UEFA Scores: How to Write a Stunning Communiqué
by Iain B. King, CBE • August 3, 2026
Communiqués are usually dry, dreary and unread. But the European football federation, UEFA, have shown how they can be done well. Their statement on FIFA’s plans for a new profit-seeking venture is a masterpiece in communication.
The statement achieves several things:
It’s clear: the language is straightforward. No-one reading this statement can be left in any doubt where UEFA stands.
It explains: UEFA doesn’t just reject FIFA’s plan, it also explains why. It gives the piece a justification, and puts UEFA on the moral high ground.
It galvanises: the statement helps to create unity between the 55 football associations who are part of UEFA.
It went viral: the clarity and power of the message were so strong, that the communiqué was widely quoted in media, and cited by leading politicians in several countries.
It was effective: the statement achieved its goal. FIFA were forced to drop their plans and the FIFA President, Giovanni Infantino, may even be forced to resign.
Iain King, CBE is a Senior Advisor for Prevail. A former senior diplomat and author of acclaimed books on international affairs and philosophy, Iain was Director of NATO Mission Iraq from 2021-2024. He has held several positions at think tanks in the UK and US, including at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Modern War Institute, and was honoured with a CBE for his work to nurture democracy in Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
What a man in a bin can teach us about communication
by Iain B. King, CBE • July 22, 2026
Those who keep a healthy distance from British politics may have missed a local election happening in a seaside town this summer. On 13th August, some 70,000 voters in and around Clacton-on-Sea get to choose their new Member of Parliament. They may re-elect Nigel Farage, leader of the Trump-like Reform party, which leads national opinion polls ahead of the more traditional Labour and Conservative parties. Farage resigned and called the special election, arguing that he had been unfairly treated following controversy over an undeclared £5 million (about $6.7m) gift. Or, they may vote for a comedian wrapped in silver foil and topped with a metal bin lid, who calls himself Count Binface, an ‘Intergalactic space warrior, and leader of the Recyclons from planet Sigma IX.’
It looks like Count Binface might beat Farage, Britain’s Trump proxy.
Count Binface’s campaign offers important lessons for strategic communicators. Here are a few:
1: Be consistent. Comedian Jon Harvey, the man behind Count Binface, has spent a decade running against prime ministers. When he was forced to abandon his initial incarnation as ‘Lord Buckethead’ over copyright issues, he made sure his new character, ‘Count Binface’, was as similar as possible. Many political communicators chase relevance by changing their message every news cycle, but Binface has built his reputation by refusing to change at all. Consistency is how he’s become the punchline everyone already knows.
2: Never break character. Binface was invited onto the BBC news discussion programme Newsnight and told, repeatedly, to remove the bin and answer as himself. He refused, dismissing the show as “a souped-up podcast.” Most politicians would have folded, because most politicians think authenticity means dropping the act. Binface understood the opposite: the discipline of holding the frame, on live television, in front of a presenter needling him to stop, is itself far more persuasive than anything he could have said with the bin off.
3: Define yourself against your opponent, not for anything. Ask Binface what he offers voters and he gives an honest answer is: he isn’t Nigel Farage. And follow up questions about what he stands for lead in the same direction, as he reminds voters how he differs from his opponent. It’s a positioning strategy, and in a contest about your rival, the smartest move is to let it stay that way — and simply stand next to him as the alternative.
4: Make your policies funny enough to travel, and specific enough to sting. Political pledges are often boring, complicated, and hard to believe. Binface has overcome this by exploiting the absurdity of his character. To tackle homelessness, he offers to build a single affordable house. On inflation, he promises to cut the price of a 99 Flake (a chocolate stick put in ice cream) to 99p. These are concrete, silly, and memorable in a way “cost of living crisis” never will be. Satire works when it’s precise, and that precision is what makes it shareable.
5: Ignore the others. Alongside Nigel Farage and Count Binface, there are 32 other candidates hoping to get elected in Clacton next month. Most are independents, a few represent fringe parties, some are trying to highlight specific issues, and there are a handful of other comedy characters similar to Binface. To win, Count Binface needs to keep it as close to a two-man race as he can, and the best way to do that is to deny airtime to the others. Don’t expect Binface to answer anything they come up or even to acknowledge their campaign; the only other candidate he’ll mention is Farage.
6: Ride a real scandal — don’t invent one. None of this works without Farage’s undeclared gifts, including the £5 million donation that triggered the resignation in the first place. Satire needs a genuine credibility gap to aim at. Binface supplies the wit; Farage, inadvertently, supplied the target. Binface needs to keep this issue in the spotlight, so the election becomes a referendum on whether taking five million pounds without declaring it is acceptable.
7: Manage public opinion polls carefully. When a reputable pollster found more Britons would rather Binface won than Farage, that finding generated its own headlines — coverage no ordinary fringe candidate could ever buy. It helped Binface sideline the other candidates. A good joke campaign eventually stops needing the joke to explain itself; the numbers do it instead. But there is a danger here, too: if a Count Binface win looks likely or even inevitable, he risks becoming the ‘establishment’ or people not bothering to vote. Hence, Binface needs to retain his underdog credentials. If an opinion poll is too good for him, he’ll need to cast doubt on it – ideally with a joke.
