Paul Lewis: Campbell is in a spin, not New Zealand

It seems a strange thing to say of a PR campaign overseen by a man who advised Tony Blair and influenced the direction of the Western world but Alastair Campbell is showing his naivete. Rugby naivete, anyway.

Campbell has shot back to Blighty now and will reappear just before the first Lions test. It's not known what he's doing in Britain but I'd like to think it's something to do with handling the fuss around those pictures of Saddam Hussein in his Y-fronts. Why front Iraq is a question that comes to my mind regularly when the Iraqi war is raised but... let's not go there. I mean that literally and figuratively. And in retrospect. Actually, I said it before the war started but... let's not go there.

One of the most fascinating elements of this Lions tour is the presence of the senior spin doctor - a description Campbell seems rather to enjoy, if his latest column in the Times is any guide.

I find this curious as most people in the business of PR hate the label 'spin doctor'. It smacks of an industry dealing largely in, er, bullshit. It's an awful generalisation to which we're all prone - you know, all lawyers are shady, all bankers are licensed thieves, all props are dumb, all media are biased, beat-up merchants, Russell Crowe is a bit of a fruit loop... well, that one may not be so wide of the mark.

Good PR is built on substance and accuracy. Anything else results in loss of credibility. Lose credibility and you lose everything.

I used to be a PR consultant, so I've seen both sides of the fence. That's why I was fascinated to see that Campbell had a column in the Times. In PR terms, this is like being given the key to Fort Knox and told to enjoy yourself with a very large truck. In journalistic terms, it's a bit like allowing Campbell to write a column on the search for weapons of mass... whoops, slipped back into it again. Sorry. It's a bit like giving the fox the keys to the henhouse. There.

In his column - and this is the naive bit - Campbell adopts a siege profile and says that having dealt with the Westminster press for a decade (old boy, don't you know...), "I don't think there is much the New Zealand rugby writers can throw that we will not be able to deal with."

I shall restrain myself from responding to the implied snobbery here but, Al, such statements are why some Kiwis don't like Poms.

He continued: "I feel the NZ public have far higher regard for the Lions than their media, which fancies itself as something of a sixteenth man... I wonder if the 'we're the sixteenth man' attitude of parts of the local media is not just an added pressure on a New Zealand team that already feel heavily the demands of an entire nation that they win - and win well. Their attacks on us become pressure on them. At least that is the spin, and provided that Clive and the players agree, that means it is spin with substance, which is the only spin that works."

Campbell's doing three things here: 1 Attempting to drive a wedge between the media and their audience, an old spin doctor's trick. 2 He's making the assumption that New Zealanders' rugby opinions are shaped by the media. 3 He's getting mixed up between a nation that is genuinely glad to see the Lions in public and how that nation analyses its rugby.

Al hasn't realised that New Zealand is a nation of four million All Blacks. They all have an opinion and woe betide you if yours doesn't agree with theirs - see our Letters section.

He hasn't quite clutched the kumara - Kiwis will be friendly to your face and genuinely, hospitably glad to see you if you are a touring rugby side. But talk about your rugby credentials... different story. They'll analyse you to death, knowledgeably. In my opinion, the majority of Kiwis believe, rightly or wrongly, that the All Blacks will beat the Lions. QED.

What Al also doesn't realise is that the All Blacks have always been under dire pressure to win from their public and media. Ask John Hart about 1999. Ask Sean Fitzpatrick about the second test in 1993. Ask Tana Umaga, who featured in these pages not so long ago saying that he hoped the pressure never relented as it helps the All Blacks to win.

Al is also making the mistake that trying to spin rugby is the same as trying to spin a war or dark corporate manoeuvres. But rugby is a rare walk of life where what you see is what you get. If you play crap, you'll get called crap. Corporate PR stuff is fine but it doesn't wash the jerseys, does it?

That's why New Zealand fell about laughing when Lions management told us that Ronan O'Gara gave a masterclass against the Bay. Hold my beer, mother, I'm about to bust my sides. O'Gara kicked splendidly in the second half but a first-five masterclass? Was that you, Al, or did the management boys cook that one up on their own? Didn't the hand signals work?

You see, in terms of PR, what the Lions need is simple: 1) Win (and they will be revered here like the '71 Lions); 2) To repeat gestures like waiting patiently for the Bay to stop lapping it up from their fans before clapping them off the field - a gentlemanly gesture; 3) Capture the spirit Lawrence Dallaglio summoned in giving his Lions 2005 jersey to Bay No 8 Colin Bourke even as his tour was ending. Was that you, Al? If so, I'll take my hat off to you and, as we say in Westminster, apologise and withdraw.

You see, that's rugby. It is a mark of Lawrence Dallaglio and the game he plays that he even thought about Bourke as his tour was ending. That's all the Lions need, Al. Real rugby spirit. From a real rugby man.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY