The events of the last week have happened in a strange blur of disbelief and anger. And now, four days into the UK riots, it appears that the country’s reputation has simply gone up in smoke.

As scenes of anarchy are broadcast across the world, VisitBritain’s ‘You’re Invited’ campaign has unsurprisingly been pulled, while the US and Germany have both issued travel warnings to affected areas after tourists have reportedly been caught up in the carnage.

It’s hard to believe that just four months ago, the country was witnessing scenes of unbridled joy at the Royal Wedding. Now our cities are burning, our social fabric has been mauled, our government is powerless.

With the Olympics just round the corner, we can only ask ourselves: “Has the flame been extinguished before it has even been lit?”

As scenes of hope start to emerge, I sincerely hope not. Who would have thought that a simple broom and a cup of tea would portray such humanity in the midst of all this destruction?

News today in Manchester has reported that cleaners outweighed last night’s looters by 10 to one. Let’s just hope that our cities can make more noise together than apart. With 12 months until the Olympic torch starts its march to London there is a huge mountain to climb, but scenes of such hope show that the UK could just still emerge from the ashes!

Yesterday was the official deadline for completing the 2011 census.

Filling out my form was quite a nostalgic experience. It took me back to my 18-year-old self, proudly completing my very first census and declaring myself to be a Jedi (shhh – don’t tell).

This time around, it took me approximately 10 minutes to fill in and left me feeling distinctly underwhelmed. The Government has hinted this might be the last survey of its kind and it’s easy to see why. Ten years ago, I had just set up my first Hotmail account and was lumbering a phone of brick-like proportions around with me. The speed of change in the last decade has been anything but linear – instead, technology has hurtled forward unabated and transformed almost every aspect of our daily lives.

For this reason, questions about qualifications, job titles and travel-to-work methods were relevant but hardly revolutionary. Kudos then to Comet’s PR team for releasing a ‘technology census’ at the weekend. The results of this particular study showed that for a whopping 81 per cent of respondents, email is their favourite way to communicate, whilst a third of people stated that the web had supplanted the once mighty TV.

In the UK census, a couple of questions on changing habits of internet use might have been more enlightening than the questions which were being rolled out fifty years ago. I look forward to the glut of press articles dissecting the results of the census and debating what this means for the country. However, shying away from the questions that could reveal the fastest change in society feels like a trick missed. And considering this could be the last of its kind, that’s nothing short of a shame.

Hot on the heels of a recent exposé into unpaid PR internships, it appears the Conservatives have now stepped in to fuel the debate.

At a sensitive time for the PR industry, the Tories have come under fire for auctioning internships to privileged supporters. According to the Mail, a one-week internship at a top London PR agency went for £2,000 at a recent fundraiser. 

While perhaps distasteful, this practice is nothing new. The moral of this particular tale seems quite simple: want to work in PR? Have parents that can buy you a placement, sweetie darling.

Now we’re not misguided enough to think that work experience doesn’t have a valuable place in PR. It’s an industry where grads are expected to learn by doing rather than theorising.

However, long-term, unpaid placements are exploitative – plain and simple. As a fledgling journalist in London, there were two routes to employment: live within the M25 or have parents who could support you financially. If you didn’t meet the right geographical or financial criteria, access was resolutely denied.

Grads should have access to work experience to get a taste of the workplace, but they should also have access to long-term placements that offer a structured training programme and remuneration for their time. With university fees potentially ruling out a whole generation of prospective students, on-the-job learning is going to be more important than ever.

If internships are to be sold off to the highest bidder, PR runs the risk of becoming synonymous with wealth and connections rather than skill and talent. And when searching for the next generation of PR consultants, we know who we’d rather choose.

Changes to the default retirement age got me thinking about where the mature PR varieties go to when the sun is setting on their career?

I’d like to imagine that we skip off to a PR-filled utopia and live happily-ever-after, but somehow, I doubt it. Seriously though, where are the 60-year-olds in our industry?

I’m a good way off reaching that point, but with the Government now insisting that you can’t be booted out while you’re still blowing out the 65^th candle, can we expect to be welcomed into an industry that appears to have a distinct lack of older people in it.

There are some clear reasons for a possible dearth of mature PR consultants. As a female-dominated industry, perhaps the lure of family life takes us off to pastures new before we’re even offered our bus pass? PR – and the creative industries as a whole – are also relatively new, so perhaps we don’t quite have the flow of people who have served loyally for 40-odd years. And, let’s not forget that PR has always been a professional playground for bright young things.

