Pickles on the offensive against ‘propaganda sheets’
David Blackburn 6:05pm
Eric Pickles is no longer a genial giant. His speech to the Conservative Spring Forum was the rallying cry that many
Conservatives in local government, some of whom will be scrapping for survival in May’s elections, have waited to hear.
‘Ed Miliband,’ Pickles said, ‘is weaker than Neil Kinnock.’ The Labour leader could not take on his unions and militant councils, the Communities Secretaries said before
turning an example:
An element at Tory HQ say they can hear the tear of Labour splitting between moderates and militants. They may be exaggerating, but, certainly, some councils have become much more malevolent and they have been using ratepayers’ money to fund partisan newspapers. Lambeth Council, for instance, spent £562,443 on Lambeth Life in 2009-10; the current issue of which has a photograph of a protestor wielding a ‘STOP THE CUTS’ sign on its front page.‘Take Labour-run Camden. Ed Miliband’s local council. His councillors are cutting the Surma Community Centre, coincidentally visited by Samantha Cameron. Yet the council has spent twice as much on its town hall newspaper.His councillors are now cutting back tax relief for local voluntary groups. Heard of the People’s Supermarket – the social enterprise featured on Channel 4? Camden are hounding it the courts for £40,000 of rates. Camden has refused this local co-operative rate relief for non-profit groups. But the council does bankroll 8 union officials at taxpayers’ expense.’
Pickles has another problem, only partially addressed: Conservative councils are practiced publicists too. Last November, the DCLG persuaded Hammersmith and Fulham to fold its publicly funded paper, but several Tory-run councils, including West Sussex to Kensington and Chelsea, are still publishing at their residents’ expense. In heart-warming tones, the latest edition of The Royal Borough explains how frontline services will be enhanced by sharing providers and staff with neighbouring councils.
The double standard corrupts Pickles’ case, and it will be interesting to see if he corrects it.
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TGF UKIP
March 7th, 2011 6:42pm Report this commentI'm most surprised there is no link to this excellent piece by Andrew Gilligan linked to by Guido:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8365463/Death-by-a-thousand-cuts.html
David Blackburn
March 7th, 2011 7:14pm Report this commentTGF,
I agree that Gilligan's piece is excellent, typically so. But I don't think it's relevant here - Gilligan is exposing Haringey's various Budget ruses, rather than Pickles' inconsistency.
Publius
March 7th, 2011 7:23pm Report this commentMeanwhile, in Cambridgeshire, while the libraries close...
LGBT History Month:
http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/content/community-and-living/annual-events/lgbt-history-month.en
Lovely, but why must we pay?
Just one small part of what's in this week's Cambridge propaganda mag produced by the Council and paid for by us. No doubt they'd claim they have some sort of legal obligation for all this guff under "equalities" legislation.
Other gems are £400,000 odd spent on fitting solar panels on Council property.
I'm beginning to think these big spenders are beyond any sort of democratic control. I mean, who the hell do I vote for for it to stop?
Neil Turner
March 7th, 2011 7:25pm Report this commentYou won't see any of this reported in the MSM. The way the left control the media means Mr Pickles comments will go unreported.
For example, 5liveDrive thought it more important to give air time this afternoon to a Labour nonentity who disagrees with Mr Hague's Libyan escapade
Publius
March 7th, 2011 7:25pm Report this comment@David Blackburn
And you wrote this piece to expose Pickles' inconsistency, right? Thanks for that. With friends like you, who needs enemies, eh?
JohnPage
March 7th, 2011 9:45pm Report this commentPickles' "double standard"? "Inconsistency"?
Have neither of you heard of localism?
Ali C
March 7th, 2011 9:55pm Report this commentWhy do several council 'chief executives' earn £200k?
Sack them and keep a library.
daniel maris
March 7th, 2011 10:08pm Report this commentThe disturbingly Porcine Pickles is a completely loose canon. If anyone thinks he's cutting red tape, they should have a look at the 500 pages plus of the Localism Bill and see if they can make sense of that and the many will o' the wisp "rights" granted to the public.
The idea that cutting Town Hall propaganda and Chief Exec pay will make much difference to public finances is delusional.
RMH
March 7th, 2011 10:10pm Report this commentGreenwich council still do their own paper, asses.
Why doesnt the government legislate to stop stupid spending.
Edward McLaughlin
March 7th, 2011 10:43pm Report this commentPhoto taken from the recent avant-garde theatre production 'Macbeef'. "Is this a steak and kidney pudding I see before me tea?"
