DEMOS

 'Treat the people as part of an ongoing deliberative process and the potential for convincing them will be massively enhanced.'

When Tony Blair appeared before a Commons select committee in the summer of 2002, he hoped to bury spin. But it will be hard for the government communication machine and our political culture to respond to this sudden change of direction.

Spin culture is ingrained. New Labour's own reputation has been tarnished by the widespread perception that it puts communication before substance. 'It's just spin' has become an insult that is hurled at the government by its opponents, or anyone who has become disenchanted with politics.

But as George Pitcher shows, spin culture did not start in politics. Its roots lie in the birth of a manipulable media and the changing financial markets in the 1980s. Privatisation and globalisation required companies to communicate in several directions simultaneously.

This professionalisation of communication has had an impact on all our institutions, from Parliament to the church. But the signs are that the public is bored with the spin culture. Politicians and corporate strategists are realising that unless public trust is renewed, they will soon be talking to themselves.

When business faced a crisis of legitimacy driven by anti-corporate protesters, many companies moved from communicating a single perspective to managing public debate. Politicians must learn the same lesson.

Pitcher argues that this kind of real-time communication will be crucial for issues such as joining the Euro and war in Iraq, and will eventually become a defining feature of a post-spin culture.

George Pitcher is co-founder of communications management consultancy Luther Pendragon and a former industrial editor of The Observer.