With her many Instagram snaps, personal videographer and army of special advisers, Liz Truss knows a thing or two about spin. But now it seems the Foreign Secretary has applied her love of brand management to the department she runs too. The invasion of Ukraine last month was preceded and met with a bombardment of pro-Moscow propaganda on traditional and new media from the Kremlin’s useful idiots, excusing and justifying Putin’s actions.
And now it seems Truss and her department have decided to fight fire with fire, turning back to the Cold War playbook to counter an old enemy in new forms. For the Foreign Office has, in recent weeks, set up a dedicated team to push back against the lies pedalled by the enemies of Britain and its enemies. Heartening stuff.
At present though there seems to be scant detail as to the scale, budget or remit of this new unit. Truss herself dedicated just 21 words to the subject in a recent Telegraph op-ed, writing:
We have set up a new government Information Cell dedicated to rebutting the Kremlin’s fake narratives designed to justify the unjustifiable.
She also told the Mail on Sunday that in the first three weeks of February alone there were 40 pieces of Russian false information disseminated, arguing that:
We’ve done a lot to rebut that, so we exposed the plot that the Russians were seeking to install a puppet government into Kiev and the false flag operation claiming that the Ukrainians had attacked when that wasn’t true… At the end of the Cold War we disbanded our information unit, but the Russians didn’t disband theirs, so we faced years and years of Russian disinformation.
At least the move has won the approval of General Sir Nick Carter, the former head of the Armed Services, who declared over a glass of Pinot Grigio in his lunch with the Financial Times that it was ‘very encouraging’ to see the Cold War counter propaganda unit being re-established as it would ‘marshal the narrative in an effective way.’ How wonderfully old school.
In that spirit of open government which has become their hallmark, the Foreign Office declined to provide Mr S with any further details. Quelle surprise. Let’s just hope the new unit is as effective at disseminating propaganda as their Secretary of State.
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