Twitter raves for The Hired Man

Posted by & filed under Communications, Online, theatre.

As of 1st May I’m taking up the role of Director of Communications and Audience Services at one of our most vibrant regional theatres, the Mercury Theatre in Colchester. My time there could not have got off to a more exciting start.

Last night was opening night for The Hired Man, and the Colchester debut of the theatre’s new Artistic Director, Daniel Buckroyd. The show was received with a rapturous standing ovation – richly deserved. There was a real buzz on Twitter after the performance, which is thrilling to see. I’ve captured some of the highlights here, plus a short video introduction to the show.

If you can, come and see it! Well worth traveling to see.

So hello Vine, Twitter’s new video service. Say, haven’t we met before?

Posted by & filed under Communications, Online.

Vine, the new six-second video service promoted by Twitter, is causing a buzz across the socialmediasphere. What has it got that its predecessors lacked?

vine_logo_lrg

Bear with me here. There have been many attempts to update Jerome McCarthy’s ‘Four Ps’ of marketing – product, price, promotion and place.  The Seven C’s compass model is a particular favourite, and not just because it was ‘born’ the same year I was – 1981 – but because it is focused on the consumer rather than the product.

Vine has been making a big splash in the last 48 hours. Using the Vine app you can record a video of up to six seconds in length, which is then published in an instagram-style app timeline, and/or to Facebook and Twitter. It looks set to be a runaway success.

When examining that success, the seventh C is really key – circumstances. These are the uncontrollable external factors which can decide whether or not a product launch is a success.

Using the four points on a compass there are:

  • National and international circumstances
  • Social and cultural circumstances
  • Economic circumstances
  • Weather

It’s only because the compass is pointing due south – to a change in social and cultural circumstances in recent years – that Vine can succeed.

I can say that with some certainty because the idea behind Vine isn’t new, and it isn’t original. There have been at least two services which look and work an awful lot like Vine which have launched and disappeared since 2008.

Seesmic

Launched in 2008, it was billed as the “Twitter of video” – it quickly faded into obscurity after amassing about 20,000 users. Which just goes to show in the world of digital, how quickly a ship with 20,000 passengers can sink.

Perhaps the biggest single lesson of Seesmic is that there was no point being the “Twitter of video”, the only successful strategy was to be the “video in Twitter” – that’s certainly what Vine is banking on.

12seconds.tv

12seconds.tv launched in 2008 and was billed as – you guessed it – “Twitter for video”. As you’ve probably guessed, it was a video sharing service for videos up to 12 seconds in length.

12seconds.tv was a haven for geeks. It saw little growth in the two years of its existence. Interestingly – they tried to break into the twitter ecosystem, but were rebuffed. At the time it folded, its founder said:

“I don’t really see the growth in Twitter that we were seeing. I don’t see it as an explosive growth opportunity right now for a third-party application builder. In any ecosystem, eventually there are going to be winners and losers. I think that’s going to shake out more and more as time goes by”
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/04/12seconds-tv-shuts-down-with-tightening-twitter-ecosystem/#Ieod1hie3Hm1bjuL.99

Due south

Coming back to the compass, neither Seesmic nor 12seconds.tv had the right social and cultural circumstances in which to launch.

  • Self-shoot video was the preserve of geeks – few people were using the video on their smartphone, if it had one. If, indeed they had a smartphone.
  • Social sharing and content creation was still in its infancy. Facebook, with its ever more complex privacy controls, was extremely well established but it was something of a walled garden and heavily biased towards written status updates and photos.
  • The explosion of twitter, with its alien 140-character limit, was only just beginning. Truncated communication was a novelty, not a norm.
  • Twitter postcards – media embedded in tweets viewable without the need to install any viewer software – hadn’t been invented.

Riding on Twitter’s coattails has already done a lot for Vine, with mainstream media paying immediate attention. The Guardian are already soliciting six-second album reviews. So one of the other C’s will be critical to the success of Vine – convenience. The barrier to entry for viewing is non-existant, so long as you have the latest Twitter app installed or are viewing via the Twitter website. The barrier for creating videos is relatively low, but Vine functionality needs to be integrated directly into the Twitter mobile apps to guarantee uptake.

