How PR allowed beaten Brown to fight all the way

It could have been Labour's ruination, a public relations Howitzer blast through their hope to be a key player in the UK's new power game.
When Gordon Brown was caught out after meeting Rochdale's Gillian Duffy, it seemed his under-pressure party would quickly become total no-hopers.
Yet something happened that day to ensure Labour would be able to build a post-election platform in an effort to keep David Cameron out of Downing Street.
That little something was the highest point of a PR roller-coaster ride that sped through the final week of the UK's 2010 General Election campaign.
That little something was an instinctive piece of common-man PR.
It was a humble apology.
Without it, Brown was out of the game.
With it, he ensured that today - albeit beaten in the polls and still looking like the vote's big loser - he feels able to offer Labour to Nick Clegg as credible power partner.

The PR journey from Lancashire to London was just as fascinating as anything political in the past few days.
On April 28, as Clegg's two media-crammed battle buses continued their nationwide odysseys and as Cameron's placard wavers turned the small screen bluer than TV's Tease Me 2 (Sky channel 948, I'm told), Brown was engaged in some back-to-basics PR.
The PM's advisers asked Sky TV to mic up his lapel as he visited Labour-held Rochdale. It's common PR practice, showing that the politician's in touch with the people. Arguably, it worked - until he got back in the limo.
The "bigoted woman" comment, the subsequent live Sky TV coverage of Mrs Duffy's reaction, the wall-to-wall semi-comedic splurge on BBC Radio 5 Live and the head-in-hands moment with BBC Radio 2 helped create a PR nightmare.
A proactive local stunt had become a reactive national panic.
Realisation dawned that more PR was needed to limit the damage.
And they called it right: Brown took the unprecented step of returning to Mrs Duffy to apologise. Yes, we all chortled, but deep down everyman Britain actually gave credit to Brown for doing the right thing. He himself took strength from it and bounced back with his best live TV debate and a number of notable speeches.

By nipping a potentially catastrophic problem in the bud with some humble, common sense PR action, Brown lived to fight another day.
It's a lesson we can all learn, especially those in a spot of bother.