Openness and transparency are the watch-words today. It was expected that details of the expenses of several leading MPs would be made available to the public this afternoon, further to the recent Freedom of Information tribunal. It promised to be an exciting day.

The BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson followed an appearance on the Today programme with a blog about accountability, as far as MP expenses were concerned: “After years of fighting demands that they should account for the public money spent on MPs expenses, the House of Commons is about to reluctantly accept defeat.”

As the day has worn on, however, it has transpired that the Commons will lodge an appeal against the tribunal’s ruling - on the grounds that it would compromise MPs’ security – so no report today.

That’s disappointing, of course, but in the meantime, there’s an interesting sideshow to the main event with this story. Guido has been pursuing the BBC under the FoI Act for details of Nick’s expenses. Guido posted Don’t Read All About It: Robinson’s Boozing Expenses are a State Secret this morning, publishing the BBC’s letter in response to his FoI request. The basic gist of it was: ‘We’re exempt from the Act if the information sought relates in any way to journalism’.

Guido disagrees, and doesn’t seem inclined to let the matter rest there, arguing that there is no journalistic reason for refusing to disclose the amounts of licence-payers’ money spent wining and dining MPs.

So, in ‘Democracy 2.0’ we have Nick and the mainstream media watching the MPs, and Guido and the bloggers watching Nick and the MSM!

I was fond of reading Civil Serf’s blog for an insight into the mysterious inner workings of the government machine but, sadly, her excellent blog is no more. Whitehall’s hunt for the mole in their midst was front page news in the Sundays, and now she’s gone to ground! Her blog appears to have been wiped out of existence – see this in its place.

In the wake of the affair, Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary is going to set out new guidance for civil servants to cover blogging, which could be the briefest government guidance ever issued: “Just don’t!”

Meanwhile, for any civil servants who’d like to take up where Civil Serf left off, Dizzy has some hints on how to do so – without getting caught!

For months now, I’ve become increasingly irritated by a particularly inane question. As I stand at a check-out, in front of a dozen items of assorted shapes and sizes, holding just my purse, I am usually asked whether I actually ‘need’ a bag. Clearly, I need a bag. I am not wearing a poacher’s jacket. I don’t have a packhorse with me. I have only two hands.

So I was interested to read in The Times this weekend that we may have got it all wrong about plastic bags. Environmental campaigners against plastic bags claim they are responsible for the death of over 100,000 marine mammals, but on examining the ‘facts’ closely – i.e. checking the actual source - The Times ascertained that, in fact, the original 1987 Canadian report stated that over 100,000 marine mammals were killed by fishing nets…not plastic bags. A typo in a subsequent 2002 report attributing the deaths to plastic bags was not corrected until 2006, but by then, the ‘fact’ had gained widespread currency, so much so that last month, the Government announced that supermarkets will be forced to charge shoppers for plastic bags, saying that they are one of “the most visible symbols of environmental waste.”

Successful campaigns should achieve more than symbolic value, however; they should have substance, and basing your communications strategy on bad science and mistaken ‘facts’ does not make for good PR.

There may well be many reasons for reducing our use of plastic bags, but it would seem that 100,000 marine mammals aren‘t numbered amongst them.

 

So Prince Harry has returned from Helmands Province to a hero’s welcome. The general consensus seems to be that he’s turned public opinion of himself on its head, having swapped a Nazi uniform for that of Her Majesty’s.

There have been a few dissenting voices, of course. Jon Snow upset Channel Four viewers with his opinion that the media blackout was ethically questionable (although further endangering soldiers’ lives isn’t?!) and Max Clifford has called it a blatantly obvious “PR stunt.”

Clearly, there is an element of great PR in this, and not just for Harry - the Armed Forces and the wider Royal Family will benefit, and Prince Charles has had the opportunity to empathise with families of those serving at the frontline.

Deploying Harry was a massive PR gamble which appears to have paid off, because, fortunately for all concerned (not least of all Harry’s colleagues), the Army was able to indulge his desire to serve at the frontline without the Taliban managing to blow him to bits or parade him in front of the world before beheading him.

But it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the longer term. It was no secret that Harry was desperate to see action, but now that he has – for ten short weeks – he’s unlikely to be able to slot back into the life he enjoyed beforehand. He has become the highest-value Al-Qaeda target in the UK; his clubbing days are unlikely to be repeated. I wonder whether in the weeks and months to come, Harry will think this a high price to pay and revert to ‘tabloid’ type. Good PR should not be wasted; it has to be built on – will he be up to the task?