Once that happens, the age of six-second story-telling will be well and truly upon us.

Do or die: Should CIPR membership be compulsory?

Posted by & filed under Communications.

If membership of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations isn’t compulsory for PR professionals, does the Institute serve any purpose at all? Some think not. In this post I’m going to stand up for the CIPR.

Not for the first time I had a lively conversation with Brent Martin, an acquaintance and London-based criminal lawyer, on the subject of Public Relations. Brent is never short of an informed opinion, and he is well worth following on Twitter.

These tweets caught my eye:

Im sick to death of PR bullshit in corporate coms. Plus they call themselves "a profession" & have a "Chartered Institute of PR" #delusional
January 23, 2013 9:02 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@zeitgeistlondon
Brent A. Martin
Its an utter lie to suggest you belong to a "profession" if membership of your "professional body" is entirely optional. More PR bullshit.
January 23, 2013 9:07 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@zeitgeistlondon
Brent A. Martin

Headlines are the stock trade of PR professionals, and I was initially inclined to file those tweets under the headline ‘LAWYER: WORLD WOULD BE BETTER PLACE IF MORE PEOPLE WERE LIKE LAWYERS’, but alas that is a terrible headline and so I must write a blog post instead.

Brent’s beef in this case may not even be with a PR professional. His complaint was that a price hike of something he buys or uses had been misrepresented as a ‘simplification’ in price.  Pricing is more often the realm of sales and marketing, but let’s not kick the can down the corridor to marketing just yet.

There are good PRs and there are bad PRs just as there are good and bad lawyers. A good PR would argue that in a social world, where a savvy and price-sensitive audience are connected directly to each other as well as to your business,  trying to obscure or spin a price hike through the use of a lazy euphemism is at the very least bad PR, and as such bad for business.

Whether it is sensible business practice and good PR or not Brent would argue, I think, that any attempt to communicate a price rise as something positive is immoral.

Brent, and many others, believe that PR people should be held accountable to a professional code of practice and ethics which precludes them from wilfully misguiding an audience.Indeed, I know Brent isn’t alone:

@ @ re: Damn those compsulory "professional bodies", I could not agree more.
January 23, 2013 9:29 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@AlarmBell
Luca Alessandra

I’ve got good news – the CIPR holds its members accountable to just such a code of conduct.The first two clauses of the first principle are that members must:

a) maintain the highest standards of professional endeavour, integrity, confidentiality, financial propriety and personal conduct;

b) deal honestly and fairly in business with employers, employees, clients, fellow professionals, other professions and the public;

The code of conduct for CIPR members is well aligned with the times – it binds members to the sort of behaviours Brent, and society at large, wants to see from the PR profession. So it’s perhaps a little short-termist to attack an organisation which shares your goals and exists to bring about the kind of professional standards you want to see.

Is a non-compulsory professional body worth anything?

 

The sticking point is compulsion. As a lawyer, Brent is required to be a member of the Law Society, which brings with it a hefty annual membership fee. Brent believes that as membership of CIPR isn’t compulsory for PR professionals, it’s a ‘bullshit’ institution. I couldn’t disagree more.

The CIPR Code of Conduct has power without statutory underpinning.

  • Personal loss. If I break the CIPR code of conduct, and a CIPR-facilitated attempt at conciliation fails, I can be stripped of my membership, directed to refund my client’s fees, and to refund the institute its costs.
  • Employer backing. Many employers specify that CIPR Membership is a requirement to be employed in a senior PR role. Loss of the membership could have serious consequences.

    Other professional bodies have attracted de facto compulsory status through widespread employer recognition – CIPR is heading in the right direction in this regard.

  • Market forces and reputation. As a CIPR member, I stand out as an experienced professional in my field – this is invaluable.   Being disciplined by the CIPR would make me less employable.
  • SEO. Hardly trivial in a digital economy. A disciplinary case against me would result in negative search engine results associated with my name, which for any PR is a killer.

