What a week it has been (so far) for Jeremy Corbyn.
Winning the Labour leadership contest by a landslide by effectively NOT playing the PR game but secretly doing just that.
Jeremy won a lot of hearts and minds by being himself. He is unvarnished. He is everything that most politicians are not and that is why he is so popular..for now.
That tactic (whether intended or natural) works brilliantly if you are there to shake things up a bit. Sadly for Jeremy, it will not work if he wants to be the leader for long. This is a sad state of affairs because surely politics should be about er…politics, not PR and spin?
However, that view would be naive. He needs to start playing the game if he wants to keep winning.
He is such an easy target because he stands out.
Of course, the latest furore comes in the form of him “snubbing” the national anthem. Now, without getting into politics too much (this is a PR blog) Jeremy is a republican, a pacifist and I believe an atheist. He does not HAVE to sing a song about a monarchy he is against being saved by a deity he does not believe in.
However, doing so in such a public and sensitive setting as yesterday’s Battle of Britain service was insensitive. Or was it? Would he have been hypocritical to have pretended to join in? Would it have been worse if he had? Would he just be doing what everyone else in politics does and be playing the populist card?
Maybe his dignified silence was EXACTLY what he should have done?
The problem is, by being Jeremy, Jeremy won. Now by being Jeremy, he is losing. In PR terms, he can’t win.
Dylan Sharpe, head of PR for The Sun newspaper, who recently praised the Corbyn campaign’s PR strategy in the run up to the leadership election said: “
Corbyn’s meteoric rise has been in large part down to his reputation as unvarnished, unspun and honest – which is, of course, itself a PR trick. But once in office and having to deal with the pressures of compromise and competing demands, being honest and unspun is more difficult and hence silly mistakes like having a journalist overhear your Cabinet discussions and not singing the national anthem are made.”
His PR strategy now appears naive. His walk of silence with the Sky News crew over the lack of senior females in his Shadow Cabinet was excruciating. Maybe that is what he wanted though? To show that he really doesn’t care about spin and PR but about the serious issues.
The problem is, nature and the media abhors a vacuum. “No comment” doesn’t cut it. Neither does showing utter disdain for the press. Now, whether he would have behaved differently if it was Channel 4 rather than the Murdoch-backed Sky News is up for debate but it doesn’t LOOK good.
However, Jeremy doesn’t care and you know what, there will be plenty of others who agree with him. On everything.
One thing’s for sure, his performance on PMQs later today will be interesting. He’s promised to end the charade, the Punch and Judy style theatre of it all. That extends to his PR.
Whatever his distaste for the limelight, Jeremy Corbyn is box office stuff.