Are you reading, Keith Vaz? Five tips for every politician when they controversially hit tabloid headlines
With Keith Vaz making headlines across Europe with allegations by the Sunday Mirror over male prostitutes and drugs usage, Francis Ingham, director general of the PRCA, offers his pointers on what every politician should do when they too hit the headlines.
1. Turn down the paper's offer for you to 'put your side of the story'.
They're not your friends now even if they might've been in the past. You have more important audiences to address first. And you'll appear incoherent anyway due to the shock.
2. Secure your base.
You need to give some people the heads up. Your spouse and children, the head of your local association/constituency party and definitely the Chief Whip.
Ouch.
3. Speak through your lawyer.
Nobody wants to go to jail. Ok. It's good for memoir sales, but you won't enjoy the experience. Have Jeffrey Archer's face in your mind at this point.
4. Put out a full statement.
Include all the detail that's going to come out -and all the detail that might. This is the cringe moment. But you need to get it all out there quickly. And yes -you need to put 'your side of the story'. Correct any errors made in initial reporting, but don't go to war with the media. There's no need to delete your Twitter account - just don't look at it for a few weeks. You won't like what you see and you'll be tempted to engage with the people mocking you.
5. Be dignified.
Your next public appearance needs to be in a setting and at a time of your choosing, and where you are in control. It definitely needs NOT to be in a scrum outside of your house. Think Boris being locked out of his own home by his wife.
And then finally just sit it out. Wait. It'll pass (unless you're prosecuted of course). And if you play it right, you'll make SOME kind of comeback, quite likely linked with some charity or cause devoted to the reason related to your little difficulty.
Think Profumo and Aitken.
Francis Ingham MPRCA is director general of the PRCA, chief executive of the ICCO and a master at the City of London Company of Public Relations Practitioners.