World | UK
Brown gets on the direct line to people
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has taken to "cold calling" members of the general public in a move to help restore his declining popularity.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:48 May 30, 2008
London: Prime Minister Gordon Brown has taken to "cold calling" members of the general public in a move to help restore his declining popularity, newspapers said on Friday.Brown, hit by a string of poor election results, has been randomly telephoning people who have written him letters of complaint. Newspapers said he had made as many as two dozen such calls up to now.
The tactic was disclosed on the same day as Brown's Labour Party recorded its worst opinion poll performance since surveys began in 1943.
While Downing Street officials insisted it was not a new initiative, media reports said the idea had come from his newly appointed strategy chief Stephen Carter.
Carter, a former public relations chief, wanted to "humanise" his new boss, the PR industry magazine, PR Week, said. A letter or email would be chosen at random, a response prepared and then Brown would call, it quoted an insider as saying.
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