Miles Kington: The Byzantine world of public relations

"I haven't seen you recently, Adrian," I said. "What wild scheme have you been up to recently? Writing Max Clifford's memoirs for him?"

"I think by now Maxie can handle things by himself," said Adrian. "Though it must be very odd for Max Clifford to have himself as a client. How on earth can he trust himself, knowing what he knows about himself?"

"Is that meant to be clever?" I said.

"No," he said. "It's meant to be suggestive but slander-proof. Now, walk with me a little way and I'll tell you about my adventures in Brighton."

"You've been in Brighton? A bad time to choose, surely, when the Labour party is in town?"

"But that's why I was there," he said. "Remember that 82-year-old man who was roughly chucked out of the conference hall for heckling Jack Straw?"

"Yes. I saw a clip on the news. Poor old chap. I thought it was a disgraceful infringement of liberty. If you can't heckle Jack Straw, what can you do?"

"Fall fast asleep, I should have thought," said Adrian. "But that's not the point. Do you remember the old man's name?"

"Something really unlikely," I said. "Amadeus? Goldfrapp? Goldfinger? Something like that."

"Walter Wolfgang," said Adrian. "We thought that sounded exotic enough."

"We?" I said.

I looked at him closely. I noticed a wisp of white hair over his ear. I pulled at it. It came away easily.

"Adrian!" I said. "I don't believe it! You were that old man!"

He didn't deny it.

"Just trying to make a point for my client," he said.

"Client?"

He looked round to make sure no one was listening, as if that were likely in the bleak open spaces of St James's Park.

"A certain police force that shall be nameless," he said.

"The police? Why would the police hire you to make a disturbance at the Labour Party conference?"

"Mr Blair," said Adrian," is trying to bring in a lot of legislation which would make it easier to fight terrorism, even if at the same time it curtails civil liberties."

"And the police are championing our liberties?"

"I am not sure how well you know the police, dear boy ..."

"But surely the police want it to be easier to fight terrorism?"

"Yes and no," said Adrian. "The trouble is that if the police are given a free hand to combat terrorism, and then there are more bombings, the police are going to get it in the neck for not stopping it. The more power the police get, the more expectations are laid upon them. So we thought we might stage a little demonstration at the Labour party conference itself of how suppression of liberties can be an ugly sight. Elderly heckler ... manhandled roughly ... liberal outcry. After which, the government thinks twice and backs down ..."

"Are you really asking me to believe that the police want to be given fewer powers? To have their hands more tied?"

"It's a Byzantine world up there, my old fruit," said Adrian. "You wouldn't believe it. Stab and counter-stab. Plot and counter-plot. Briefing for, briefing against ..."

"Still, you were lucky," I said. "Being manhandled like that, I mean. You might have got up and heckled Jack Straw, and not been stopped, and led a counter-movement, and stormed the stage with a small army of protesters ..."

"No danger of that," said Adrian. "The security people were well trained and briefed to deal robustly with any disturbance."

"Trained and briefed by who?"

"The police, of course."

"I see. And will you be up at the Tory conference doing likewise?"

"I hope not," said Adrian. "Back to my other clients now..."

Just then his mobile rang. He answered it.

"Kate, darling!" he said. "I'm on the case. Believe me ..."