Back to the future (him, not us I mean)

A few short points:

1. Rainier PR held its 10th birthday party this week.

2. Our very first bit of national press coverage was this corker, front page of The Sun. We gently arranged for the then Rt Hon Peter Mandelson MP to open a tech lab in Cambridge dressed in 'strange attire', at a time when tabloid speculation about his personal life was rife. That's how to make a tech product launch dominate P1 of a national.

3. 10 years on, Mandy is now back in the Cabinet, as opposed to the closet.

Funny old world.

Home, alone

Next time you are working from home, remember one thing above all others - the Government is doing absolutely sod all to help you.

With fuel prices ridiculously high, business competitiveness at a premium and a looming 'soft' recession, surely the flexibility and other benefits of working from home should be supported by the powers that be?

Not a bit of it. Instead, it taxes home broadband use as a personal benefit. Sure, it's impossible to show what percentage of home broadband is for personal versus business use if your employer pays for it. But the Government should be supporting home working, not dissuading it.

Rainier PR has just been billed by HMRC for back tax owing on employees' use of home broadband, over a period of several years. It's not a huge amount, but a slap in the face for a company that has won awards for its progressive approach to home working.

Wise up Gordo. Brits hate commuting and the media reckons they don't like you either. At least you have the power to change one of those factors.

True lies?

After months of criticism, Management Today has finally really gone for Alistair Darling - and reckons he needs PR advisors telling him to cushion the truth, as his honestly policy is screwing the economy.

Journalists practically begging politicians to fib? It's absolutley shocking, particularly given that the media always reports a complete and unpointed version of the truth, with no agenda whatsoever. Well, apart from all that Helen Mirren (though she is cool) nonsense in Metro today, which was nothing but a blatant excuse to stick HM The Queen and drugs into the same headline.

But back to Darling. Yes, whatever PR advice he is getting currently seems warped. But surely when the man supposedly managing the economy starts making open confessions about its state when most of the electorate would rather be painted a rosier picture it's time to go back to the drawing board on how PR is used in politics?

Has the age of the spin doctor finally been ended by what may well turn out to be its sickest patient?

Well oil be damned?

Firstly let's face it: there is no original way to headline a story about air travel, so cheap puns are permitted, and at least you don't get the usual wing and a prayer thing.

It's a stroke of good PR luck that while Gorden Brown and David Cameron are holidaying in England on the 'cheap', the budget airlines are being knobbled by fuel prices.

Ryanair announced a sharp drop in profits yesterday, much of Fleet Street sneered gloatingly, and last night the news stations questioned whether the death knell is tolling for cheap flights.

Yet I have to agree with Alice Thomson in today's Times: we need the cheap fares, and the mainstream airlines don't treat budget passengers as a priority anyway, despite them being the mainstay of their business. Her point is that Dubrovnik is now cheaper than Dorset, and having been up to the Anglian coast last weekend (courtesy of 50 litres of diesel) I can see her point.

The parliamentary PR machines must be rubbing their hands together though, given the leaders have opted for Britain rather than flying abroad. Meanwhile environmentalists have celebrated what they predict to be the demise of budget air travel.

I can see, and agree with, the climatic considerations and Brits jetting off every other weekend is unsustainable. But I suspect the more nimble and wily budget airlines will have more up their sleeves yet. If most customers loating them hasn't put them put of business yet, I doubt the barrel price will have lasting impact.