Dropping the baton

More than once in recent weeks have I felt that feeling of being let down at the final moment: Andy Murray’s failure to make the final step and lift the US Open title; England’s new dawn under Capello offering the same old, same old against Andorra, and I won’t even go in to what I think of my own team’s start to the season at Goodison Park.

Set piece tradition and ceremonies we usually do well in Team GB, however. We Brits are generally masters of micro management and putting together great events, as our industry titles point out month in, month out.

Therefore, it came as a great shock to see the usually slick PR team at Visit London drop the baton in Beijing in spectacular fashion. The capital’s tourist board was lambasted for showing a giant image of child murderer Myra Hindley to a hall of VIP guests at a Beijing reception to celebrate the handover for London 2012.

It is hard to believe that with years to prepare London and the UK’s marketing messages and images for this key event and short window of opportunity in front of the world’s cameras, VL could do no better than choose an 11ft x 9ft image of one of the country’s most infamous killers.

The image of Hindley by Marcus Harvey was broadcast as part of a film loop for a star-studded Olympic handover party with guests including Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London Mayor Boris Johnson, Lord Coe and many Olympic medallists.

A spokesman for No.10 condemned the use of the image of as being “in extremely poor taste”, while a source close to the PM was widely reported in The Times and Telegraph as saying: “Those responsible should be immediately found and sacked”.

Boris Johnson said he was “deeply disturbed that this image has gone out”.

A rather lame response from VL claimed the angry reaction was “out of proportion”, adding that no-one had complained previously when the image was used and shown to the tourism trade. “However, if any offence has been caused, we will withdraw it.”

As the events industry campaigns for more funding to get its message across in the build up to London 2012, such crass gestures not only sully the start of the Olympic campaign, but lose a lot of public and political goodwill. Hindley, as some have clearly forgotten, was jailed for life along with Ian Brady for the murders of children between 1963 and 1964.

Let us hope VL’s new £4m 'See the World, Visit London' campaign to maintain visitor interest to 2012 and beyond, has been properly screened for any potential global gaffes, as it will run in North America, South America, Europe, Australasia, China, India and Russia.

Government cutting of funding to Visit Britain, where redundancies are thought to be likely, is another example of the great and the good missing the big picture and what is at stake.

And don’t get me started on London’s transport infrastructure…