Bercow in PR disaster
COMMONS Speaker John Bercow has caused a furore by hiring Tim Hames as his personal special adviser but we can reveal that he wasn’t the first choice for the job.
PR guruPhil Hall was approached earlier this year but we hear that the 54-year-old turned it down, telling John’s people that the public would not accept that the Speaker needed his own PR adviser, courtesy of the taxpayer’s purse.
So John’s team decided the best thing to do would be to employ former Times journalist Tim Hames instead, on a modest salary of between £87,000 and £107,000.
Surprise, surprise, his appointment has been greeted with outrage by the public. Hardly a PR coup…