Dear political parties: we need to talk about your press officers

As a PR, I genuinely despair at the piss poor, knee jerk reaction from Labour's press office to Buzzfeed running with a story following an interview with Jeremy Corbyn, that was contrary to their narrative. They didn't tell you the headline you were going to run?! Grow up.

We consistently tell clients who want copy approval on a story following an interview that they're very unlikely to get one as journalists feel like it questions their integrity. and when the interview is recorded, you're on very shaky ground.

And that recording just proves Corbyn answered the question badly, yet looking at some of the comments on this article, apparently reporting objectively in a way that is counter to your partisan political beliefs is bad, very bad, they're bad people. Sound familiar??

There was also an article on the Independent that said Theresa May would only take pre-approved questions. Not ideal, but the terms of engagement have been set before the interview, and the media outlet that interviews her has agreed to move forward on that basis.

Either way, I question about how well prepared politicians are for interviews. Say what you like about David Cameron, but he was very good at moving the conversation onto an area he wanted to focus on. But then he was a PR in a former life so you'd expect nothing less.

Even if a journalist asks a question you don't want to respond to, there should be a response prepared for any eventuality. There are a number of different bridging techniques that can be be utilised to more effectively respond to tricky questions, but that seems to be a dying art.

I was made aware of an interview between the Conservative candidate for Coventry North West, Resham Kotecha, Brexit Secretary David Davis, and Simon Gilbert at the Coventry Telegraph, where the press officer stepped in to stop the interview because Gilbert asked a question they didn't like. It is incredibly lazy to rely on the comms guy to step in, and is yet further proof that politicians are being poorly briefed and are ill-prepared to engage effectively with the media.

Back to Labour's response to Buzzfeed, where they have decided not to invite Buzzfeed to future campaign events, retrospectively throwing your toys out of the pram, makes you look pretty feckless, and is an embarrassment to our profession.

They could have picked up the phone after seeing the coverage, and said, "Listen lads, we think you might have got the wrong end of the stick, what Jezza meant was 'XYZ'. Appreciate the recording could have been interpreted as you've reported, be great if we could do a follow up some time to clarify a few points. Look forward to catching you guys at our next event, got some really exciting policies we want to discuss with you."

While our industry is going through seismic changes, that see a real diversification of services and a shift towards more integrated comms strategies, media relations is still a cornerstone of what we do.

Good PR is 99% common sense - treat people like people, don't be a d**k. The media teams for all political parties are welcome to pop into Hotwire for some media training any time - clearly they could do with going back to school. Politics isn't even our sweet spot, yet I'm pretty sure we'd do a far better job of preparing candidates and politicians for interview than currently seems to be the acceptable standard in UK politics.