There are also practical problems with compulsion – not least the population to which compulsion would apply. A doctor practices in a surgery. A barrister practices in a court of law. A PR person can practice anywhere. PR could even be said to be a fundamental part of human nature.  Brent was doing some indirect PR for the Law Association, by attacking CIPR. Does that make him a PR practitioner? Clearly not. But where do you draw the line? Agencies only? Agencies plus full-time in house? Agencies plus in-house including digital? Excluding digital? Including or excluding social media? And what do you mean by social media? If you post to a Linkedin group once a week does that make you a digital PR?

The CIPR is a force for good. It’s shining a spotlight on good PR practice, and holding its members to the highest professional standards. Would it like to be a compulsory body? Perhaps it would. Should it pack up and go home until it is compulsory? Absolutely not. The CIPR is changing the communications industry for the better. That’s something we should all celebrate – even lawyers.

APPGs – the next Westminster scandal?

Posted by & filed under Politics.

Be it the hacking scandal, the expenses debacle, or the furore surrounding botched police investigations, a relentless tide of trust-destroying stories is washing from Westminster to Wapping sweeping away reputations and careers, and leaving bloggers like me increasingly devoid of new synonyms for “almighty fuck-up”.

As it stands in the three-way battle between politics, the tabloid press, and the police, MPs are standing tall once more. They should be careful not to stand so tall that they end up falling from a great height

When asked what remains in our parliamentary system which would fail to withstand the full force of the public scrutiny felt in recent weeks, it’s hard to know where to begin – but the All Party Parliamentary Group has to be near the top of the list.

appg-secretariat

All Party Parliamentary Groups, or APPGs, exist to allow parliamentarians of all parties and both Houses to come together to discuss and form consensus on big issues. As a vehicle for discussion and debate, they have been comprehensively invaded by vested interests seeking to buy access to our legislators.

The barriers to setting up an APPG are relatively low, which is perhaps why a total of five hundred and thirty-four are currently to be found on the active register- including everything from the All Party Group on Mobile Homes, to the APPG on Brass Bands.

APPGs are entitled to a Secretariat. Set aside any images you have of a sensibly dressed person of a certain age mildly taking dictation, the provision of an APPG Secretariat is one of the main routes used by public affairs agencies, charities, and businesses to cosey up to MPs and Peers. These “secretaries” often came up with the idea of setting up the group in the first place, to advance the interests of a client or cause.

According to my analysis of the Register of All-Party Groups (the existence of which is perhaps the only redeeming feature of an otherwise disastrously opaque system), two hundred and seventy-nine of the APPGs use an externally provided secretariat. Seventy-seven of the APPGs are openly administered by twenty-nine different public affairs agencies. A further ninety-eight are run by charities with agendas to promote.

The system for registering secretarial groups is hopelessly open to abuse, and so it is not always possible to easily establish who is running the show. Take the APPG on the Aluminium Industry, the secretarial services of which are provided by Aluminium Federation Ltd which is “a not-for-profit organisation.” That sounds suitably reassuring – if the organisation is not-for-profit what chance can there be of big business buying favoured access? It’s only when you look at the Federation’s website, and examine each of its nine sub-associations in turn, that it becomes clear that this not-for-profit organisation is a membership umbrella for private business. This is above board, within the rules, published, and transparent. Transparent if you’re prepared to invest the time to look, of course.

Some APPGs are run by big business – the Athletics group is provided with secretarial support from Aviva who, according to the register, also provide “tickets to athletics events”. Of course, those whose buttocks are used to sinking comfortably in to the leather of a parliamentary bench cannot be expected to really understand athletics until they have had a chance to look at all those perky muscles up close. Aviva have done the responsible thing by publicly declaring these perks for members of the APPG. I wish I could be confident that everyone else is as diligent.

One agency which is listed in the register has published materials which casually sum up just how open to external influence APPGs are. In its “Guide to the Structure and Operation of All-Party Parliamentary Groups” it states that “APPGs are essentially interest groups” and in a presentation it encourages APPGs to run inquiries, the conclusions of which should be sent “to all MPs, particularly if report ties in with local lobbying strategy on behalf of members.”

