is about to be incommunicado again - lack of internet driving me mental.

Away for a week

Just to let any body to happens to find themselves landing on the blog - i will be away until 1st June on holidays.

Sunny Castlerock!

So i will be incommunicado for this period though i might still be twittering. (@iwhitten)

I will be back and hopefully with a few new ideas on the layout and content of the blog.

Many thanks for visiting.

Ivor

And they thought was all over... Well, not quite

Expenses, expenses, expenses. That's the name of the game.

According to the Parliament website, a backbench MP has a basic pay of £64,766 as of 1 April 2009. Not bad if you can get it in the first place. Many of the UK's 2.1 million (7.1%) unemployed would probably be very happy with this.

Northern Ireland has an unemployment percentage of around 5.7% with almost 43,900 unemployed. Not too bad in the wider scheme of things and much lower than the UK wide figure.

Now it should be pointed out that these figures are only for those able to be employed are are currently not employed. This means that a lot of the population is not working because they are house mothers or fathers, retired people, children, those too disabled to be taken on in employment.

You should also think about the context of actual employment. Of the 756,000 people who are employed how many are only part time? How many are on temporary or short term contracts? The average median gross weekly salary in Northern Ireland is £418. An MPs salary, after tax, is £1204 per week. Food for thought.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an MP, without expenses and only drawing on their basic pay of £64,766, would have a higher income than around 92% of the population - equivalent to about 55.1 million individuals in the UK. I calculated this under the parameters of the MP being married, the only earner, council tax of £2,000 and with 2 children under 13 years of age.

Now I don't begrudge the MPs, or indeed any elected representative, earning a good wage. It is a career, much like a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, or any other profession. I think it actually is a good enough wage for an MP. I also don't have a huge angst against expenses either. It is always a perk of any job many of us enjoy. Not all, but many.

So, where did it all go wrong?? The soon to be ex-speaker of the house seems to have tried to cover up, and failed in the high court, the release of expenses into the public domain. This is possibly the biggest indictment on the Rt Hon Michael Martin MP. MPs are paid, just like the civil servants they are trying to make redundant, from the public purse.

I wonder what George Orwell would have made of all of this? Animal Farm 2: Napoleon's expenses?

According to the Member of Parliaments Code of Conduct, MPs must observe the general principles of conduct identified by the Committee on Standards in Public Life as applying to holders of public office. These are,

Selflessness

Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.

Integrity

Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.

Objectivity

In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.

Accountability

Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.

Openness

Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.

Honesty

Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.

Leadership

Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example.

MPs must base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.

Hmmmm. How many can truly stand up and say they have adhered to these Snowball like commandments?

We shall see how this sorry saga ends up and hopefully we will not cave in to pure cynicism that could undermine our democratic society.

MPs have a lot to do to win back our trust - but i am hopeful this will be sooner rather than later.

the best one for the job

I have been mostly working on my garden this weekend, as i have been in previous weekends and i got me thinking about how we do things in our work life.

I have been trying to get a garden for the past number of years, yes that's right years, and kept doing a little here and a little there and trying my best to turn the lump of soil that was Mount Kilimanjaro into a nice flat lawn. One thing after another #happened#.

As ever problems kept occurring - those horrible snags that ruin a well laid plan. I did have quotes from builders from over a year ago now that brought tears to my eyes, and not in laughter. so DIY R us was the apparently the thing for me.

I'm not bad at the old DIY, but not brilliant either as i don't do it every day.

As things went, i messed about, made probably basic mistakes to a professional, and goodness knows how much money i really wasted in trying to save money.

Yesterday, i helped finish off the last of the foundations for the last parts of the wall for my new garden. It felt good, and it is still feeling very very sore. I'm am simply not as fit as i thought i was, nor was i as used to physical labour as i thought i was.

Then the epiphany that brought me to type all these words out. Always get the professional in to do a job that you might be able to do with lots of time to spare and resources.

Yes there is usually lots of teeth sucking once prices and quotes are being discussed, but in the long term you want things done right. A key is building a good relationship with your 'sub-contractor'.  If you don't feel you can work with them, then don't.

The builder i am working with is a wonderful guy and easy enough on the pocket. As soon as i started talking to him i felt i was talking to someone who knew what they were doing and what the job would take. I had of course been chatting to a few other builders, but Raymond, my builder, explained what he would do and why it would have to done that way. He was honest in his talk and his walk. I trust him.

And here is my point, the same goes for public affairs or public relations. Businesses and organisations need to build relationships. Normally this is viewed as building relationships with their customers or clients or whatever. Yet we all work in a legislative context, which is decided upon our government.

We all need to look at how we are doing things in creating and building that constructive relationship with government, with the Departments, and with politicians - from MEPs, to MPs, to MLAs to local councillors. They are creators, facilitators and implementers of legislation- the primary function of governmental structures.

Now if an organisation wants to influence the right people at the right time with the right information they are really going to need to plan in lobbying activities, or, for the more politically correct, political communications.

