Category: Technology

Part 1 of our review of a defining week in UK politics, which will have significant impacts for businesses in Energy and Industrials, Tech, Capital Markets and Financial Services. 

Part 2 can be found here.

The Government turns from its record, and the markets take a turn for the worse

The old cliché is that a week is a long time in politics. Just a week ago, Liz Truss’s new Government presented its ‘Growth Plan 2022’. Despite being dubbed a ‘mini-budget’, there was nothing mini about it: this very big fiscal giveaway contained £45bn worth of tax cuts – the biggest such package in about 50 years.

Business groups initially welcomed the cuts to Corporation Tax and National Insurance, which had been promised throughout Liz Truss’s leadership campaign. But it was the announcement of additional tax cuts, like the (quickly reversed) abolition of the 45p top rate of tax, that really surprised the markets, and upset MPs and voters. The cut solely benefited the highest earners – which in the context of high Government debt and a cost-of-living crisis astonished most independent commentators. Even the IMF has criticised the package in an extraordinary warning to a G7 country.

All of these tax cuts appear to be funded through additional borrowing. Without the normal oversight provided by the Office of Budget Responsibility, there is little clarity into the long-term impacts on government finances. Sound money or fiscal responsibility is at the core of the Conservative brand, but suddenly Liz Truss’s new government appeared to be acting recklessly with the country’s finances.

The pound’s value tumbled immediately, and within days a run on government bonds became a fire sale that nearly toppled a number of pension funds, the Bank of England has had to buy up unlimited amounts of government debt, and banks pulled hundreds of mortgages from the market in anticipation of soaring interest rates, as analysts warned of precipitous falls in housing prices.

A stark change of direction

While the pound appears to have rallied since the Bank of England’s intervention, this does not bode at all well for a government that is less than a month old. But since the Brexit referendum in 2016, UK politics has become increasingly unstable: the UK has now had four Prime Ministers in a little over six years.

The new Truss government is determined to distance itself from its predecessors, with very little policy continuity between them. Both of Boris Johnson’s main post-Brexit agendas have been shelved: ‘Levelling up’ – the mission to use infrastructure investment and devolution to spread prosperity more equitably around the country – has been more or less forgotten (though it lives on as a slogan). And the future of the green agenda is now in doubt after the appointment of several climate sceptics to the Government front bench.

What has taken the place of these agendas is a headlong pursuit of economic growth: a review of the Net Zero strategy has been ordered by the new climate-sceptic Business Secretary. And growth is no longer a vehicle for levelling up: the new Chancellor has said plainly that his sole priority is growing the economy, not worrying about how the gains are shared. Now the Government defines itself in contrast to its predecessors, reversing most of the fiscal policy of the last government, and criticising the last decade as a ’vicious cycle of stagnation’.

The Chancellor believes that his approach – of cutting taxes first, and pushing through supply-side reforms to areas like the planning system, business regulations, childcare, immigration and digital infrastructure later – will create growth, and get the UK on course for a new 2.5% annual growth target. But observers inside and outside the Conservative party are sceptical.

Time is running out

Financial markets are not the only ones to take fright at the Government’s fiscal package. Conservative MPs really don’t like it either. They mainly backed Liz Truss’s leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, who accurately predicted the response of the markets to Truss’s tax-cutting pledges. Now there are all kinds of nuclear options under discussion amongst Tory MPs: there are reports that letters calling for a no-confidence vote in Liz Truss have already started to go in, with other MPs reportedly in secret talks with Labour about how to defeat the Government’s must-pass Finance Bill. Losing such a vote would be the death knell for the Government, and it could lead to a General Election. Readers should take all of this with a pinch of salt, however – despite the extraordinary anger on Conservative benches, MPs are unlikely to vote for their imminent unemployment, given the likely outcome of such an election.