The presentation also hints at the pernicious practice of vested interests supplying MPs and Peers with pre-written Parliamentary Questions which they then sign and submit in their own name. The presentation says that APPG inquiries should be followed by a “Raft of Parliamentary Questions focusing on the recommendations of the Report.” You may not need reminding that, according to Parliament, “Oral question[s] costs £425 on average. Written question[s] cost £154 on average” – so an agency writes a question for a government department, and the taxpayer picks up the bill for answering it.

Extraordinarily, there is no code of conduct for PR and PA firms wishing to run APPGs. In fact, there is only one explicit rule – that “the consultancy must either publish its full client list on its website or else agree to provide such a list on request, otherwise the consultancy is not permitted to act as the group’s secretariat.” Picking just one example completely at random, Bell Pottinger Public Affairs provide secretariat services to the APPG on Equitable Life Policy Holders, but do not publish their full client list online. I am sure that a responsible agency like Bell Pottinger is operating within the rules, and have shared their client list with the House privately. The public should have the ability to establish when this last happened, and we should also know how often the list is checked for changes.  Let’s be fair to agencies here too – they  should know why this inspection takes place, and whether the appearance of any particular clients could cause them to be deemed unsuitable secretaries.

I could go on, and on, and on about the failings of the APPG system, but let’s end with that old favourite – the junket. Members of the APPGs for Uzbekistan, Morocco, and Taiwan have all received free trips to those countries. In the APPG register you will not find the names of the specific members, or any information on how long they travelled, in what level of luxury they were accommodated, how much personal sightseeing time they were afforded, or indeed any other information about what they did during their visits. Sometimes information about these trips is volunteered by the participants, and a basic level of information disclosure is required in the parliamentarians’ own registers of interests. Full disclosure should be mandatory, and much easier to find.

I have no evidence to suggest that there has been any actual wrongdoing. The examples in this blog post were selected at random, because they pose questions about the system. Recent evidence suggests that any parliamentary system found open to abuse does not stay unabused for long.

I hope those parliamentarians who feel personally aggrieved by recent events enjoy their moment of schadenfreude as we come to the final pages of this, the first chapter of the hacking scandal. They had better hope that the next chapter isn’t entitled “Of parliamentarians and PRs” – it could be a deeply uncomfortable read.

Will no-one free us of these troublesome ghosts?

Posted by & filed under Communications, Online, Politics.

One of the truly great things about British politics is the depth and breadth of raw talent which can be found at every level of every party and no party. Unfortunately, tired conventions of political discourse are preventing some of that talent from shining through.

One symptom of that fact is that political debate is, perversely, becoming ever less authentic at a time when distrust of political spin has never been greater.

During my eight years of lowly support of the Liberal Democrats, I often saw the party try to use its own campaigning tactics on itself. Candidates for internal elections would get off to a “flying start” as bar charts intoned that it was a “two horse race.”  Fundraisers would assure campaigners that the candidate of the day had “asked me to call you.” A blue-ink, blue paper envelope would flop on to the mat and transpire not to be a hand-written missive lovingly etched on Basildon Bond, but a mass-produced, low cost, begging note.

This tendency of all the parties to recycle their external tactics in their internal machinations is no more clearly evident than on the party ‘home’ sites (one of which I used to run) where ghost writing is rife. Take three examples:

If any one of those pieces was written by its supposed author, I will eat a copy of Who’s Who?

Ghost writing debases these sites which are intended for authentic public debate as well as party communications.

It’s understandable why the sites allow it – to a shallow degree it gives them credibility. You’ve probably seen at least one local newspaper culpably splash “PM WRITES EXCLUSIVELY FOR CHIPPING GAZETTE” around election time, on receipt of an article ghost-written by the regional press officer.  Yes it’s a bit seedy, yes they know the PM has never been near it, but sales are sales and this puts Chipping’s own rag right up there with the Daily Telegraph. Yawn.

