Thousands of people are calling for Reading East MP Rob
Wilson to resign after an ill-advised response to a constituent on social
media.
Within hours of being elected to represent the constituency
for a third time, Conservative Wilson got himself in to a sticky situation when he called a concerned local resident a bad loser in reply to a question about homelessness
in Reading.
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| The Twitter conversation in question appears to have been deleted from Wilson’s Twitter feed. |
This is not the first time Mr. Wilson has been caught out on the social network. In April 2013 he posted to a link to x-rated porn site 'Sexydigg', a site where you can find 'sex partners near you'. Conservative HQ said the link had been sent to Wilson from the Conservative campaign office but 'denied their staff had been browsing porn sites', suggesting instead that a 'technical glitch' was responsible (that's right, perhaps the link really did just pluck itself from thin air without being copied or pasted by anyone from anywhere, links can do that you see...) It is believed he thought he was tweeting a link to an article about pensions. Retirement has never been so sexy.
For some reason, people (politicians, sportsmen, celebrities) say stupid things on social media,
and a Twitter misstep will no doubt cause plenty more downfalls in the future;
if not Rob Wilson now, then someone else very soon. I don't mean stupid things in the sense of deliberately provoking outcry or controversy for publicity purposes, I mean stupid things that get you fired.
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Only last year, Emily Thornberry was forced to resign from Labour’s front bench after her tweets caused a ‘snobbery’ storm. It was generally accepted that her tweet had inferred something unfavourable about the kind of person who drives a white van and hangs the flags of St. George outside their home. Casting a cynical eye over the issue, we could conclude she was making a point along those lines. Perhaps though, her inference wasn’t “what’s the point of campaigning here, these are UKIP folk”. Maybe she meant it was great to see the people of Rochester supporting our national football team (who had played twice in the week preceding the by-election, and had beaten Scotland - their oldest sporting foe - just days before). Perhaps she was simply channelling her inner teenager and tweeting her every move as every teenager does when they go anywhere or do anything; “I’m in Rochester, here’s a picture to prove it!!!”
Wilson’s error was far worse than Thornberry’s. My suggestion here is that from Thornberry’s tweet you have to make that leap and guess at
her inference, she doesn’t spell it out for us. We might add her two cents to
our two cents and make four cents, or we might make nine dollars and forty
cents. Not so with Rob Wilson. He didn’t leave us to make a connection or leave
a cryptic half message from which we should deduce a full answer. Quite simply he
called a constituent a bad loser, and that is a huge political, social media,
and human misstep.
Not only that, but when the story began to gain traction on
Twitter, in what can only have been a complete misjudgement of the backlash, or an overwhelming nonchalance about it, he made matters worse:
“I have emailed you the response to your question. 140
characters would not enable a full response”.
No apology, no explanation. Nothing. Cue the inevitable
replies of how 140 characters is apparently plenty long enough to show yourself
as an uncaring, pig-headed human, and that the word ‘sorry’ would only use five
characters.
Forget the fact that it is a disgusting thing for anyone in
public office to say, especially from someone who’s Twitter bio reads “An
honour & a privilege to serve Reading East as MP for a 3rd
term”. (After this issue, we could be forgiven for thinking that it is a
privilege to serve, but that there are some really annoying constituents who
won't shut up when they’ve been beaten by a better candidate and a better party). Forget
the fact that it paints him as the only thing worse than a bad loser – a
horribly smug winner. In fact, let’s put to one side everything to do with manners,
courtesy, and how wrong it is to respond like that when someone asks you a
question, and focus on this from a PR standpoint.
As an MP, to initially call someone a bad loser on Twitter
in this way demonstrates a huge lack of understanding of exactly what it is he
was put there to do. He was elected to represent the people of Reading, not
some of them, not the ones he likes, or the ones who voted for him, ALL of
them. Even if privately you can’t stand your constituents, at least pretend to
support all of them. Even if you think yourself better than them, because you
have more money, or you won, or whatever, never ever ever say anything out loud
in any form that reflects that thought process. And certainly never ever ever
write anything like that down. Not only does that (literally) increase the
paper trail, but it puts you at a severe disadvantage when dealing with human
beings who, psychology tells us, rely as much (if not more) on the way things
are said and the expressions people display when saying them. In the same way that your written words can’t physically put a firm hand on someone’s shoulder to reassure them everything will be alright, Twitter says not: '“Don’t be a bad loser” joked Rob Wilson playfully with a twinkle in his eye'. Nor does it say '"Don't be a bad loser" screamed Rob Wilson venomously at the stupid constituent who asked a stupid question'. There is far too much left unsaid, and far too few visual, audio or body language clues for the reader to build an accurate picture of the tone. My guess is that the majority of readers in this instance built up a negative picture whether that was Wilson's intention or not. Even if that lot weren't the majority, they were always going to be the more vocal segment.
From a political and communications point of view, you are always far more in control of your message, and people’s reaction to it,
if it’s spoken and you are in face to face contact with them.
Wilson later sought yet again to clarify the situation by
suggesting that he had known the woman in question “for a number of years as an
active journalist” and that she regularly “contributed her views on government
policy”. That’s fine then. Because she has disagreed with you in the past and
called you out on the issues, it must be OK to call her a bad loser.
This lack of awareness from Wilson of the importance of perception
and communications is worrying. He seems to think that by explaining the
background to the situation we will all sit back and judge him to be in the
right. We won’t. At best it looks like someone has made a giant error and is
now making excuses for himself. At worst, he looks uncaring, smug, and
completely oblivious to these facts.
Even if the background to the story puts Wilson in the right
(I’m not suggesting it does or does not), there is no way he can win a PR game
on this issue. Quite simply, the story of an MP glibly insulting a constituent
makes for a much better story regardless of background. The fact is people
still don’t like politicians, and the horse bolted as soon as Mr. Wilson posted
his first response. It doesn’t matter what the story is, or where it goes from
there. It doesn’t matter whether Wilson is uncaring, smug, has a wholly poor
attitude to constituents who disagree with him or anything else. That perception
has been allowed to exist through a lack of understanding of social media communications.
Everyone likes being proved right, and everyone loves a good
downfall even more. Wilson gave people enough fodder to confirm their existing
suspicions. He should have known that from the moment he was elected first time,
he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by engaging in this behaviour,
and he should have been more careful.
What amazes me most, is how easy it is to get it right, and
how often people get it wrong. A solid communications strategy, a basic
understanding of message control and delivery, and a bit of common sense, would
go a long way to ensuring this kind of thing doesn’t happen.
From a PR perspective, the easiest and most effective thing
Wilson could have done would be to not have made such a stupid comment to begin
with. Everything from that point on is damage control, and Wilson’s responses
so far have not controlled much of the damage. All he can do now is hope it
blows over, and hope there are more exciting things for the press to talk about
in the next week or so. He also needs to hope he isn’t labelled by the
Conservative Party as a PR liability going forward.
**UPDATE**
You can view the petition calling for the resignation of Rob Wilson MP HERE
**UPDATE**
You can view the petition calling for the resignation of Rob Wilson MP HERE
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