Pleased to have commented for PR Week article.
Stuart Thomson, head of public affairs at Bircham Dyson Bell, commented: “There are many in the Conservative Party who are desperate to do all they can to ‘do in’ Gove’s leadership bid. The whiff of alcohol is a tried and tested allegation to make about political opponents. The ‘get Gove’ faction know this and combining it with the claims of gossiping is a direct attempt to prove that he is not a politician that the nation can trust.”
While Boris Johnson may not be directly responsible for the attacks, he has not stepped in to stop them, claimed Thomson.
Thomson added: “He may not be controlling it but he’s certainly not stopping it. You can kill these things off, so for instance for the first bit of coverage, which was his sister’s one, if he said ‘look, I’m not having that kind of stuff’, you could make it very clear to supporters quite quickly that that is not the way you want to conduct your politics. That obviously hasn’t happened.”