It is almost possible to explain away this practice in mass media platforms, where it is deeply ingrained, but on sites written by party supporters for party supporters ghost writing is  simply wrong. Here are three of the big problems:

In an age of direct, authentic communication – where seemingly every journalist, politico, or even footballer is on Twitter – this audience know when they are being fed bullshit, and most simply disengage when it happens. Political ghost writing is a practice which is often transparently false, and thus inherently pointless.

It’s a missed opportunity to promote talent. The people writing these articles are often the researchers, aides, and wonks who have great influence but little profile. They are the future leaders of their parties, living in the shadows of today’s top brass. Their contributions would be no less valid if they were given an honest byline, and most party supporters would welcome the authenticity.

Far from lending the sites credibility, often ghost writing cheapens the subsequent debate. If they bother to respond at all, party hacks and politicos argue their case in a comments thread which is rarely graced by the supposed author, who often receives only the condensed gist of the replies third-hand, if indeed they receive anything at all.

It is impossible to transform political debate overnight, but that shouldn’t prevent a small step in the right direction.  The sites can find a way forward which is right for them individually – perhaps they could keep their big name bylines, but credit the true author with ‘additional reporting’ in the footer. Is it too radical to hope they could simply refuse to accept another ghost written piece ever again?

For the sake of everyone who could be engaged in politics, but who is turned off by blatantly phoney and incredible articles, I can only hope someone decides to change their approach soon.

Indoor Picnics and Other Oddities – The BBC Proms

Posted by & filed under Music.

Proms

Friday night brings with it the First Night of the Proms, the opening fanfare of over one hundred concerts which will draw to a close with one last rousing chorus of Jerusalem on September 10th.  In between, performances of every shade of classical music will be on offer from a phalanx of the world’s finest performers.

The Proms are inevitably beloved of diehard classical music fans, but what makes it truly special is the tradition dating back to 1895 of “Promenading” – initially a reference to an area through which the audience could stroll as the orchestra played, it’s a term now synonymous with widespread access to incredible music at very low cost. What’s more, for all but one night of the season, there’s not a Union Flag hat to be seen.

This will be my seventh year promming, making me but a wee snip of a lad in the world of the promenaders. Hopefully I can pass on a few useful tips to those who are as yet uninitiated.

1.    Be there

No, really be there. If you choose to watch it on TV then before long you’ll encounter Charles Hazelwood. Shortly afterwards you’ll be throwing things at your TV while screaming “dear Lord! Never in the history of HD has there been so much chest hair!”. If you really can’t be there in person, try listening on Radio 3. Every Prom is broadcast live, and this year the Proms will be broadcast in HD audio on the BBC Proms website at www.bbc.co.uk/proms

The experience is truly immersive when you share a space with both the performers and an enthusiastic audience. If you’ve never been to a classical music concert before, day tickets are a great way to try it out at just £5 per concert. Thanks to cheap travel from the likes of Megabus, you can get from Newcastle to the floor of the Albert Hall for just £10.

Programmes are inexpensive, but  bring your phone and you should be able to access programme notes from the Proms website shortly before the concert begins.

2.  Arena or Gallery?

There are £5 tickets for either the Arena, which is the large area directly in front of the stage, or the Gallery – a large corridor running around the top of the Hall.

For most concerts the Arena is standing room only, so be prepared to stand for up to 90 minutes at a time in order to get up close and personal with the performers. The hardcore prommers are all season ticket holders who get priority entry, so don’t hold out hope of being right at the front. There, down at the rail at the very front, be dragons. Margaret (or George, or BIll, or Hilda) has been standing in the same spot for 30 years and she won’t take kindly to you muscling in on her place.

I, against the common wisdom of the true music aficionados, much prefer the Gallery.  Here you can stretch out on the floor (bring a rug), kick your shoes off, and even enjoy an indoor picnic. Though bringing your own food is technically against the rules, the good people of the Albert Hall tend to look the other way. To my knowledge no-one has ever been expelled over a bit of cheese and pickle. It’s a welcoming and convivial atmosphere, and for most concerts the sound is still great.

For many concerts reserved, seating tickets are still available. Booking information is on the BBC Proms website. Returns are frequently available at the Box Office in the hours running up to a concert.

