One year on

Acres of newsprint and hours of broadcast time have already been spent today reviewing the first year of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. I tried to resist the temptation to add my penny's worth but couldn’t, so here is my take on the coalition’s communications operation. In a word it has been shambolic.

I think that stung by the persistent accusations during the election campaign that he was insubstantial, Cameron took office desperate to demonstrate that he was a radical politician with a packed agenda for change. And so the call went out across Whitehall – bring out your white papers, your interventions, your consultations, even your blue sky thinking, prove to the public and more importantly to the commentariat that we aren’t light on policy. But Cameron also wanted to have a more relaxed centre so the command and control model of Number 10 established under Blair was dismantled and Departments were pretty much allowed to do what they wanted. No longer would they have to get every piece of policy signed off by Number 10, neither were they required to run all their communications plans by the Number 10 coms team. The result has been that week after week, departments have announced half-baked policies which more often that not have had to be “clarified”. Tuition fees, forests, health reforms, foundation schools, internships to name but a few. Even yesterday David Willets had to clarify himself on the issue of whether dumb people could get into university if their rich parents coughed up the full cost of tuition. Oh dear.

I can’t recall a single big announcement that has been “clean”. This has had the cumulative effect of making the coalition look incompetent. Of all his problems, this is one that is relatively easy to fix – re-establish a strong centre, check and double check the policy and the handling. This way you can avoid putting your name to the forward of a white paper which if you or one of your staff had read you would have realised was contrary to your views and breached the coalition agreement. Get a grip.