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Sarah Brown. Social Media. And That Dress

September 30, 2009

Hot on the heels of her appearance on stage at the Labour Party conference, Sarah Brown is being lauded as the potential saviour of her husband, a certain Gordon Brown, a man whose prospects of remaining in government following the next general election have long since been written off. But can Mrs Brown save the Prime Minister? Or does her efficacy at PR – her trade, as it happens – not quite cut the mustard?

We pose the question mindful of one or two interesting subtexts, not least the fact that the Sun has officially turned against Mr Brown. That one of its Page 3 girls, Keeley, also publicly supports David Cameron will only add insult to injury, but against this we have Sarah Brown’s brilliant harnessing of social media. She has overtaken Stephen Fry as the country’s leading Twitterer, and, as Alice Thomson opines in today’s Times, is no stranger to the dark arts of media manipulation generally.

Not so long ago, the Sun’s voice was crucial to political success. Is this still the case? Or could the astute utilization of social media – pace, Barack Obama – more than make up for the wandering editorial eye of the paper wot won it?

The answer will be played out over several months, and will help to reveal the extent to which British media has, or has not, irrevocably changed. Meanwhile, we are confronted, thanks to her stint in the conference limelight, with Mrs Brown’s revelations, which include the fact that her man is not a saint, that he is noisy and messy, that he wakes up early, that he has a tough job, and that she loves him. While some onlookers may have been distracted by the exact message intended by her floral dress by Erdem, there was no doubting Mrs Brown’s grasp of what we might term ‘deliberately hesitant oratory’, the kind of public speaking which, with its cultivated pauses and modest glances, puts a premium on self-deprecation. ‘Like me, for I am slightly abashed to be standing here,’ says Mrs Brown, ‘and therefore like my husband. How can you not believe me when I say that his every waking hour is spent thinking about you?’

But does it wash? Or, a bit like that dress, are we left scratching our heads, wondering what, precisely, was meant?

Curiously off topic image courtesy of Aubs.