Lobby Briefing July 1, 2008

Guido has got this before it appears in PR Week:

Last week Downing Street functionaries were asked by Gordon to switch off auto-complete on his email software. It turned out that our early morning emailing PM had accidentally emailed Wendi Deng, also known as Mrs Rupert Murdoch.

Easy mistake to make, but Mrs Murdoch doesn’t really have much interest in Scottish politics. No doubt she is a little better informed now…

Gordon’s grandstanding yesterday, derided even by the usually pliant Lobby as such, was a waste of airline fuel. He told the representatives of the world’s leading oil exporting countries to act against their own interests and invest in competitors. Whereas Cameron flies to the arctic to be pointlessly pictured with a husky, Gordon flies to Arabia to be pointlessly pictured meeting oil sheiks, to be seen to be “doing something”. The head of Opec, Chakib Khelil, dismissed as “irrational and illogical” the call by Gordon for the cartel to pump more oil. They are already pumping at full pelt and the price is rising because of emerging demand from India and China as well as geo-political tensions.

Brown pre-released his speech on Friday, which gave the game away that the target of the speech was the weekend papers rather than the petroleum potentates. The Jonah effect was immediate, oil rose $4 on Friday and is up $1 a barrel this morning.

The only way prices for British consumers will come down is if Gordon stops pumping the car drivers for taxes – Britain’s motorists pay the highest petrol taxes in the G7 – three quarters of the final price is tax. If Gordon wants to “do something” he should stop raising taxes that pump up petrol prices…

UPDATE : Sam Coates is cheesed off at the waste of time and carbon. Even the announcement is a re-hash…

Remember the Fijian Visitors Bureau’s plan to boost tourism with an official endorsement from Gordon Brown? That was in February, so how has it worked out for them?

Guido has sad but unsurprising news for followers of the chilling effects of the Curse of the One-Eyed Son of the Manse. Fiji’s economic circumstances are difficult and they must have been desperate to call on help from Gordon to boost tourism. 1 in 5 Fiji holidays are from people having beach weddings. The Fiji Registrar General reports a dramatic drop this year, Fiji Visitors Bureau chairman Patrick Wong expressed concern at the declining figures last week.

Is it any surprise? “Darling, shall we get married in Fiji, Gordon Brown is endorsing it…” Hardly going to impress the fiance is it..?

“Hello? Gordon here. I’m calling about your letter…’

Clare O’Connor and David Singleton

Gordon Brown’s latest comms offensive involves cold-calling members of the public who have written him letters, according to sources close to Downing Street.

The initiative is said to be the brainchild of Downing Street chief of strategy Stephen Carter and is intended to humanise the Prime Minister as his popularity continues to wane.

‘Carter thought it was a good idea to have Brown call people personally,’ said one insider. ‘Carter will choose a letter or email at random, have one of his team at Number 10 prepare a response, then get Brown to call.’

The move is an attempt to spread positive word of mouth for the PM, especially in the regions.

However, one of the first phone calls backfired spectacularly, according to one anecdote told to PRWeek.

‘Brown made a phone call at 6am, without thinking,’ said a well-placed Labour source. ‘Luckily the person he called was a shift worker, so he was awake.’

The source added: ‘Carter’s idea is well meaning, but it’s not working. Improving Brown’s image through PR is now being looked at as a lost cause.’

Downing Street declined to comment on the story.

This just in. Gordon met Chelsea’s penalty kick missing John Terry (pictured here) only a few weeks ago at Cystic Fibrosis charity event.

As Guido noted yesterday, Gordon carefully wished both teams well the PMS insisted the PM was a “neutral”. He did however (as many pointed out) receive a recent visit to No. 10 from Chelsea boss Avram Grant. He is also sympathetic to Manchester’s Labour supporting multi-millionaire boss, Alex Ferguson. Is it any surprise in these circumstances that it was a draw after extra time? The Jonah effect was vectoring both ways, on balance the negative ju-ju was clearly weighing more heavily on Avram than Fergie…

UPDATE : When Gordon was asked about his meeting with Avram Grant he told the Lobby

“We had a very interesting discussion about who was going to win the Premier league and how the change in management at Chelsea was going to make a difference, and we speculated about the performance of all the different teams over the next few months.”

UPDATE II : Guido’s broker has just called to tell him that GOOG stock is down $31 since Gordon spoke at the Google Zeitgeist conference on Monday. Knew it was a short…

Guido was looking to see who Brown had backed so as to bet on the other team. It appears he cursed wished them both. Guido fears a terrorist outrage…

The PM’s press conference yesterday bored everyone. Can you guess why?

In that interview with Fern yesterday Gordon claimed a Brit invented the iPod. Which will come as news to Tony Fadell, born and educated in Michigan. He also claimed hospitals were now clean…