As a 30-year-old, I’m in no position to be flying the flag vociferously for the sixtysomethings, but I hope for my own future preservation that we’re not in an industry that’s intent on keeping it young. If we are, then the clock has officially begun ticking.

Yesterday came the news that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles is to launch an attack on councils which have hired public relations firms. Mr. Pickes is set to initiate a scathing assault on the “outrageous” practice of town halls hiring PRs today.

“It is a waste of taxpayer’s cash,” said the Communities Secretary, speaking in yesterday’s Express newspaper, “cutting this pointless practice should help councils protect frontline services.”

It seems to me that this outburst of opinion over the hiring, and it now seems possible firing, of PRs is slightly hypocritical. Only this month, a brand new comms department was formed within the central government created Sentencing Council. As head of the communications department, Helen Stear’s role will be to increase public awareness of sentencing practice and reform.

How can Mr. Pickles be so negative about the hiring of PRs by local councils when central government affiliated bodies are doing exactly the same thing?

Hypocrisy aside, the communities secretary has chosen the on-trend tactic of focussing on the cost of hiring PRs, which, in a recession is bound to get people’s backs up. What he has not addressed, however, is the vital role which PR firms play in attracting local investment. Without the communication skills of PRs, communities are likely to attract less attention, which means less tourism, less money for essential public services and a much more fragile local economy. The truth is, PR firms are able to communicate policies and practices to the public, whilst putting local areas on the map in the eyes of central government. Council-hired public relations firms can have an uplifting and stabilising effect on an area.

PR thrives because it is effective. In the case of local government offices, it enables councils to gain enough attention to win support for major projects of vital importance to their residents. That’s not what I’d call “outrageous”.

This week will mark the fifth anniversary of a crucial piece of Labour legislation – one which has single-handedly provided some of the decade’s most shocking and widely read news stories.

On New Year’s Day 2005, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was introduced across all levels of the public sector, with the aim of radically increasing the transparency of local and national government. But has it worked?

The bill has fuelled stories such as the MPs’ expenses scandal and Prince Charles’ infamous “black spider memos”. It has also resulted in the less deliberate divulgence of information such as BBC presenters’ salaries, which are currently exempt from the Act’s provisions. But in a fascinating article marking the legislation’s anniversary, The Guardian‘s Ben Dowell raises some interesting points about its use and purpose.

Journalists frequently complain that ministers deliberately manipulate and weaken the Act so as to tie up requested information for months, or even years, at a time. Dowell, however, asserts that in many instances, journalists are equally to blame for improper use of the legislation’s provisions, by intentionally focusing on stories of failure, scandal and dishonesty.

So has the FOI Act been successful? And if not, who is to blame? Are the media exploiting its intended use by deliberately digging for the juiciest scandal and most damning report, or is the increasingly bureaucratic and long-winded system of getting that information proof in itself that it needs exposing?

Perhaps the wider point is that freedom of information promotes a culture of openness. When agencies no longer feel the need to hide salient details from each other, they are more likely to liaise, share and help one another. Administration problems and interpretation of use aside, surely this is a principle to aspire to.

I noticed today that the government has launched yet another initiative to encourage all of us to eat healthily and reduce obesity rates.

My initial reaction to this news was sceptical – I’ve lost count of the number of national campaigns aimed at reducing our waistlines in recent years. Thus far, advertising campaigns and celebrity endorsement don’t seem to be having the desired effect – Jamie Oliver is trying his best but how much can one man really do to change a nation’s eating habits?

But, surprisingly, the Change4Life campaign appears to have more substance. The government will be working hand in hand with some of the food industry’s biggest players – including Tesco, Unilever and Kellogg’s – to encourage us to beat the bulge.

Involving large companies with this initiative is a savvy move by the government. For example, PepsiCo UK will run a parallel advertising campaign to promote active play through sports personalities – providing Change4Life with high-profile, celebrity endorsement at no cost to the tax payer!

No doubt British Olympians, such as Rebecca Adlington and Chris Hoy, will be lined up alongside the usual suspects from football – John Terry, David Beckham and maybe even Steven Gerrard if he can polish up his tarnished image!
But it isn’t a one-way street – this partnership between the food and advertising industry and the government will benefit all the companies involved. As pressure mounts on the government to introduce legislation regarding food advertising, this is a clever move that will certainly delay, if not prevent, such restrictions.

There will be a lot of mileage in the PR for each and every brand or business involved. They will be able to position themselves as ‘the good guys’ in the fight against the UK’s obesity epidemic.

But, as with all advertising and PR campaigns, the real question will be “has it worked?” And if it does, just how many more partnerships will be forged between the government and businesses in the name of public health?