be the first time the company has handed out a major retained UK PA contract, follows the appointment of a new UK comms director a newsCentrica lures Defra aide Novozymes plans by ian hallFTSE 100 energy giant Centrica has lured Justin Johnson from Defra, where he was specialist adviser to environment secretary Hilary Benn MP. Johnson has taken the role of public affairs manager, reporting to director of public affairs and Euro New-biz round-up Your essential monthly digest of organisations appointing or changing consultanciesSMARTA.COM • G4S • ASSOCIATION OF LICENSED MULTIPLE RETAILERS • AMGEN • LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY • UCAS Kaup. Singer Fried. depositors’ action group – Bell Pottinger An ‘action group’ of deposito newsEx-Brunswick partner claims HSBC role Banking giant HSBC has made a brace Her role with HSBC marks a a senior appointments to bolster return to an in-house banking job: its international public affairs. before Brunswick she was interim The group has appointed Joanna director of corporate affairs newspeople moves www.publicaffairsnews.cONLINE 20MAREustice joins Allan’s Portland Portland PR last month recruited one of www.publicaffairsnews.c clients, splitting his time between the ONLINE 26MAR the best-known and longest-serving agency and his duties in Cornwall. names in the Conservatives’ PR MediaHow political rivals are faring in the presscommons incheS: Miliband, Clark and Hughes rival PARLIAMENTARIANS’ press coverage – number of mentions 16 Ed Miliband 8 Mar: Sunday papers note that Miliband will warn the Scottish Labour conference that the party and the country face testing timesmed Consultation tracker Your essential monthly digest of new consultations of interest to the public affairs communityON-DEMAND TV • ECO-TOWNS • TICKET TOUTING • GAMING TABLES • ‘CARBON NEUTRALITY’ • MEDICAL DEVICES • APPRENTICESHIPS CONSULTATIONS LAUNCHED IN THE PAST month BBC Trust – ‘Project Canvas’ european news‘EU quarter’ revamp hailed PA pros welcome news that Rue de la Loi area is set to be given makeover BRUSSELS: Lobbyists have given the values they defend and promote on the thumbs-up to news that Brussels’ international stage”. generally ugly ‘European quarter’ is Edelman’s London-based european newseuropean News in brief – EXTRA B-M PREPARES EP ELECTIONS PREDICTOR: Burson-Marsteller (B-M)’s Brussels office is this month launching a website – www. predict09.eu – that will offer updated weekly predictions, based on polling data, of the result of European Parliament elections. The el european newsConference dominated by ‘downturn’ talk BRUSSELS: the EIGHTH EUROtive Andrew Hawkins are pean Centre for Public reproduced below. Affairs (ECPA) annual The conference was conference saw top Eurodominated by talk of the pean professionals gather impact of the recession, at the Berlaymont Are you prepared for the changes about to take place in Brussels? As a political and public affairs communications specialist, Dods can help you to keep track of the personnel and institutional changes that are on the horizon. With this in mind we provide specific services focusing on the elections think-tank newsByrne and Gove at IPPR/PwC debate The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has teamed up with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to launch a three-year work programme that aims to set out the ‘practical steps’ needed to create a ‘smarter, more effective’ state. Their ‘Towards a Smart BAR . RESTAURANT . CAFÉ Located moments from the Houses of ParliamentCatering for events 10-180 people Exclusive Hire Meetings and Conferences Bar and Café Area Four Millbank, London SW1P 3JA Four Millbank, London SW1P 3JA Tel: 020 7233 0032 Tel: 020 7233 0032 Fax: 020 7233 0010 Fax: 020 7233 0010 E opinion – leadereditor’s COMMENT Scottish market typifies agency sector as ’09 q1 ends very time I ask someone working for a PA consultancy how they are coping during the recession, answers seem cloned from the same template: “...clients still need public affairs advice, even if the economy’s lousy. opinion – pan panelQHOT TOPIC: AFTER THE ELECTION... [ Jo Tanner Director, IN-HOUSE PRTHE QUESTION: What would the first 100 days of a Cameron government bring? With the Conservative Party maintaining a healthy lead in the polls, Tory strategists are planning for how to adjust to power after more th opinion – columnistsed vaizeyMP COMMENTkevin maguireJOURNALIST COMMENTWhy it’s becoming tougher to ‘Transparency’ provides lowbe a parliamentary candidate hanging fruit for hungry hacks t’s quite common these days to find prominent figures from the public affairs sector making the move into frontlin Profile – HELEN BRADBURN‘There is a huge amount of potential to do more here’ After 11 years at the NHS Confederation Helen Bradburn left for the top PA and comms role at the Health Foundation. Adam Hill finds her ‘thinking her way’ into the new role here is