Diary: Labour candidate emerges, and wins

PR Week UK, 20 May 2005, 2:19pm

Our appeal for stories from PROs who stood for Labour at the election (Diary, 13 May) is duly answered with one industry source pointing out that former BNFL press officer Jamie Reed successfully replaced former agriculture minister Jack Cunningham, who has joined the House of Lords, as MP for Copeland.

Reed - who before the election had the unenviable task of working in the press office of BNFL's Sellafield plant in the constituency - held the seat with a 6,000 majority.

But more intriguing is Labour's selection process for the seat last February.

Stuart Bruce of Bruce Marshall Associates informs us he was one of four people on an all-PR shortlist alongside Bell Pottinger board director and former special adviser to Cunningham, Tim Walker, and Thomas Docherty, another BNFL PR man.

What this can mean for the re-elected Labour government's commitment to pump billions into a raft of new nuclear power stations, we couldn't possibly say.