There was - understandably - a lot of consternation over the weekend about the leaked Foreign Office minutes suggesting that the Pope might open an abortion clinic or bless a gay marriage during his visit later this year.
More interesting, though, was the above chart which was leaked at the same time. Titled "Papal Visit: Stakeholders", it is a graphic representation of the various groups, institutions and individuals who might have a view on the Pope's visit. The various "stakeholders" are divided along two axes: Influential - Not Influential and Positive - Negative.
The reason this is particularly interesting is that while it was intended apparently to help the Government prepare their PR effort, it is extremely revealing as to how senior civil servants view Britain. For a start, the Influence axis betrays the bizarre set of priorities held in parts of Whitehall and Westminster.
The Positive - Negative axis gives juicier insights into the civil service's concerns about either the PR impact or even the religious views of various prominent national figures. (I should say at this point that the negative end of this axis appears to be a combination of people who simply don't like the Pope, such as Richard Dawkins, people who oppose the visit, such as many taxpayers, and people who are Catholic but pose a PR problem, such as Wayne Rooney. I leave it to readers to decided which criteria people have been judged by.)
Here are a few of the revelations the chart contains:
- Jim Murphy, the Minister who is personally in charge of the Pope's visit is listed as
"Negative". Is this because he personally dislikes the whole idea or do
his civil servants simply think he is a PR liability?
- Taxpayers are listed as one of the least influential groups in the eyes of Whitehall. The chart shows a clear bias to listing anyone who has a negative view of the trip as automatically "Not Influential", but even taking that into account the contempt in which taxpayers are held is clear - only TfL, Visit Britain and the City of London are rated worse.
- Susan Boyle is, in the view of these officials, more influential than the Queen, Government Ministers of the Archbishop of Westminster - head of the Catholic Church in Britain.
- The highly educated staff of the Foreign Office cannot spell the word "athletes" correctly.
- Despite the huge child abuse scandal, "children", "schools" and the Department of Children, Schools and Families are expected to have a positive view and/or positive PR impact on the Pope's visit.
- "Government Ministers", while expected to deliver a positive spin for the visit, are listed as "not influential".
- "Diversity Groups" and "LGBT Groups", whom the Government normally likes to boast that it has given a voice to, placed at the top of the agenda and works with closely, are magically "not influential" when it comes to this visit.
This is just one brief glimpse of how Whitehall views Britain - how interesting it would be to see these charts for all the other major events that are held.
