Flack: Flack's Week

PR Week UK, Friday, 10 December 2010, 12:00am,

What's the going rate for a Tory media chief? Andy Coulson was rumoured to be on £275,000 before entering 10 Downing Street, but not every big-hitter in Tory HQ can expect the same rewards, it seems.

The Electoral Commission last week published assorted invoices and receipts amassed by political parties in the six weeks running up to the 2010 election. Trawling through them, Flack learns that a certain Clarence Mitchell (pictured), now at Lewis PR, pocketed two payments of just £5,875 to be the party's head of election monitoring during the campaign. The injustice! ...

A special award for speed, if not content, goes to PR recruiter EMR and agency The Wriglesworth Consultancy. The agency issued a press release on the 'effect on PR jobs' of the 2018 bid's failure, before the envelope had even left Sepp Blatter's grubby hands. At least it had the grace to wait until the decision was made - law firm Osborne Clarke send out a release with two entirely different quotes depending on the result ...

The Government may have found a new way of cutting loose a few more unwanted press officers. A Whitehall snout says that when the student riots were taking place, a missive went around asking any staff doing non-essential work to leave their building immediately. A rumour instantly spread that this was George Osborne's cunning ruse to identify more prime candidates for the chop.