Iain King, CBE is a Senior Advisor for Prevail. A former senior diplomat and author of acclaimed books on international affairs and philosophy, Iain was Director of NATO Mission Iraq from 2021-2024. He has held several positions at think tanks in the UK and US, including at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Modern War Institute, and was honoured with a CBE for his work to nurture democracy in Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Bangladeshis Have Chosen to Temper Government Power. And That’s a Great Thing
https://counterpointbd.com/Bangladeshis-Have-Chosen
A Case for Voting Yes in Bangladesh
by Whit Mason • February 11, 2026
https://counterpointbd.com/Why-Bangladesh-Must-Choose-Reform-Now
The Front Row: Remembering Leo Hindery
by Whit Mason • October 2, 2025
Yesterday I lost a longtime friend and mentor, Leo Hindery.
Leo lived many lives in one: race car driver, media mogul, progressive activist. As the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, he had the vision and compassion to assign Randy Shilts — then his star reporter — to “find out what’s happening to our friends.” That decision led to And the Band Played On, the landmark investigation that exposed how the AIDS epidemic was initially ignored.
Leo and I first met in Pakistan, where Leo led a delegation tasked with recommending how to reform — not destroy — USAID. He carried that same principle of constructive change into every sphere of his life.
A self‑made multimillionaire, Leo used his success to fight for fairness. He campaigned for the ultra‑wealthy to pay more taxes and carried the support of organized labor, which in fact cost him the chance to be Secretary of Commerce under the Obama Administration. His loyalty to those around him was legendary. Senator Tom Daschle lost his chance to become Obama’s health czar because Leo had let him use his limousine — a car Leo kept solely so he could employ his driver, whom he introduced as a good friend.
For me personally, Leo was the one who pushed me hardest to keep building my company in the most challenging moments. After 11 years, Prevail Communications Advisors stands because he told me not just to stay the course, but to believe deeply in the mission: helping societies to enable all their people to live in security and dignity by communicating with them with empathy and integrity.
I’m about to board a plane, and as Leo always did, I’ll sit in the front row — so, as he said, when you land, you can charge forward with purpose and energy.
Rest in peace, Leo. Your example and encouragement will keep guiding me and many others in the years ahead.
Leo Hindery, Jr. was a serial entrepreneur, fund manager, former public-company chairman and CEO, author, and philanthropist – and former race car driver.
Mr. Hindery served as Chairman and CEO of Trine Acquisition Corp., a NYSE-listed SPAC which went public in March 2019 and went effective with its merger with Desktop Mental, Inc. (NYSE: DM) in early 2021, and of a follow-on NYSE-listed SPAC under the Trine name that went public in the third quarter of 2021 and returned funds to its public investors in the second quarter of 2023.
In 1988, Mr. Hindery founded and ran as Managing Partner InterMedia Partners, a series of media industry investment funds. In February 1997 he was named President and CEO of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), then the world’s largest cable television system operator. In March 1999, TCI merged into AT&T and Mr. Hindery became President and CEO of AT&T Broadband.
In November 1999, Mr. Hindery was named Chairman and CEO of GlobalCenter Inc., a major Internet services company which fourteen months later merged into Exodus Communications, Inc. Following this merger, until October 2004, he was the founding Chairman and CEO of The YES Network, the regional television home of the New York Yankees, after which he reconstituted and ran InterMedia Partners until the founding of Trine.
Mr. Hindery, a member of the Cable Industry Hall of Fame and formerly Chairman of the National Cable Television Association and of C-SPAN, has been recognized as one of the cable industry’s “25 Most Influential Executives Over the Past 25 Years” and one of the “30 Individuals with the Most Significant Impact on Cable’s Early History.” A member of the Hall of Fame of the Minority Media & Telecom Council, he is distinguished by his decades of commitment to diversity and by his commitment to the development of ethnically sensitive programming.
Mr. Hindery has received the Joel A. Berger Award for his national leadership in AIDS and HIV initiatives, the Oates-Shrum Leadership Award of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, the Keeper of the Dream Award from the National Action Network for his efforts related to worker rights, the Individual Achievement Award of the Hispanic Federation, the Leader Award of the Progressive States Network, and the John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award from Common Cause.
He was co-founder along with Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergey Mironov of Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS (TPAA) and recipient of the Asia Society’s Founders Award for his efforts in the international fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. From 2005 through 2007, Mr. Hindery was Democrat-appointed Vice Chair of the Presidential & Congressional HELP Commission which made recommendations to Congress for the reform of U.S. foreign assistance.
Mr. Hindery was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Director of SeeCubic, Inc., and a Trustee of Sustainable Media Center.
Mr. Hindery earned an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an undergraduate degree from Seattle University.
Once a race car driver, Mr. Hindery’s racing resumé includes a Class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (24 Heures du Mans) in 2005 and a Class second-place finish in 2003. He is a member of the NASCAR Winston West Hall of Fame.
Mr. Hindery is survived by his wife Patti Wheeler.
The State of Theocracy After 21 Years in Power
by Whit Mason • 2000
This article from 2000, written for the Institute of Current World Affairs, discusses the state of the Iranian theocracy after 21 years in power.
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