From:
Gareth Mobley,
CEO,
Solidor & Residor

Whatever your views about Brexit, you can expect to see it blamed for things not even remotely connected with it. The ‘spin’ has started.

On 11th September 2001, after the World Trade Center towers had been hit in terrorist attacks, Transport Secretary Stephen Byer’s special advisor Jo Moore emailed the department’s press office saying: ‘It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury’.

The following day the department announced changes to Councillors’ Allowances. Nearly a month later, Moore's email was leaked to the press where it provoked a row about the cynical nature of spin. The leaked email appeared the day after Byers had announced the placing of Railtrack in administration.

A year later the row flared up again when a leak to the press alleged that Moore had made further attempts to bury bad statistics on the day of a major event. Burying bad news turned out to be standard practice in Tony Blair’s Government. The row led to public apologies, resignations, embarrassment in No 10 and more careful announcements of bad news thereafter.

Government learned that using major events to bury bad news can backfire. The public doesn’t like spin, but that doesn’t stop people trying.

If exchange rates don’t recover ground lost after the referendum, we’ll all have to pay more for imported material. But blaming Brexit, some door companies immediately jumped the gun and raised prices, and by more than the exchange rate.

Did those companies have to raise prices anyway to pay for the thicker GRP skins they needed to pass the new PAS24:2016 test? GRP skins are very costly, and if you have to double the thickness from 1.6/1.8mm to 3.6mm to pass PAS24:2016 your prices will have to go up to compensate.

Surely it’s better to be up front with customers, rather than bury bad news when they’re distracted? If exchange rates settle at the new level and everyone has to send price increase letters, it will be obvious who has smuggled in an extra price rise to cover their thicker skins.

If many suppliers do it, we’ll see a loss of trust in all suppliers, just as we’ve seen with politicians where levels of trust have fallen off a cliff. Surely no one wants that?