Jo Moore

Jo Moore (born 1963) served as a British political advisor and press officer, and was embroiled in scandal while working as advisor to the Transport, Local Government and Regions Secretary Stephen Byers.

Moore began working as a press officer for local authorities in London but moved to work for the Labour Party in the early 1980s. She was also active in local politics in Haringey. By the early 1990s she was the Labour Party's chief press officer and as such was present in John Smith's flat waiting for him to go campaigning when he suffered his fatal heart attack on May 12, 1994.

She served as Chief Press and Broadcasting Officer during the Labour Party's 1997 general election campaign. In 1998 she left her job to work part-time as an Account Director at a leading lobbying company. However Stephen Byers appointed her (initially part-time) as his Special Adviser from February 17, 1999.

At 2:55pm BST (9:55am EDT) on September 11 2001, after both World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon had been hit in the attacks, Moore sent an email to the press office of her department which read:

It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?

The Department did indeed announce on the following day two minor changes to the system of Councillors Allowances. Nearly a month later, the email was leaked to the press where it provoked a succession of stories deriding the cynical nature of spin. Moore made an uncharacteristic personal appearance before the cameras to apologise for any offence. While many criticisms linked the use of the term 'bury' to those buried in the collapse of the World Trade Center, neither tower had collapsed by the time the email was sent.

Both Byers and Moore had a poor relationship with the career civil servants in the DTLR, where they were suspected of trying to misuse the Department for party politics. A parliamentary committee later described her role as going beyond that of other special advisers, and an official of the civil service union the First Division Association described it to that committee as a "classic textbook case of bullying".

The leaked email appeared on the day after Byers had announced the placing of Railtrack, the private sector rail infrastructure company, in administration. It was eventually to be replaced by Network Rail, a not-for-profit 'public interest company'. The department's press office were not informed of the decision before it was announced, as they were thought to be unable to keep the highly market sensitive information secret. It was believed that Moore's email was leaked as an act of revenge. In November the department appointed a new Director of Communications, Martin Sixsmith. It was hoped he would improve relations.

However, on February 13 2002 the row flared up again when a leak to the press alleged that Moore had made further attempts to "bury" unfavourable railway statistics on the day of a major event. It was backed up by a copy of an email from Martin Sixsmith saying "Princess Margaret is being buried [on Friday]. I will absolutely not allow anything else to be". Both Moore and Sixsmith said the email was a fabrication, but on Thursday February 14 it emerged that Sixsmith had indeed sent an email in such terms (although the wording was not accurately reported).

Further information revealed a murky picture. Moore had picked the Friday for the release of the figures before it had been selected as the day for the funeral. Sixsmith had sent an email to Byers, and copied it to Moore; the leaker (an unidentified civil servant) had rewritten it to seem more damaging to Moore.

On Friday February 15 Jo Moore resigned from her position. The degree of media attention focused on her, and the ongoing conflict with the civil service had left her unable to do her job. Sixsmith also left the department, albeit in complicated and controversial circumstances. The timing of the scandal co-incided amongst exactly with the public voting for the TV series 100 Worst Britons. Although she was in the limelight for only a brief period, the unfortunate timing saw her feature in the list, alongside Byers at number 59.

After leaving her job, Jo Moore retrained as a primary school teacher, and has been working in an inner London school. The phrase "a good day to bury bad news" has since been used to refer to other instances of attempting to hide one item of news behind a more publicised issue.

External link

• "These Unfortunate Events" (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmpubadm/303/30302.htm) - report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration.