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A Taxonomy of Leaks: how weird will this election get?

11 August 2007 in Language, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Back in 1980, Yes Minister explained the use of irregular verbs in politics:

Bernard Woolley: That’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.

This week I was pleased to see PR strategist Ian Kortlang classify leaks to the media in four ways: Accidental, strategic, malicious and pyromania.

Christian Kerr explains:

Accidental included documents left on photocopiers and the like. Strategic meant a leak designed to achieve a positive advantage. Malicious was meant to undermine and disadvantage. And pyromania was “Stuff the consequences, this feels good.”

Korlang reckons this week’s leak of the Crosby/Textor research saying John Howard is perceived as “old” and “sneaky” was pure pyromania.

One aspect of all this I found quite bizarre was John Howard on radio on Monday:

Confronted with scathing polling describing him as old, sneaky, dishonest and out of touch, Howard said: “There’s nothing particularly new in that… I’m not particularly amazed.”

This election (pre-)campaign is getting weirder and weirder. What could be the weirdest thing yet to come?

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