Jamie’s murder has always provoked mass outrage – understandably so — and with it well reported that one of the killers, Jon Venables, is back in prison on child porn offences the commissioner’s words were certain to hog the news. Yet it is unlikely that the ensuing debate will take place in a rational, learned atmosphere. Instead the government has felt obliged to reject the proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility out of hand to head off any tabloid backlash.

This was an ill-timed announcement that looks like headline grabbing for the sake of it. Wiser heads would have advised the commissioner to bide her time and work behind the scenes with stakeholders, including government, to prepare the way for a more planned approach to changing public opinion.

Stephen has fallen into two traps here. The first is offering advice that begins, ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’ which is never of any use to anyone and secondly by failing to ask if the allegation that Cameron leads a ‘party of privilege, no longer in the pockets of the rich and influential’ is actually true.

Lord Ashcroft bankrolled the Conservatives through a dark period and they nominated from a peerage on condition that he become a UK resident for tax purposes… or so everyone thought. He didn’t become resident and those he may have misled include then prime minister Tony Blair and the Queen.

Throughout this time Tories consistently failed to take the Stephen Bray approach of being open and honest. They refused to  speak to Electoral Commission’s Ashcroft inquiry and even now refuse to co-operate with a House of Commons enquiry.

The real problem appears to be not that Conservative claims to have changed are looking shaky, but that they are shaky.

The problem for Cameron is that changing an organisation like the Conservative Party — assuming that is what he wants to do — is a long term project (and at the time they needed the money). Any other organisation going through cultural change would need to first be honest with itself and admit where it was. It would then need key stakeholders to buy into change and work with them openly and honestly.

But Cameron has never felt he has the time for that and now it’s too late. Perhaps he’s unashamed of his own privileged background and doesn’t really want to change. So instead of being open and honest, the Conservatives must do all they can to deflect attention from their failings and cover up.

The Guardian has not treated the MEN well in recent years and while the sale to Trinity Mirror will inevitably lead to further restructuring, one has to hope that the in the longer term the title will benefit from being owned by a business that’s actually committed to regional newspapers.

As the Guardian admits, the Manchester Evening News has always been a financial safety net. That it was so quickly jettisoned once it became unable to cover the national title’s losses, will leave a bad taste in many sentimental mouths.

And not only was the MEN no longer profitable, its sale has raised little, which means the Guardian will remain in financial crisis for some time to come.

Meanwhile, the Guardian has axed sections of the Observer — stuff people might buy the newspaper for — and invests money chasing people who think a 24-page supplement is all they need to learn Arabic.

We have wall-to-wall news, but its the same news repeated over and over and without depth. Newspapers remain the perfect media to go beyond the headlines and the Guardian should sack the silly supplements and wall charts, etcetera and reinvest in journalism that people will want to read and be prepared to pay for.

Given that Chrome is to evolve into an operating system, this lack of success so far must be causing concern. Google has gone to war with Microsoft in a big way, determined to kill Internet Explorer from the inside out if it has to: Google Frame is an add-on that effectively converts Internet Explorer into Chrome. The idea is that people working in corporate environments wedded to Microsoft can take get used to Chrome.

Yet the poster campaign is surely a sign that Google is way behind in its battle plans. Advertising Chrome on its homepage — the most viewed page on the web — has been ineffective and the internet giant has been forced to turn to more traditional advertising methods.

The Reading Room’s Margaret Manning suggesting the ASA is acting like King Canute and Google like Caligula, which is a rather silly thing to say. Google has always tried to regulate its advertising programmes; if it didn’t we’d be overwhelmed by pornography. eBay’s Alex Marks naïvely suggests that the crowd will weed out the rubbish, but I doubt this.

Instead Google’s agreement with the ASA will go some way to providing a consistent approach to advertising regulation on- and off-line and that has to be a good thing.

Sometimes it seems commentators fall over themselves trying to embrace what they perceive to be the new ways of working — wise crowds operating in open source environments — forgetting that lynch mobs are crowds too.

Many have romanticised notions of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian Media Group. The trust is often mistakenly described as a charity, but it is actually dedicated to preserving the Guardian as a profit-seeking enterprise.

