David Cameron and Britain's public diplomacy

David Cameron showed great dynamism by speaking directly to BBC's global audience.

David Cameron

It was great to see the British prime minister, David Cameron walk into the BBC studio in London and take questions from the audience all over the world in its popular global show: The world have your say.

Mr. Cameron’s ease and humility on answering questions on a range of topics like Syria, the role G8 in Afghanistan, aid and poverty reduction was simply amazing,

It's difficult to get a prime minister of a major country to be rallying questions even at a press conference, let alone a TV show. This also came at a time when Mr. Cameron couldn’t be busier: he will be meeting the Russian president, Vladmir Putin on Sunday, and hosting the G8 summit in Ireland on Monday.

Divya Arya, from the BBC’s Hindi language service, later said that it is just impossible to get of hold political leaders here in India for such a talk. (India’s PM rarely addresses the media and the much touted future PM Rahul Gandhi is infamous for not speaking out even in the parliament).

Lesson for other leaders?

In the era of social media, it is important for nations and its leaders to assert their views and personality by adopting smart public relation strategies. Mr. Cameron’s willingness to interact with the world through BBC shows that Downing Street clearly understands how to use modern communication tools to further Britain’s international image.

It was evident that the BBC used the full force of social media tools to get questions across to Mr. Cameron.  BBC’s audience from all over the world were encouraged to ask questions via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, e-mails and even phone calls.

Modern day communication is all about speaking directly to your core audience.  People, on the other hand, are more interested in listening to what the top leader has to say.  It is a strategy that is widely used by businesses: the reasons CEOs blog or the Fortune companies tweet on an average 25 times a week.

Mr. Cameron’s questions came from all over the world, which shows that people are curious about Britain’s voice in international affairs. The power of that voice rests greatly on the ability to do some smart pubic diplomacy aimed at winning peoples’ trust and hearts.

Mr. Cameron has impressed the world with his frankness. To a question about how it feels working from office which is also his home, he said in the mornings he works in pyjamas! 

It is about time that leaders from other nations take a cue from Mr. Cameron’s dynamism. Obviously, an Indian, for example, would want to know from its leaders directly what it is doing about poverty and climate change than from Mr. Cameron. Also, the world at large would want to know from the leaders of emerging economies about their views about pressing issues for the world.