Spin this...

IT has not been a good month for the Coalition Government to say the least. Lambasted over Chancellor George Osborne’s “omnishambles” budget in March which saw criticisms of “pasty” and “granny” taxes and measures which could cut charity funding, it has seemingly lurched subsequently from one crisis to another.

First Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude’s call for motorists to fill up jerry-cans in advance of a potential fuel tanker strike caused panic at the pumps.

Then Home Secretary Theresa May and her advisors got their dates mixed up and had to hastily row back on attempts to deport terror suspect Abu Qatada.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron and Mr Osborne were derided as “two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk” by Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries, while the Public Administration Committee in a report accused the Government of “chaotic strategy” and “muddled” attempts at policy-making.

To make things worse, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has faced calls to resign in the past few days over alleged collusion with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation company and it was yesterday confirmed the UK is in a “double- dip” recession.

So, why does the Government appear to have lost its grip and how can it get back on track?

Political historian Dr Gidon Cohen, a senior lecturer in politics and deputy head of the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, says it needs to heed lessons from previous administrations.

“The question of how you manage events like we have seen recently is key to any Government,” he says. “In the early days of the Labour Government there were references to ‘Teflon Tony’ in respect of Tony Blair.

“That is because when there were cock-ups and disasters, fairly intensive skilled management involving the likes of Alistair Campbell meant they managed to escape the kind of narratives that are emerging in the press now.

“We’re talking now about a set of largely unrelated events which mask more fundamental problems, which include a failure to manage the media very well and the huge number of changes this Government is trying to push through at once.

“This is exacerbating the problem of the regular crises that come along and knock Governments off course. It is inevitable that crises in Government happen, but it is how you manage them, not just the actual process of it, but the presentation of it.

“You would have to say over the past few weeks the current Government has managed both pretty poorly.”

DR Cohen says apparent attempts by the Coalition to “ramp up” tension with fuel tanker drivers’ representatives in order to bring the dispute to a head contrast with the preparation and careful thought that went into the Tory Government’s handling of the miners strike in the 1980s.

He also describes how, if anything, Mr Cameron’s Government has taken too much onto its plate too quickly and has lost its focus on managing competently.

“Both Thatcher and Blair said they were disappointed at how little they did in the early part of their Governments,” he says.

“This Coalition Government says it learnt from that that they need to be much more active straightaway and make changes.

“But they have missed an important point.

Those Governments did fairly limited amounts in their early years, because they recognised to a certain extent they had to learn the ropes.

“But that’s not the case with the current Government. They undertook some radical reforms straightaway, for example the reform of the NHS.

“They also believed there had been a buildup of waste in the public sector and there was a need for massive changes.

“But these reforms have unravelled because of a weight of accumulated, practical problems.

“Perhaps there should have been more of a focus on managing things competently. If you don’t manage things competently, no matter how great your ideas for reform are you will come unstuck, compounding the difficulties you face.”

Dr Cohen says in the midst of all this, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne must avoid the “potentially damaging” accusation that they are out of touch with ordinary people’s lives.

And they need to become more adept at dodging the tricky questions that politicians often face.

“When Cameron was asked when he last ate a pasty, I was staggered that he even tried to answer that question when he had nothing to gain from it,” he says.

“The last Government was extremely expert at avoiding those kind of questions and ideally avoiding being asked them in the first place.

“The Government’s handling of the media in a number of ways has been poor, that is what all the spin doctors in the last Labour Government were doing – they were looking at every detail to try and get it right.

“They were ‘control freaks’ and ‘obsessed with spin’, but in the contemporary age, if you are not managing those details of how the media see you, you are asking for problems.”

This week, the Chancellor’s poll ratings were revealed to have plunged in the wake of the Budget, betraying a lack of confidence in his ability and perhaps the Government as a whole.

“If they [the Government] try to fix minor problems such as the pasty tax that is not going to help,” says Dr Cohen.

“What is at stake here is whether a continuing, long-term narrative – the broad storyline – builds up which says that the Government is unable to manage crises and is incompetent.

“There is one thing that Governments cannot afford to lose in electroral terms which is an air of competence. That is what they need to fix.”