an electric piano in one of changes of em PROFILE – HELEN BRADBURNPA person now,” she says – after another longish pause. These exchanges are typical of Bradburn’s conversation: thoughtful rather than polished, querying rather than bullish, with responses seeming to arrive newminted rather than off a corporate production line. She should ge PA CONSULTANCIES IN SCOTLANDScot to trot As London-headquartered Mandate Communications recruits well-known Scottish lobbyist Craig Harrow to open an office in Edinburgh, Public Affairs News maps out the consultancy scene north of the border FLEISHMAN-HILLARD Opened in Scotland in Dec 1996 Top PA pe PA CONSULTANCIES IN SCOTLAND M c EWAN PARTNERS Was GJW Scotland in 1999, then McEwan Purvis; has been McEwan Partners since 2007 Directors are Sam McEwan, Jayne Swanson and Jacqueline Jamieson Four staff ‘85 to 90 per cent’ of turnover is from PA Independent, but part of FIPRA network First minister PHARMACEUTICALSPharma chameleons Counterfeit medicines and ‘market access’ are just two of the issues exercising PA professionals in the drugs sector, writes Adam Hill n 2007, more than four million counterfeit medicines were seized at EU borders, a contraband haul up 51 per cent on the previous yea PHARMACEUTICALSthe European Commission and due to be read in the European Parliament this spring. It aims to standardise the current ad hoc arrangements on patients’ rights when they receive medical treatment in other member states. Another is an EU directive on information to patients, taking in is GM FOOD‘Countries have different rea ‘Frankenstein food’? Or an idea whose time has come? Adam Hill reports on the groups battling it out over GM technology there was more discussion in Brussels,” says Moll. “It depends on the local agenda; countries have different reasons to reject it.”AEuropean re GM FOODasons to reject it...’ Policy director Peter Melchett explains: “Our fundamental argument against GM as a technology and GM crops as products is that the technology gives rise to uncertainties and risks.” Yet a large part of the group’s messaging also revolves around downplaying the whole iss EVENT PARTNERNOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSEDMONDAY 11 MAYTHE SHORTLIST WILL BE ANNOUNCED ONFOR SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AND TABLE BOOKINGS CONTACT:EMMA STEPHENS Dods, Westminster Tower, 3 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7SP +44 (0)20 7091 7677@emma.stephens@publicaffTHURSDAY 2 JULY 2009 www.publicaffairsn recruitment PC ad(PAN)030-4-09-c 3/4/09 11:34 Page 1appointmentsEnterprise Insight Head of External Relations to £45k (possible part-time arrangement available, £ pro-rata) Enterprise Insight increases entrepreneurial behaviour in the UK by equipping people with the confidence, skills and ambition t “Over many years I have drawn upon Steve Atack’s expertise in international executive search for public affairs appointments. 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This is a position for a robust and well-rounded communications professional wit ePoliti .com Parliament Policy CommunicationPolitical EPolicy Con suCa mventspaigltat ion snC ove ragei Parla menNe tarywsParli am Briefi entary ng Pa persYour route into Parliament ePolitix.com driving the UK’s online political communicationOur services include: Parliamentary news Campaign coverage classifiedThe magazine for MEPs, by MEPs theparliament.com subscribe online POLITICS, POLICY AND PEOPLETo advertise here call......Emma Stephens 020 7091 7677 April 2009 | PublicAffairsNews | 35 bridge_195_60 copy.pdf 16/12/2008 10:57:14classifiedCMPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE Dods Monitoring is a specialist political information provider delivering real-time monitoring to the political and policymaking community, from multinational corporations to trade associations, government agencies to chari reviewsWAITING FOR THE ETONIANS byNick Cohen | £12.99 | Fourth Estatehe last Etonian prime minister, Harold Macmillan, formed his administration more than 50 years ago in January 1957. When asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, Macmillan famously replied: “Events, my dear bo out and aboutmy life Sophie Sutcliffe Corporate affairs executive News International Newspapers Where do you live? Shad Thames, next to Tower Bridge. So it’s a very civilised 20-minute ‘commute’ to work and ideal for trips to Borough Market on a Saturday. What’s your media diet? Wake up to the Today out and about All group shots are captioned left to right. To include photos of your event, send images to ian.hall@publicaffairsnNewsreader Alastair Stewart OBE (an Action for Children ambassador) and Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families Beverley Hughes MPMarket Research Societ Best In Class James Nason Warwick Smith Chris Lowe Richard Sutcliffe-Smith Robbie MacDuffMerging to makeContact: firstname.surname@coll