Sadly, the Guardian is losing money at an alarming rate which puts a near unbearable strain on the regional titles which exist solely to keep it afloat. Four years ago Manchester lost City Life to part pay for the Guardian’s adoption of the Berliner format.

If Trinity Mirror were to purchase the regional titles there is little doubt that jobs would be lost, primarily from management. But there is little doubt that Guardian Media Group will also continue to do all it can to take cost out the Manchester Evening News and its siblings.

The Guardian fell out of love with Manchester some considerable time ago. Its regional media management team is far from popular and would be missed by few. New ownership may well reinvigorate the titles.

Under Paul Dacre’s editorship, that particular newspaper has become particularly dependent on the public relations industry for stories. In June the Daily Mail’s Paul Scott revealed that Peaches Geldof makes, ‘obscenely easy money’ using her minor celebrity to win her clients acres of coverage in the tabloids.

To some extent it matters little that Ultimo’s public relations people have an excellent relationship with the Daily Mail that enables them to build brand awareness by supplying the newspaper with photos with which to titillate readers. This soft news is of little consequence.

Yet the media is increasingly dependent on public relations for hard news too. Former crime reporter Nigel Green has revealed how one of Britain’s biggest police forces is able to manipulate crime reporting.

Green is rightly appalled to note that the police now play such a role in writing up the news on crime. But it is not the public relations industry that is at fault. The fault is with the newspaper industry which has failed to invest in journalism. Police spin doctors are simply filling the void with stories that promote thier employer’s agenda.

As head of state and the nation’s first family, the Queen enjoys a special, rather peculiar, position in British society that brings an enormous amount of privilege. But more importantly, the monarchy is the linchpin of a constitutional settlement with which not everybody agrees, which makes it a far more political and controversial institution than it would ever admit.

The monarchy does not shy away from using the media, as it suits, to cast itself in the best light and so reinforce that constitution.

The paparazzi are most commonly seen extending their telephoto lenses to catch minor celebrities on beech holidays for down market tabloids and Princess Beatrice must have been surprised to find herself the subject of an upskirt shot (a photo the Daily Mail later removed from its website).

But without paparazzi stalking the royals we would not be exposed to activities that cast the royals in a less generous light; the Queen strangling birds or the Earl of Wessex apparently beating his dog.

Bad publicity for the monarchy, is good publicity for republicans.

Then last month, the Sun took the gloves off and decided to make things personal by exploiting a handwritten letter from Gordon Brown to the mother of dead soldier. To the tabloid’s surprise, the public reaction was mixed at best. In fact, recent opinion polls have seen the Tories’ lead narrow. We probably shouldn’t pay too much attention that, but there’s no evidence the Sun has helped Cameron at all.

As pundits gently back peddle from forecasts of a certain Conservative victory — apparently a hung parliament is now a good bet — the Sun’s tactics are in increasing danger of back firing on the Murdoch empire.

There is much talk of a contract between the Sun and David Cameron’s Conservatives, that includes a reduced role for the regulator Ofcom that would release broadcasters from rules on impartiality. Such a contract may not exist in a formal sense, but it seems unlikely that the Sun’s support has been given without a nod and a wink towards the favours Murdoch expects in return.

Yet while the Tories now owe the Sun and will kowtow to Murdoch, Labour no longer worries about the tabloid’s wrath; it’s coming anyway and is not as effective as feared.

And as the Sun makes its attacks personal, so tackling the Murdoch Empire rises up the agenda, with Peter Mandelson happy to be seen declaring war. Controversial tax avoidance schemes as well as Sky’s near monopoly of pay-per-view television are likely to face increased scrutiny.

Many public relations people are ex-journalists and there was a time when PR agencies would only recruit ex-hacks. Not only are those days long gone, it has become increasingly difficult for an ex-journalist to secure anything above a fairly junior position.

Public relations has become a profession, while journalism remains a craft. Public relations people still need to understand the media, and should be able to write to a journalistic standard, but as the industry has professionalised so less emphasis has been placed on craft skills. For many journalists, that must seem bizarre as the standard of press releases — often poorly written and poorly targeted — has failed to improve and such improvement does not appear to be an industry priority.

This is because public relations has been fighting for a place at the top table, alongside other professionals like lawyers and accountants. It’s a more lucrative, higher status place to be.

Providing a service to journalists, is just the tip of the iceberg.