What a Pratt

PR professionals will no doubt be updating the Loose Cannon CEO section of their PR crisis manuals and adding the name of Christine Pratt to sit alongside case studies of the likes of Gerald Ratner.

The National Bullying Helpline (NBH) charity is in freefall after Pratt jumped, with both feet, into the middle of the Gordon Brown bullying row.

In a matter of days since, patrons have resigned, the helpline has temporarily suspended its activities and now Pratt has offered to resign. And if that was not bad enough, apparently Max Clifford has been called in, so it would not be a surprise in the coming days if a story emerges about the number of WAGs and other money grabbing slappers who have used the helpline because of the bullying and philandering of their footballing boyfriends.

As soon as Pratt decided to go public, apparently after seeing the defence by Peter Mandelson of the Prime Minister on the Andrew Marr Sunday morning TV show, any of the crisis management strategies that the NBH put in place were, frankly, peeing in the wind.

The PRs at NBH never stood a chance when they used the defence of calls are confidential to us and you will be treated with dignity and respect at all times argument.

I am not sure we will ever know the real motivation of Christine Pratt, although in the fullness of time it will probably come out in a book and then be serialised in a newspaper.

But one thing is for sure, Pratt has become infamous overnight and has done for the NBH what Gerald Ratner did for the high street jewellery chain that bore his name. And I am sure PRs will use this sorry episode as an example to brief boards on the perils of how easy it is for a CEO to have a moment of madness with potentially disastrous consequences.