3. Be prepared to queue

If you’re promming for £5, be prepared to queue in all weathers. Queues regularly snake far in to the distance away from the Albert Hall, but don’t be disheartened – once the queues start moving (usually around 30 minutes before the concert is due to start) they move quickly.

If you queue with friends you can nominate someone to keep your place while you slip off to the nearby Imperial College students union bar for an exceptionally cheap drink or two, and a burger from their quadrangle barbecue.  If you’ve bought a reserved seat and so don’t need to queue, the food in the Albert Hall’s Cafe Consort is delicious and not overly expensive.

4. Manners maketh for a pleasant evening

On a summer’s night with thousands in the Hall, it can get hot. Very hot. The lifelong promenaders rub shoulders convivially, though they are simultaneously wrapped in a uniquely impenetrable etiquette and hierarchy. It is easy to transgress upon their unwritten boundaries and on a hot night tempers can flare – particularly if you try and push to the front or squeeze in where there isn’t a space.

Keep a calm head and a cooling bottle of water to hand, and all will be well. If you DO find yourself accosted by an angry prommer, remember they only see daylight and other human beings for a few precious weeks each year. Grin and bear it.

5. Come with an open mind, and open ears

You never know what you might hear at the Proms. In the last couple of years the chilled and intimate atmosphere of the late night (10pm) concerts have been a particular highlight for me, and irrespective of the programme I commend the experience to you. Family and themed Proms are now commonplace, as are concerts in other venues around  London and even shopping centres. In 2006 I attended over 20 Proms without ever looking to see what was being performed beforehand. It was a thrilling season.

End the evening with a leisurely stroll back to South Kensington tube – many rush, and end up crushed together once more in the first few trains which come along.

Give it a go, and if you don’t like it you can always leave during the interval just £5 poorer – but I’ll bet you that £5 that you’ll still be there as the final applause slips in to the appreciative hum of those who’ve had a thrilling evening.

Have the Liberal Democrats lost their senses?

Posted by & filed under Politics.

Have the Lib Dem leadership lost their senses?. They can’t see or hear supporters who have turned their backs on the party. They can’t smell the putrid stink of seemingly inevitable electoral punishment in 2015, and they’re certainly out of touch with public perception.

I split my vote across a broadly progressive ticket in the London Mayoral election on Thursday – Siobahn Benita first, Ken Livingstone second, Green in the constituency and Liberal Democrats London-wide. I’ve not had much luck backing winners in elections, but this time round my vote felt particularly futile. I can understand why many just don’t bother.

Nick Clegg has shifted public perception of the Lib Dems from being a distinctive party of the centre-left, to an identikit party of the centre right. In making this shift many socially progressive voters felt deserted, and conservatives are deeply suspicious of the over-eager new kid on their patch. It’s hopeless terrain for Clegg.

The party is in danger of becoming a toxic brand. The local elections again demonstrated that Nick Clegg’s calamitous dance with the right is dragging down the fortunes of all associated with the title “Liberal Democrats”. There are some who would vote for Lib Dem campaigners – stalwarts of their local communities – if they stood as independents. Progressive voters will not vote for candidates associated with a party which is daily sacrificing its principles in order to cling to power. As independents are not yet a credible political force, most simply don’t vote.

Though I (and many thousands of others) left the Liberal Democrats, I swallowed some pride on Thursday and voted Lib Dem on the London-wide ballot. This ballot paper is intended to express party support, but I used it to elect an individual – Caroline Pidgeon. Caroline has been a tireless and effective campaigner over the last four years, and was top of the Lib Dem list. The assembly will be stronger for her presence. The vast majority of voters simply saw the Lib Dem logo, and moved on. That’s why the Lib Dems now have just two London assembly members – on level pegging with the Greens.

The Westminster consensus is that Liberal Democrats stay in government for fear that they will be obliterated if they walk away. Even Nick Clegg must now have noticed that they are being massacred for staying. The public are not stupid. Everyone can see the Lib Dems aren’t advancing their agenda in government. Time after time Liberal Democrats have held their noses and voted for measures with which they do not agree. Brilliant campaigners like Norman Baker and Lynne Featherstone have been gagged by stifling protocols of government communication.

