'The Race We Can't Afford to Lose'

Available for over a year

The stakes could not be higher. To the winner, global supremacy. To the loser, irreversible decline. That is how the battle for building more data centres is being fought by Amazon. This week, David Yelland and Farzana Baduel look at how the company is fighting back against the "misinformation and outright lies" that surround data centres. The public has apparently got them all wrong. But just how do you shift opinion when it seems everyone has already made up their mind? On the extended edition on BBC Sounds, a slightly more modern slice of Bayeux brilliance. The Conservatives scored a great PR win with their own 88ft 'tapestry' depicting the last two years in politics. The masterstroke was to include a number of journalists in the artwork - which meant they all posted about it, giving the stunt far more publicity. The very obvious flattery worked a treat - but there are more subtle ways of getting journalists on side which are just as effective. Also, the risks of making pets political. Labour minister Jenny Riddle-Carpenter found herself in hot water after rather clumsily linking black labradors to some kind of 'Far Right fantasy'. The reaction has been exactly as you can imagine. Producer: Duncan Middleton Editor: Sarah Teasdale Executive Producer: Eve Streeter Music by Eclectic Sounds A Raconteur Studios production for BBC Radio 4