Phil Hall, chairman at PHA Media, says he doesn’t envy Number Ten’s press office

The attacks on Libya throw up new demands on our 24-hour media. There was a time when the declaration of hostilities meant a news blackout and I for one regret the passing of those days because I think it is impossible to get the messaging right.

At the beginning of the bombing, the American spin machine was saying it will take only 48 hours – whose advice was that? Even if right, it immediately sets the bar high and if not achieved, the PR disaster begins.

Newspapers also have a PR issue. It has been traditional for them to question the reasons behind a prime minister or president taking his/her country to war, but then fall square behind the military forces once the fighting started. That is not always the case now, as with Piers Morgan when he edited the Mirror during the Iraq conflict. He backed the troops – but continued to argue against the war. From a PR perspective it hit the Mirror hard, but Morgan stuck to his guns and was proven right in the end.

The real challenge for the Government media advisors is the messaging will change on a daily basis. At the start it is about the reason for war, then it shifts to coping with the reality of war – the casualties, the mistakes, the human cost – but finally what happens next. Libya is a country split by historic religious divisions … the solutions will not be straight forward. I don’t envy the number Ten press office one iota.

But the winner of the PR campaign could well be David Cameron. Note the absence of his deputy Nick Clegg; Cameron is striking out alone and finishing the job he started last year – the campaign to rule Britain with his party alone.

As I write the bombing has just started, but once the campaign has been won I fully expect Cameron to have arrived on the world stage and the PR opportunity to turn him into a World statesman is there … US president Barack Obama has not delivered and French president Nicolas Sarkozy looks unsure. How quickly the political landscape can change with a fair wind and a good PR strategy!

Phil Hall is chairman of PHA Media and was previously editor of the News of the World.