The Liberal Democrats have little to show for their loyalty to their government partners, and no clear plan to wrest control of the agenda now that their big potential prizes have slipped away. The party should take the genuinely brave decision to say “this isn’t working for us, this isn’t why people voted for us, and it’s time for us to walk away from this coalition.”

The party could maintain the national financial interest from a position of supply and confidence. With this, much stronger, hand they could have a great deal more to show their voters in 2015.

Nightmare On Elgar Street

Posted by & filed under Music.

Were you to bury your entire face in the wrong end of a French horn – the bell, as it is called – you could scream yourself hoarse while remaining almost completely unheard by those immediately around you. The horn’s capacity to swallow sound is second only to its more conventional capacity to emit.

Since BBC Radio 3’s schedule was overhauled last month, vaguely unsettling people in sensible shoes have been getting extremely worked up. The BBC has thus far impassively swallowed their noisy protests – acting, to its musically educated detractors, just like the bell of a horn. (It would never do to be simply cross, when there is a tenuous musical metaphor that could be deployed.)

The refuseniks have mustered all of the passive-aggressive-but-ultimately-deferential-petition-writing that you would expect from the Radio 3 audience. One protestor has, rather wonderfully, written a two-part play denouncing the changes. The BBC has, just as wonderfully, broadcasted it.

The main crime which led this section of the Radio 3 audience to rise up like a faded balloon clinging to the roof of a long-deserted party is the introduction of a new breakfast programme. The programme broadcasts relatively short, relatively familiar, relatively unchallenging classical music. This is sprinkled with news and listener comment by Petroc Trelawny, a charming, erudite sort of middle-income man’s Stephen Fry. Since taking up the Breakfast mantle, Trelawny has been stingingly denounced by his critics as a “celebrity”. A harsher word is impossible to imagine.

The “Friends of Radio 3″ have pelted the new show with criticism that it is “dumbing down”. These friends presumably being the sort of friends who, while sitting in your house and eating your food, imagine that by imparting their sanctimonious direction on how you might live a better life, they are in some way being friendly – as opposed to being tossers.

One Friend of Radio 3 who wished to remain anonymous (perhaps in fear that celebrity Petroc’s celebrity hit squad may hunt him down and strangle him with celebrity viola strings leaving him to die a celebrity death) complained to the Telegraph that “In recent months, the BBC has tried to attract those people who may have listened to Classic FM and want to hear some nice tunes…”

Yes indeed. Heaven forbid that the nation, stirring first thing in the morning with foetal vulnerability, might be confronted with the inestimable horror of “nice tunes.”

For what it’s worth, if anyone at Radio 3 is reading this, I like your new breakfast show.

I also like the extraordinary variety across your schedule. For example, I like the fact that you broadcast two full hours every weekend of early music – the only slots on any station where the listener can be certain to hear deliciously obscure music composed three centuries ago or more.

I like that you are one of the few stations to commission new drama.

I like that you give a platform to emerging talent.

I like the way you promote a treasury of recordings and live performance to anyone who wants to listen.

Damn it, first thing in the morning I also like the headlines and weather dropped discreetly between nice tunes.

So have a cheer Radio 3, I still like you. I like you more than before. As for your critics, please, be not downhearted. To return to where I began, with an audience like yours you will always have to contend with the occasional bell end.

* I would use a more contemporary cultural reference here but, remember, I listen to Radio 3.

The Incredible Lord Credo

Posted by & filed under Online, Politics.

Last weekend the Twitter user Lord Credo, the self-proclaimed Westminster insider, former Downing Street press officer, even right-hand man to David Cameron, deleted his Twitter account. So far, so dull.

The creator of the account had been outed as an imposter by Suffolk blogger Peter Ede in this blog post. Credo also stood accused of theft, deceit, and living under multiple false names. So far, so marginally less dull.