2trueblue
March 7th, 2011 11:12pm Report this commentNeil Turner. The MSM is totally owned and run by the left wing, we just pay for it.
Publis, Blackburn thinks this standpoint is clever. The real problem for the coalition is that everything is balanced against them. Liebore fostered and allowed councils to expand in ways that were alien to us. The result is we were unaware of what we actualy got for our money and were not informed what they paid themselves. Each council did as they pleased but had these 'cute' packages that they offered to please themselves which had not real value to us. Now we are more cost aware and seeing where our money has been going. Too late it seems, and now the media want to shoot the messanger rather than see the reality.
Mark Cannon
March 8th, 2011 8:37am Report this commentThe answer is for local voters/council tax payers to subject their local councils to proper scrutiny and their local councillors to questioning. I will be writing to my councillors in Kensington & Chelsea about their newspaper, for example.
Chris lancashire
March 8th, 2011 9:12am Report this commentMy local Council's "local newspaper" makes it from my front door to (the council provided) recycling bin in under 10 secs.
They are useless, unread, self-aggrandising publications which I would prefer they dropped. I am, however, against legislation to stop them.
Scary Biscuits
March 8th, 2011 9:14am Report this commentThe difficulty with council freesheets is that they can be a cheaper way of publishing statutory notices than using the local paper. Local papers have not only priced themselves out of the market they are also often viscerally left wing, so why should the council be forced to subsidise them? Conversely, it's also unhealthy for the local newspaper to become dependent on council funding.
Rather than attacking this, Pickles should be changing the law so that councils are not forced to use print media and can make better use of the internet.
The wider problem of local newspaper monopolies or their collapse altogether, is probably a symptom of the collapse of towns' independence and the centralisation of decision making in Whitehall. Hopefully, the localism bill will go some way to restoring this I suspect Whitehall's sticky fingers will cling on for a while yet.
Scary Biscuits
March 8th, 2011 9:28am Report this comment@Publius 'who do I vote for to get rid of them?' I'm afraid voting isn't enough; you need to join a political party and influence its selection of candidates.
Most political parties are pretty small when you boil them down, so they're not difficult to take over with a few motivated people. The hard left have demonstrated this for decades here. Also the Tea Party in America have shown what can be achieved if you try.
People in the UK have been passified by decades of socialism, where the state is the answer to everything and personal initiative is discouraged. The collapse of party membership, or local activism (except when paid for by the state or by trade unions), is a symptom of this. It is a shame the Mr Cameron doesn't mention this sort of local engagement when he talks about Big Society and has instead had the debate hijacked by the defenders of Big Government.
Perry
March 8th, 2011 9:41am Report this commentExcellent! Wonderful!
Well past time to stop the wasteful, trashy, expensive propaganda sheets!
Abolish them and all the associated jobsworths, the inanely 'smiling' loons who pose for the pics, and the 'reporters' who write the tosh.
Away with them all!! PDQ!!
Remittance Man
March 8th, 2011 1:31pm Report this commentRMH asks why the central government doesn't "do something" about wastefl local government spending. Obviously RMH missed the memo about "The Big Society".
Much as I love to deride Cameron and his Kumbayah Conservatism, one thing about his philosophy does strike a chord - making local authorities responsible to local electorates for their actions. In other words RMH: the only "somebody" who ought to be "doing something" is YOU.
If Brits are ever to save their country from the pit of childlike dependence into which it has fallen THEY are the ones who have to take action, not some mythical "someone". Down that path lies ever more slavery.
Ken
March 8th, 2011 2:13pm Report this commentIt needs to go much deeper than Council propaganda rags, its root and branch reform that's required.
Stop all document translations (except Welsh) - English is the language of the country. Force all councils to downsize, with size of council proportionate to size of borough and 30 as the maximum number of officials allowed.
Spin-off all their bloated services to small local private sector firms. Reinvigorate community life using volunteers to sit as councillors.
Oh and good luck to those suggesting one writes and requests explanations. From prolonged personal experience, the people who answer your emails are exceptionally illiterate, generally capable only of regurgitating managerial gobbledegook imbibed during some expensive away-weekend in Monaco.
Livers
March 12th, 2011 11:47am Report this comment@Chris Lancashire - you don't read the council rag and put it straight in the bin but yet you can comment on it being useless and self-aggrandising?
Is this how you form all your opinions?
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