Ultimately the most critical constituency for the Government – voters – seems to have moved decisively against the Government too. Polling in the days since the mini-budget has shown the Conservatives losing their usual lead on economic policy – normally their strong suit – along with nearly every other issue, and losing ground to Labour in voting intention. Labour has now built up a solid lead from every polling company, which if repeated at a General Election, would likely produce a majority Labour Government. With two years to the next election, at most, the Government has limited time to prove that its radical free-market policies can work.

Part 2 can be found here.

Dan Hogan is Aspectus’ Public Affairs Lead. He is at Conservative Conference this week, gathering insight into key policy areas affecting Energy and Industrials, Tech, Capital Markets and Financial Services, and spending time with the key decision makers whose choices affect your business. If you want to know more about how Aspectus’ Public Affairs team can help you, get in touch.

By Catherine Hunter, Energy team Account Director

As we approach the results for the Conservative leadership election, there’s been significant scrutiny on the candidates’ policies around the NHS, environment and taxes. But there’s been a lesser focus on their media techniques.

Liz Truss has openly admitted she isn’t as well polished as a public speaker as her rival, Rishi Sunak, but what tips and tricks could both candidates look to work on as they steer the country into their direction as Prime Minister?

Bridging

Bridging is a technique that helps you move from one area of conversation to another. The approach works best when the question asked is answered – or at least in part – before moving onto a slightly different conversation point.

In this interview with Nick Ferrari, Sunak is asked about his image in politics. He’s challenged on both appearance and pulling pints while being tee-total. Rather than saying simply, “I should be judged on my ideas” Sunak acknowledges some of the criticisms given before saying, “this is about what I’m going to be able to do for the country” and he then uses that line to bridge into some of the core values of the party and how he supports them.

However, in this clip, Truss directly fails to answer the question on the emotions she’d feel around launching nuclear weapons. After failing to answer the question once, it’s repeated and the same soundbite of “I’m ready to do it” is given. And while the audience response clearly shows this is a popular reaction to the question, Truss could have deployed the art of bridging to make this stronger. Even simply saying, “I’m sure I’d be feeling a lot of emotions, but it’s a part of the job I’m ready to do.” This is still allowing that soundbite to come through but gives the sense the question is answered.

The bridging technique works well for both parties in a media dance. The interviewer gets an answer, but the interviewee can also steer the conversation towards an area they feel more comfortable in – or in this case – get some key vote winning ideas across.

However, when taking a question from the public around jobs in the cabinet, Truss performs an excellent display of different two techniques. The first is bridging, where she responds to the need for a “leaner” cabinet by rejecting that idea but calling for a leaner Number 10.

Underscoring

The other technique displayed here is underscoring. Truss acknowledged Kemi Badenoch could be in her cabinet at the start of her answer before she returns to Badenoch and her credentials. Underscoring the point that she’s a good fit for a cabinet post.

And while Truss does this well, Sunak clearly details vulnerable customers as a dividing line between him and Truss on energy bills. Not only do we notice a return to that theme at the end of this clip, he also uses changes in tone to draw attention to the words “vulnerable” and “pensioners”.

Underscoring is an invaluable tool to making sure the key messages you’ve worked on are the lasting memory for the interviewer.

Signposting

There are, however, times when the topic being discussed is very narrow in its focus and you want to introduce a new idea entirely. This is where signposting becomes important.

After taking a few questions on the public sector pay and her revoked policy, Truss sees an opportunity to move the conversation onto the wider topic of the cost of living in this interview with Kay Burley. The back and forth on public sector pay isn’t really moving forward and so it’s Truss that makes the decision to move the topic on, which Burley follows and questions on cost of living follow. This is arguably safer ground for Truss as there wasn’t a political U-turn on the issue to defend.

Both candidates will have a set of key messages – some even in the form of soundbites – they intend to get across to media and the effective deploying of signposting is a great way to bring them into a debate or interview that would otherwise not cover key topics.

And while being the best public speaker, or media performer, is unlikely to be the only reason a candidate becomes the favourite, it helps to ensure key messages resonate.

If you’d like to hear more about how media training could help your key messages land in your next campaign, find out more here.

