Spindoctors spared the budget lash

WE should all be indebted to your columnist Terry Prone for the benefit of her insider definition of Government spin (October 20).

She was giving advice to the Government in relation to the medical card issue but the principles she enunciated have general application and bear repeating.

First the Government should “develop clear, understandable profiles” of whoever it wants to target as its friends and “find real-life examples of them to put on the media”.

The second thing it does is establish who it wants to villify in the media and then “finds the extreme, dislikeable personification of them”.

As a consequence the public will hopefully say “to hell with them”.

The Government’s strategy, according to Ms Prone, is therefore one of divide and conquer. Her expert view is that it works, and who are we to doubt her?

So now we know what all those

Government spindoctors are up to. I did not hear of any cutbacks in expenditure in that area in the budget. So ministers must consider expenditure on their spindoctors more important than that on health or education.

Anthony Leavy

1 Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13