Dark days call for direct measures, which perhaps explains why Gordon Brown has taken to cold-calling members of the public who write him letters of complaint.
Although the majority of queries and complaints written to the prime minister get a polite, generic letter in reply, as many as two dozen people a week get a personal telephone call from Brown, according to sources close to Downing Street.
The initiative is thought to have come from his chief of strategy, Stephen Carter, former Ofcom chief executive, and is intended to show Brown is a listening leader in touch with the British people. PR Week reports that the calls are seen as a means to spread positive "word of mouth". A source told the magazine: "Carter thought it was a good idea to have Brown call people personally. Carter will choose a letter or email at random, have one of his team at Number 10 prepare a response, then get Brown to call."
Bit micromanagery isn’t it?
Still, be interesting if he were to give this gentleman a call one day, wouldn’t it?
3 responses so far ↓
1 JuliaM // May 30, 2008 at 10:13 am
I just know someone, somewhere’s working on a spoof of the ‘Hillary In The White House Phone Ringing’ campaign ad as I type….
2 The Great Simpleton // May 30, 2008 at 1:02 pm
It would intersting to find out of the volume of letters to the PM drops once its well publicised that you might get a personal call. Or maybe people will not include telephine numbers to make sure.
3 David Gillies // May 30, 2008 at 8:35 pm
My God, imagine getting a phone call from Gordon. I bet he’s like that boring bloke at a party who won’t let you get a word in edgeways and is fixated on something really dozy, like model trains or something equally wet.
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