Falconer, Jail Bird.

The Government seems to have performed a U-turn over the release of prisoners this week. A ‘Whitehall source’ has stated that the Government has run out of options (having only 481 prison spaces left) and so up to 2,000 prisoners could face early release.

Now the point here is not the fact the Government can’t keep criminals locked up. Instead it's the fact (that Sky News are particularly keen on today) that on May 6th, Lord Falconer, in a Sky News interview said "I am not going to announce early releases because of prison overcrowding. It's simply wrong". So, firstly did Falconer lie to the media to keep them off his back? If so, he won’t be trusted again and his reputation and the reputation of the Government will be damaged. Secondly, if he wasn’t lying and the events that have happened were unexpected, what should he do to rectify this blunder?

If it's the first; the fact is that you shouldn’t lie to the media EVER, it is done fairly often and those that get away with it, don’t for long – sooner or later they get found out and whether they are in PR or are a spokesperson they find it very difficult to rebuild the trust of journalists. If it's the second; what we'd recommend is some quick thinking and crisis handling (if it’s not a crisis yet it could be soon). By explaining the situation to the media and outlining why the position has changed, or the fact that new information has arisen you will at least go some way to justifying what happened. The last thing you should do in this situation is ignore it and pretend nothing happened.

We await a response from Lord Falconer and it may turn out that the ‘Whitehall source’ was incorrect but either way this situation has all the ingredients to make a very sticky mess for those involved.

See the Sky story here:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1271123,00.html