By Isabelle Dann, Senior Media Strategist, Technology  

The importance of good media relations cannot be overstated and, since you’re already reading this, chances are this isn’t news to you. Strong PR has always been prized compared to advertising, as people rightly prioritise third-party endorsement, thanks to its impartial nature. Across all sectors, earned media has always rested on relationships. However, the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s cards, affecting the entire media landscape.  

During the first lockdown, web traffic spiked for publishers due to the widespread impact of coronavirus – yet existing struggles to monetise this readership persisted, even for newspapers with a healthy network of paid subscribers. This was compounded when media buyers and brands pulled advertising spend almost overnight, compelling consolidation across the industry. 

Also, it’s no secret that newsrooms had been shrinking alongside advertising budgets long before the clutches of Covid-19 set in. Consequently, journalists would often find themselves forced to churn out more stories with fewer resources and more ill-targeted PR pitches. 

So, what does this mean for communications now? In short: while the benefits of media relations may be harder to achieve than ever before, they’ve never been more valuable. The pandemic accelerated our evolution into a weightless world, as described by economist Diane Coyle, where more economic activity takes place in digital form – but personalisation is still paramount. 

This is where the importance of media relations becomes most apparent, as true storytelling is people-powered. Certainly, it’s never been more difficult to stand out from the crowd. Businesses that blast out endless press releases about, say, yet another industry award shortlist – opting for quantity over quality when it comes to targets – are doomed to fail from the beginning. 

Good media relations centres around knowing what journalists want, which means aiming far beyond press releases (though of course these remain important). This means reading the news voraciously – sounds obvious, yet so many fail to really do their homework when speaking to journalists. How else are you going to know what a journalist wants unless you read their work? Their competitors’ work? Reading is the catalyst for storylines, the ability to spot opportunities, and respond imaginatively and efficiently to breaking news – which is where we excel.  

As a result, the best journalists come to us for a conversation, to look at what we have written, and to listen to what we can offer them. Above all else, journalists want fresh ideas. That could encompass everything from an opinion piece to a research-led feature, an infographic to an interview opportunity. The point is that media relationships don’t come from a piece of paper like an old-fashioned press release; they grow from a discussion based around a whole package of input. 

Now, how best to go about this? Both brands and communications professionals (whether in-house or agency) should focus on building meaningful relationships with their target media. As the world opens up more and more, this could entail meeting a journalist for coffee or lunch, which helps build a relationship on a personal level. Phone calls work well for formal interviews, but nothing quite beats meeting face-to-face; humans have not yet devolved en masse into bots for a reason. 

At the same time, the rise in remote working has made Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts meetings mainstream. This has opened up access to virtual coffees with journalists who might not only live in a different city but in a different country, continent, perhaps even in a rural location.

This shouldn’t be a hard sell, but instead a chance to get to know them and what they are interested in, so pitching efforts can be more tailored. Also don’t forget that, by removing the need to travel, you’ll be asking for less of a journalist’s (admittedly scant) time. 

Ultimately, with Google advertising still funding fake news websites, it’s never been more important to support organisations that specialise in telling the truth. What’s more, as publishers are accountable, they’re a valuable place for businesses to spend marketing budgets in the form of PR. Paid media can be useful as part of a wider communications strategy but, in isolation, it’ll only achieve limited success.  

The future of media is uncertain and, when calculating ROI, it’s easy to be short-sighted – but businesses must play the long game if they want lasting growth. Journalists – online, print, audio, and broadcast – are responsible for holding to account key figures in government, companies, sovereign states, and broader society. Individuals and businesses who can provide revealing insights that rise above the noise, creating distinctive value for a publication’s readers, will create a truly lasting legacy.

Get in touch with me if you’re looking to propel your press coverage this year. In the last few weeks alone, we’ve secured Sky News, the Financial Times, and Business Insider.

Isabelle can be reached at isabelle.dann@aspectusgroup.com and @izzydann