Monday, September 15, 2014
Pickles versus the rest
There is an interesting article in today's Times, which says that Eric Pickles is heading for a confrontation with local councils who are defying him over his campaign against their locally produced newspapers.
The paper says that the communities secretary told several authorities five months ago that they were breaching rules on municipal publicity. His officials are now preparing to take legal action, which could come within weeks:
The government could seek a court order to to stop publication. Ministers say that the “Town Hall Pravdas” are a waste of taxpayers’ money and undermine public accountability by flattering the councils that produce them and competing with genuine community newspapers.
However, several councils said that they had not scaled back or changed their publications. They insist they comply with the rules and provide a legitimate service.
As interesting as this is one wonders what happened to Pickles' localism agenda, which by any definition involves these type of decisions being taken locally. More importantly has anybody done a review of UK Government propaganda recently?
The paper says that the communities secretary told several authorities five months ago that they were breaching rules on municipal publicity. His officials are now preparing to take legal action, which could come within weeks:
The government could seek a court order to to stop publication. Ministers say that the “Town Hall Pravdas” are a waste of taxpayers’ money and undermine public accountability by flattering the councils that produce them and competing with genuine community newspapers.
However, several councils said that they had not scaled back or changed their publications. They insist they comply with the rules and provide a legitimate service.
As interesting as this is one wonders what happened to Pickles' localism agenda, which by any definition involves these type of decisions being taken locally. More importantly has anybody done a review of UK Government propaganda recently?