Credo had taken in the Huffington Post, the broadcaster Jeremy Vine, and the Speaker’s wife Sally Bercow to name but a few. Several leading journalists were among those who voted for Credo to receive a Twitter award. This gets more interesting – in the eyes of political figures, and some journalists in the mainstream media, Credo was credible.

I had my doubts. As we met for lazy lunches by the Ipswich waterfront Peter Ede and I would idly dissect this curious character over calzone.

Six years ago I was briefly a staffer in Lib Dem HQ. When Credo first joined Twitter he told me he’d met me, and knew me, but couldn’t possibly reveal his secret identity. This was the sort of intrigue he deployed to titillate and attract people in to his fantasy world – it worked on a great many, and I don’t blame them. I, on the other hand, called him a “dick” and unfollowed him. My approach to networking has always been distinctive, impatient, and given that I’m not currently Prime Minister – ineffectual.

After a few months, Credo consented to meet Peter and some of his friends. From Peter’s description of Credo, he evidently wanted to be both the envied insider as well as the anonymous maverick. So it was odd that this man, apparently the holder of a parliamentary pass which allowed him to escort visitors in to the relatively quiet bars and cafes of the Palace, only ever met in public bars and restaurants. He was never seen going in to or out of Downing Street or parliament. A show-off, who couldn’t show-off.

The existence of the press office at Downing Street is not a state secret, and the identities of those who work there are well known to those who follow politics –and even to people like me who enjoy flicking through PR Week. Based on what was in the public domain, I couldn’t reconcile the description of Credo to any of Cameron or Clegg’s team.

Then, there was the sheer volume of tweets – sometimes hundreds of messages a day. I’m sure some government press officers wish they had endless hours to dispense their finely crafted pearls of PR liberally across the web. They don’t.

It was also incredible that a self-declared member of the Downing Street press office could repeatedly libel a Conservative backbencher, behind the thinnest veil of anonymity. Credo’s tirades against Nadine Dorries took place during work hours and, if sent via the government computer network, could easily have been traced back to him.

Next came Credo’s tendency to pass off early breaking news as insider revelations.  He claimed to have been the first to tweet news of Andy Coulson’s departure. In fact, by the time he put fingers to tweet, the Westminster rumour mill was so much in overdrive that even I – no longer even the lowest of algae in the Westminster pond – had picked it up.

While drinking in a Whitehall boozer, Credo was ‘called’ by Sally Bercow – of course, ensuring that Peter and friends could see the name on the phone. Credo had also, so he said, spent long hours at the weekend on the phone to the Prime Minister. He was bosom pals with the political editor of a Sunday paper. It struck me that the ‘insider’ connections were always the political backroom A-list – always Coulson, Bercow, Hilton. There was never a Bertin, Field, Oates, or Grey to be seen.

I laid out, pizza by pizza, these concerns to Peter who, to give him the credit he deserves, was never wholly taken in by the good Lord.

One day, Credo resigned after a ‘bust-up’ with the PM. A man who was supposedly one of the Prime Minister’s closest aides left his employ, after a major row, without a word appearing in any corner of the press. When I was told of this development weeks later I explained how this eventuality was patently ludicrous.

The developments became ever more fantastic, and I didn’t even know about the homelessness, the cancer, the suicides, the deaths, and the host of other stories. I didn’t know about the – very real – mislead and (allegedly) financially robbed girlfriend.

Peter took my cynicism, mixed it up with some available evidence, put in hours of effort and ultimately outed Credo, who promptly exited Twitter stage far-right.

So what is the purpose of this post? Hooray for me? Hooray, hooray, I told you so? No. Twitter has incredible potency as a hub for conversation, and as a place to coordinate action. It is a networkers dream, and has opened up corners of the Lobby to us outsiders – both to listen in, and to be heard. For all of these things, it is a blessing.

Twitter also has the power to drive mainstream news and – more insidiously – to help mainstream journalists form their angle on a story. One, poisonous, voice can be amplified to extraordinary levels. The Credo episode must remind journalists of what they already know – even in the world of 24 hour news it pays to thoroughly check out your sources. All of us who use Twitter in our professional lives would be wise to do the same.