Latest posts
This week…
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I woke up this morning to the news that Yahoo is looking at buying tumblr. By the time I was on the bus, GigaOm had raised the spectre of Facebook swooping in to scupper the deal. By now, everyone is wondering if this billion dollar acquisition will...
Insider Trading? Not on their watch…
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It was with a certain amount of caution when the Bank of England announced yesterday that five years on from the financial crisis, Britain is finally heading in the direction of sustained economic recovery. The Bank revealed its future p...
What next for the Coalition Government?
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Sean Worth, Senior Strategic Adviser, MHP Communications Apart from the surge by UKIP in the recent local elections, politics has lacked its usual spark of late. The opinion polls aren’t moving much. The legislative programme introduced in the...
Three down two to go
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In this report published by MHP today (and making headline news in the Times), members of our senior team give their views on how politics will unfold over the next two years. Will the Coalition Government stay together until the 2015 general electio...
Is our politics broken?
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Generations of British politicos been able to peer smugly across the Atlantic at the dysfunction and pettiness of the US political system. The gridlock and partisan obstructionism in Congress is nothing new – President Truman successfully campa...
“You got to pick a pocket or two” – Can the private sector prevent crime?
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With most of the media frenzy surrounding the Queen’s Speech focused on the proposed Immigration Bill and whether it will help to sway voters back to the Tories from UKIP, another set piece of legislation that will have significant implications...
Hello! Is it me you’re looking for?
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This month, Hello! magazine turns 25 years old. Over the past quarter of a century, Hello! has established itself as the chronicler of the births, marriages and deaths of the rich and famous. Celebrities profiled have included Lady Helen Taylo...
Cameron prioritises trade at Global Investment conference
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With the Queen’s Speech delivered and the coalition’s legislative agenda for the next year set out, the Prime Minister was back to focusing on driving economic recovery, banging the drum for British business at last Thursday’s Globa...
Banging on about Europe…again
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David Cameron once pledged that if his party didn’t stop “banging on about Europe” then they would never win and never be taken seriously by the electorate. This assertion seems a very long way off now, especially considering the an...
When embargoes really matter
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My colleague Renny Popoola blogged last month on the demise of the press embargo, saying that reporters were increasingly breaking stories on Twitter in a rush to secure an exclusive over their rivals. Her blog was prompted by the Evening Standard mi...
The Odd Couple
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The announcement of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has sparked a huge amount of press coverage, and more Twitter traffic than the death of Baroness Thatcher. A point missed by most, but picked up by Punter Southall’s Ross Mathews, is that...
Snap, Bang and your privacy is gone
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I’m writing a social media policy document for one of our clients at the moment. It couldn’t be a timelier exercise. Issues surrounding what we say, where we say it and how accessible that is or could be are nothing new. It just seems lik...
Talking retail in Las Vegas
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Walking around the vast corridors at the Las Vegas Convention Centre for this year’s North American Hardware Show (the Cannes Film Festival for the DIY industry) is a beguiling experience. There are thousands of people here from all over the wo...
Hasta Mañana
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News last week of the premature demise of the Viva Forever musical must have hit the Spice Girls hard – their egos rather than their bank balances, of course. The fact that ‘their’ show flopped when musicals generally are flou...
Tantrums and tiaras
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The State Opening of Parliament is one of the few times when all eyes turn to the gilt-encrusted House of Lords. It’s a day of ball gowns, tiaras, hon. descendents and glittering esteemed guests. The dress code for Peers, Peeresses and partners...
The Queen’s Speech: more politics than policy
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Today’s Queen’s Speech is the first big set-piece event in politics following last week’s local election results, where both Coalition parties took a beating. The spin was that this always happens in mid-term elections, and that Lab...
Ferguson overshadows Queen’s Speech
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The shock resignation of Manchester United Manager Alex Ferguson has seized the airwaves this morning, and probably the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers. And yet, in truth, there aren’t that many substantive announcements in today&rsq...
Queen’s Speech 2013: Bill-by-Bill Briefing
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For a full list of Bills announced in today’s Queen’s Speech read our briefing online here: Queen’s Speech Briefing 2013 Some bold reforms but the real story lies elsewhere In the early hours of this morning Number 10 aides were in...
Local Elections – May 2013 – Infographic
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Please find below our infographic of the Local Elections 2 May 2013. This information is accurate as of 5pm and will be updated in full on Tuesday 7th May 2013.
We’re all geeks now
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I remember the first time I saw a laptop – almost 20 years ago. It was the proud possession of my high school chemistry teacher who had brought it in to show us how this new machine worked. He showed us spreadsheets, word documents, presentatio...
