Comment: Time for some optical action

Gordon Brown's spin doctors are clearly limbering up in readiness for the next election albeit without some of the more full-on team members. The optical lobbyist are also appealing for support (see news) for their activities at the party political conferences but what is the most effective way optics can make its voice heard?

Politics has always ebbed and flowed between direct action and political niceness. Over the last couple of decades the amount of political administration at all levels has mushroomed. And yet the political process appears more impotent than ever. Direct action seems to be coming back into vogue.

Today some argue that politicians are increasingly seen as ineffectual, bureaucratic freeloaders. Career chatterers intent on little more than building a personal empire to increase their value as an adviser to private industry and enhance their value as a public speaker once they are booted out of office.