The Trump challenge: Chaos, confusion and government communications

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

Politics, News, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term as US president – and Trump 2.0 has also shown little regard for facts or evidence. Unexpected presidential announcements are made on social media or in press conferences, and Trump’s positions can appear to change overnight. Leaders of other countries, including Keir Starmer, find their own plans and statements overshadowed or knocked off course. Despite this chaos and confusion, Trump appears authentic and able to galvanise his base while other, more conventional, political communicators struggle to get their message across. So is Trump rewriting the rules for government communications? Does the UK have sufficient safeguards against our political leaders adopting Trump’s attitude to facts? Does the UK have robust enough rules to ensure that government communications serve the public not partisan interest? And how is it possible to plan government communications when those plans are constantly blown away by overnight developments in the US? To discuss these questions and more, the Institute for Government, in partnership with Vuelio, was delighted to bring together an expert panel including: Katy Balls, Washington Editor for The Times Simon Baugh, Chief Executive of Government Communications, 2021–25 Alastair Campbell, former No.10 Chief Press Secretary (1997–2000) and No.10 Director of Communications (2000–03) and presenter of the Rest is Politics podcast. Alex Thomas, Programme Director at the Institute for Government This webinar was chaired by Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government. We would like to thank Vuelio for kindly supporting this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody and welcome to this Institute for Government webinar. I'm Jill Rutter. I'm a senior
0:06.3	fellow at the Institute for Government and we're absolutely delighted to be working with Vuelo on this event and would like to thank them for their support.
0:12.9	For those that may not know, Wailings are leading UK provider of PR and public affairs solutions, providing various services such as media monitoring and political
0:22.5	intelligence. Since retaking the White House, I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump has
0:28.1	dominated the news on both sides of the Atlantic. Ministers are forced to respond to the news
0:33.7	overnight from the White House when they do the morning media round. Planned lead
0:37.7	stories are pushed down or out of the headlines. Vuelo's research backs that up. He shows just how
0:43.4	much Trump has dominated over the past year. Over the past year, he secured 2.2 times more headlines
0:51.1	in the UK press than Prime Minister Kirst Stama. In fact, Trump's total
0:56.0	headline account exceeds the cumulative mentions of the entire UK cabinet. I think Alistair
1:02.1	Campbell's grimacing at all this. And Trump is structurally more headline worthy than UK
1:06.5	politicians. So when he appears in coverage, he's in the headline 30% of the time, 25% for
1:13.0	Stama and just 8% for other cabinet members. So genuinely is prime clickbait. At the same time,
1:20.1	he's rewriting the comms playbook. He's the reverse of the over-scripted, cautious minister or
1:25.1	shadow refusing to deviate from their lines to take.
1:28.5	He plays fast and loose with the truth.
1:31.2	He insults reporters, particularly women and news outlets he does not like who dare to ask
1:36.5	critical questions.
1:37.4	And we've just seen him land a giant lawsuit at the BBC overnight today.
1:42.7	But anyway, but at the same time,
1:45.8	he seems to have found a way of communicating
1:48.0	that mobilises his supporters,
	...

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