Original post by FullofsurprisesHe's hopeless.
See the points below for how he could improve (written by Alastair Campbell) - he should listen to these.
1. Start all briefings with factual updates. How many cases? How many deaths? How many full recoveries? Stats on NHS activity. Stats on Covid-19 tests. Stats on NHS staff tests, and sickness. Stats on ventilators. Stats on protective equipment. Stats on retired NHS staff returning. Explain any regional variations in cases and mortality that may be of interest/concern. Use visuals and graphics. Detail, detail, detail.
2. Express sadness and regret at deaths, and thanks for all those in the public services and beyond who are helping. I can barely remember you talking about the dead and dying. Empathy matters, and make sure it is not formulaic.
3. Have stories to tell of developments, and recovery, from the UK and elsewhere.
4. Have a small team working round the clock on a global analysis of what is happening. Provide a short, distilled account of it. The good news and the bad. The trends, and good ideas, developing. The examples being set. Show the kind of thing that is informing your thinking and decision-making.
5. Provide short, simple updates of everything happening across government as it relates to the virus. Pre-empt the difficult issues that are bound to arise, be that prisons, mental health, domestic violence, and so on, and set out the work being done, any changes being made, any messages you want to send. Do not shy from the complexity and the vastness of the possible ramifications. Do not pretend it is easy or straight-forward.
6. Explain how any progress made in the fight against the virus, or any setback encountered, relates to announcements made in the past, or being made now. Provide real, factual detail. Visuals, graphics. At each stage you have made changes, and said it was the right time to do so, you have not produced sufficient evidence as to why, or how the change relates to a broader plan. This erodes confidence.
7. Consider doing the main briefing in the morning, and an online only, shorter version later in the day. Allows you to control the agenda better, use the morning meeting processes to think through all difficult questions, use the afternoon to maintain momentum and prepare for the next day. There is no such thing as a media deadline in this. Set the rhythm of the day according to your needs, and the reality of the crisis, not the media’s.
8. Without being alarmist, be honest about how bad things are, and how bad they might get.
9. Do not make major change announcements without thinking through answers to every question likely to arise. It doesn’t matter if the answer is ‘we don’t know 100percent at this stage,’ but in some of the key changes announced, from school closures to pub closures, from help for business to help for workers, there have been too many unanswered questions, and too much confusion created by what you say. I am totally sympathetic to how hard this is, the pressures you are all under, the pace at which events are moving, but it has felt too fly by night.
10. Use visuals and graphics, and get them out on social media as you speak. You are getting large TV and radio audiences for the briefings, but most people will continue to absorb the news in bite size chunks and online, after the event. You need to be providing them, verbal and visual.
11. Resist the snappy one liners and the smart arse language. I like to think I know my English, but I still had to look up ‘sedulously’ when you told the country that is the approach we should take.
12. Use powerful images already established in the media and public mind. I was surprised you did not speak out more strongly against panic buying. This may be your libertarian instincts. But your ‘I am sure everyone will be reasonable’ sounded ridiculous set against what we all knew to be happening – empty shelves, queues and fights in supermarkets, crowded pubs and clubs after you had suggested people didn’t go to them. How much better might it have been if you had played the clip of the Yorkshire nurse in tears because she could not buy the food she needed? To those who seem to think youth makes them invulnerable, play the clip of the Italian doctor talking about the people in their 20s and 30s, or the man in his 30s struggling to breathe as nurses in protective gear rushed around him.
13. Be ready to liven up the format. People will tire of the same format, and there is a risk they stop listening. Sad, but true. (Small Brexit point if I may … the two Union flags framed in every shot are there because you thought this was going to be the Getting Brexit Done Parliament … this is a global pandemic. The flags do not help project you as a global leader.)
14. Smarten up. Comb your hair before every briefing. This is not a trivial point. In times of crisis, people look to leaders for confidence and strength. If you look a shambles, the fear people sense is that you are a shambles.
15. Stop charging into the briefings as though you are chasing down that boy you smashed on the rugby field in Japan. People want to see calmness.
16. Stop hitting the lectern as you speak. It buggers up the sound. I know you want to communicate energy and drive, and that is fine. But wind down a couple of gears when you get into full flow.
17. No more homilies and rambles. Factual. Businesslike. When in doubt, shut up.
18. Emphasise the long haul. Yes, people want hope, but the 12 week line was a line not a plan. ‘Sending the virus packing’ was a line not a strategy.
19. End the silly boycott of certain news channels and programmes. It was childish at the time and it feels more childish now.
20. Broaden the team. You have to front most of this, but you also have to do a lot of work behind the scenes. Your ministers are also busy, but some more than others. Take three or four of the less busy ones, and turn them into all purpose government communicators, a bit like you did with Rishi Sunak before the election.