Anna Bligh and the cyclonic communication

ANYONE who works in corporate communications or PR will be familiar with the famous Tylenol case in the 1980s, when Johnson and Johnson immediately withdrew all its products and reinvented its packaging after a deranged extortionist killed seven people by lacing the painkiller with cyanide.

In years to come, Anna Bligh’s management of the Queensland flood and cyclone crisis will stand as a comparable case study in how political leaders should best handle a natural disaster.

In the past two weeks, and particularly this week, Bligh has created a new template for political communication. It’s been based around honesty, decisiveness and plain speech. It’s been based around saying what government can do, and what it cannot do.

And it comes at a time in the political cycle when the public is more cynical than ever, fed up with glib sloganeering, message management, one-liners which have been tested on focus groups, politicians who won’t go near a podium unless they’ve got their press secretary standing alongside like one of those nodding puppies you put on the dashboard of your car.

Craig Oliver: David Cameron’s spin doctor dirty little secret

David Cameron’s new chief spin doctor runs a legal tax avoidance scheme to manage his TV presenter wife’s earnings.

Ex-BBC news boss Craig Oliver was paid £2,999.99 as company secretary of his wife’s TV company, through which her salary is paid.

The set-up let her to claim earnings as “turnover” – not taxable pay.

But he said he had not received a salary since the 2007/8 tax year and will quit the position when he replaces Andy Coulson.