When you are in government, you need people who are able, in one or two sentences, to articulate a broad strategic vision; someone to explain what it is you’re doing and how today’s “what” fits into the broader “why”.

However, in order to avoid a communications crisis, you also need people (or at least one person) who is buried in the details, looking for those unintended consequences that busy people don’t or can’t see. To get good at this skill requires a special mind, able to assess all of the potential consequences and assess risk. A little bit of experience also helps.

This week in the UK, we saw a government fail at the details while trying to achieve goals related to its broader vision. UK Labour was forced into a series of major concessions to avoid a full scale revolt on long-anticipated welfare cuts.

And every journalist was handed a gift when the final vote aligned with the first year anniversary of Labour’s general election victory:

Things can look stupid and obvious retrospectively.

The essence of excellence in political communications is anticipating the “fail” before it happens.

The drama in the UK reminded me of recent events in Saskatchewan.

Back in my day, someone was responsible for looking at event guest lists and looking for potential problems and quietly solving said problems. Apparently that no longer happens. And while anyone is free to attend the Saskatchewan Legislature, an invitation from a sitting member or the government is another matter.

In the Saskatchewan example, you can write it all off as an example of an older government, losing control over the fundamentals.

In the UK example, it’s perhaps more troubling this his happening on the first anniversary of a Labour government.

What precisely are the qualities of Canadian corn starch…inherent politeness? A distinct society of starchy-ness?

An important reminder from south of the border about damage control and crisis communications: Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do.

Witness Senator Joni Ernst, who made a dismissive comment at a public meeting about medicare cuts, then made matters far worse with an “apology” video, riddled with sarcasm and attempts at humour. It failed. As the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practice document reminds us, sarcasm is a delicate instrument and should be used sparingly.

In my experience, getting a politician to do nothing is an extremely difficult task. Elected officials want to be seen to be doing things. Overall, that can be a virtue; except when the thing you pick to do makes matters far worse.

For those interested, the whole story can be more fully explored at the link below, which will take you to an excellent column by New York Times opinion writer Michelle Cottle. As Cottle wisely points out, when you do something incredibly stupid or insensitive in the public arena, best not to highlight that mistake:

And Cottle also explores something I’ve been thinking about for a while: Why is it that many of our elected officials seem constitutionally incapable of delivering a sincere apology?

There have been many examples in Saskatchewan politics of elected officials trying to control the damage, only to make matters worse. The one that immediately comes to mind is a former finance minister, who flew to a luncheon instead of driving. It’s a story that would have died in hours through inattention. However, the powerful desire to fix things overcame reason and experience. If your only excuse was “I was exhausted”, just stay in your office.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-finance-minister-says-she-won-t-apologize-for-8k-chartered-flight-1.6525318: Don’t just do something, stand there:

I suspect the long term political consequences for Joni Ernst will be minimal. The good people of Iowa elected her in 2014 with over 52 percent of the vote, flipping the seat from Democratic to Republican.

But it does offer a reminder to elected officials with less secure margins of victory: Sometimes less is more. And if you do want to apologize, make sure you don’t make matters worse.

And remember the communications advice from Sir Humphry Appleby in Yes Minister: Don’t just do something, stand there.

Robert Frost 1874 – 1963

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

“Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

John Muir

Adam Gopnik’s most recent article (A Time To Kill: The last ditch effort to head off the Civil War, The New Yorker, April 28, 2025) the canvasses the latest offerings in a seemingly endless assembly line of Abraham Lincoln biographies. Of particular attention lately amongst scholars is a peace conference, prior to Lincoln’s inauguration, held at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC.

Gopnik walks again on the well-travelled ground of attempting to sort-out just how hard line Lincoln was on the abolition of slavery. In the end, Lincoln is cast as a pragmatic democratic politician trying to build a coalition based on stopping the spread of this awful practice.

The talks failed. Once the conflict begins, Lincolns use of “abolition” to replace “union” as the motivating purpose of the war, had a galvanizing effect. Gopnik (interestingly) compares this word/goal shift to the impact Donald Trump has had on Canada’s federal election of 2025:

And yet Canada, oddly, offers a clue to the peculiar appeal of Lincoln’s abstract idea of “union”. Donald Trump’s threats have, almost overnight, caused a famously divided and centrifugal nation to cohere into a single national front. (April 28, 2025 New Yorker, Pg. 52)

The little-remembered pre- Civil War peace conference was held at the Willard Hotel, located near the White House and the Capitol Building. It was also where Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic and where early drafts of MLK’s I have a dream speech were born.

In a less uplifting chapter of American political history, the Willard Hotel is also where J. Edgar Hoover bugged King’s suite in January of 1964. Hoover felt he had gathered enough incriminating evidence from the bugged room to destroy King’s career. However, Lyndon Johnson, on the cusp of successfully passing the Civil Rights Act wasn’t keen on that happening, neither was Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

In her fascinating and well research biography of Hoover (G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the making of the American Century, Viking Press 2022) author Beverly Gage says only a handful of federal officials have heard the recordings. That is soon to change:

After Hoover’s death, a court order placed the tapes under embargo for fifty years, set to expire in 2027. (G-Man pg. 585)

You can almost feel the history seeping out of the walls of the Willard Hotel. President Grant sat in the lobby of the Willard and heard appeals for funding and support—giving birth to the phrase lobbying. The giant state seals on the lobby ceiling are worth a visit.

But please don’t visit Washington D.C. until the current trade dispute is behind us. The city has much to offer and the people are very friendly. However currently, a boycott is in order.