No organisation is the same. Different issues, different modus operandi, different budgets, different sizes ...... you get the picture.

Many organisations have in-house public affairs teams, many do not. Those that do not either run ad hoc public affairs posts to simply muck through while others engage the services of a public affairs agency.

A public affairs agency will simply do what any organisation can do in the lobbying field. The only difference is that they will do it, in the words of Daft Punk, harder, better, faster, stronger. This also allows the organisation to focus on the thing they do best while still getting their messages through to government. It is that simple.

Yes i could have built my own wall, put in the founds, put up my own fence.  I guarantee though that it would be finished in about 2025 and still not look right. Plus who do i go to if it falls over?

With an outside professional you have peace of mind and are still in control of the overall project. The same is true for beginning a public affairs campaign. A professional has the where-with-all to know what to do if things go right and if things go wrong. they are people that the organisation can call on to fix the situation if it is not the one the organisation was wanting to happen. 

Yes, i work in a public affairs company. Yes, if you are an organisation looking for a public affairs solution i would love your custom. Yes, i would say Chambre PA is the best - but then i would, wouldn't i?

What is really important is that organisations understand what they want to achieve and that they feel the public affairs company gets it. Understanding, clarity and trust, i think are the main points of approval organisations should tick box against.  Price does come into it, and  although it could be said 'you get what you pay for', it does not mean that the most expensive is the best. An organisation should look at the overall package and be happy with it.

I am really happy with my builder and i hope to have the whole thing finished, weather permitting, in a couple of weeks. I brought in a professional to do a professional job.

Tweet Tweet

This year more than any other i have begun to notice how many politicos, politicians and political parties are using new social media technologies.

I blame Stephen Fry for this. Who would really have heard of twitter if it were not for the unofficial king/president/patron of twitter, Mr Fry himself? Indeed, many celebs are on the thing, helping to create its own viral hype without spending a penny of expensive adverts. Web 2.0+ is here.

Apparently according to Twittercounter the person in the number one spot of followers is Ashton Kutcher with around 1.7 million followers. Maybe all those gossip magazines should be worried. Instead of waiting a week to see what hot juicy bits of infantile gossip there is with shock horror angle, people can actually follow the celeb in question and get it direct instead. This should appeal to many people as it is more immediate and feels more personal.

So are our great and the good using social media to socialise or propagandise?

A few tweeters have had their hackles raised about this as they found that all that happened was politicians were using their twitter accounts to publicise press releases.

I can understand the exasperation, but on reflection why not? Politicians, though i half suspect a number of them do not actually tweet themselves, are beginning to put up not only press release material, but what they are doing  - indeed the actual function of twitter.

Having a twitter account i have also seem swathes of abuse/spam through people asking for retweets [put up better posts!] to people trawling their large number of followers and doing a #followfriday* with them all. 

Also, as someone who likes follow all that really sad political rubbish is it not a good thing that we are informed toot sweet about new online publications??? They are not all going to be new headlines but the flow of information is a politico anorak's lifeblood.

Plus twitter is a new phenomenon for us all - we are all getting to grips with its own etiquette and language codes. Not too long ago I only really sussed the #hashtag thing, though still not totally 100% on this.

The real issue in this and i include not just twitter but blogs, websites, facebook, myspace, flickr, tumblr etc is that they are social media. A new way to interact, discuss and receive feedback.

Politicos and political activists are probably more 'with it' on social media and its potential to connect with the audiences they want to engage with. Potential problems, though, are issues surrounding its geekiness, what target publics are actually accessing social media as a communication  tool and it could just all end up with most just dipping their toes into social media then ignoring it and leaving it to a hardcore bunch who, while getting the issue of social media, because there are so few in the end just talk in circles.

Social media is a tool and we do have to keep up with it but i think in the end what really needs to happen is that each method of communication is assessed is it nice? yes.  Is it cutting edge? yes. Is it on the rise in popularity? yes. Does it reach our target publics? Ahhhh, maybe.

Many organisations selling things see it as a great marketing tool. It could indeed be a real political marketing and discussion tool, and i think it is moving that way. It just really needs properly assessed.  Just because Barak Obama used it does not mean we can use all his methods in our own context.

Many of our politicians in this Euro election for 2009 and all scrabbling to be the most relevant, the most up to date, the most switched on in terms of social media and all of its wonderful shiny gadgets.

Me? I would just like to see them face to face on my door step!

* #followfriday seems to be a twitter cultural phenomenon where followers are essentially given a bit of promotion to reward them for being loyal followers. I have had some experience of looking at a full page of tweets that had nothing but said #followfriday - mostly useless to me. I have however given in to doing this myself, but restricting myself to one #followfriday with no more than five followers included. I think this is more effective and will produce more interest than spamming everyone with hundreds of names. 

I have to put this in, a really nice 'social media in plain English' vid. Enjoy.