ConservativeHome's Local Government Blog

Eleven Somerton councillors resign after blogger campaigns against them with Freedom of Information requests

Newsnight's Michael Crick has the story.

Here is the blog; Muck and Brass.

Tim Montgomerie

June 4 elections: Oxfordshire Lib Dem hypocrisy over Gurkhas.

Cllr Keith Mitchell, the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has been writing an election blog. Very lively and hard hitting it is too. Here is a sample entry from yesterday.

Sunday 24 May 06:00 pm  I see the Liberals in Oxford West & Abingdon claim to be supporting the Gurkhas.  I have got used to their sheer hypocrisy over the years but this takes the biscuit.  Cllr Janet Godden is a leading member of the Oxfordshire Liberals. She wears a white poppy in November of each year and has never disguised her support for pacifism and her dislike of the military.  I cannot remember a Liberal politician who has supported our armed services and here they are, jumping on a band wagon just because they think it might gain them some votes on June 4th.  I wonder how many of them signed the No 10 Web Site petition for the Gurkhas?  I know I did and a lot of my County Group did.  I wonder if Neil Fawcett's name (a Liberal activist and spin doctor) was there?

While I reflect on the Liberals, I can't wait for the Daily Telegraph to publicise Evan Harris's expenses.  I have been interested to see he is the highest spending of our Oxfordshire MPs.  It is difficult to imagine him indulging in duck houses, moat clearance, expensive furniture of any of the excesses we read about daily. The only excesses I see him  guilty of are a leaning to the political left. So, on what did he spend all that taxpayers' dosh?  Come on Daily Telegraph - don't keep us in suspense!

Does Hazel Blears want us to blog or not?

As Communities Secretary Hazel Blears presides over a Department which supposedly encourages councillors to start their own blogs. I understand the Department's guidance to Town Hall is that if a councillor starts a blog this is to be encouraged with the address being publicised by the Council and some modest technical assistance being available.

But in her speech to the Hansard Society last week she attacked blogging saying "it fuelled a culture of cynicism and despair." She denounced my fair minded, good humoured and public spirited old friend Guido Fawkes despite, or perhaps because, of his considerable success in breaking stories then followed up in print (or "stolen" as he genially puts it.) Speaking in the most intemperate of terms Blears has denounced him as offering "viscous nihilism."

I suppose what will end up happening is bloggers offered subsidies by her Department provided that, in her terms, they "add value." At least she didn't warn Guido he was "drinking in the last chance saloon." She doesn't appear to have the most basic grasp of what a free society is about.

Blogging along

Cllr Paul Scully is leader of the Conservative Group in Sutton. His blog has been judged among the best councillor blogs in the country. Here he says councillors blogging is time well spent.

The fact that you are reading this on Conservative Home suggests that you already know that Conservatives are at the forefront of political blogging. This doesn’t have to be limited to Westminster news and gossip. I started Scully’s Blogspot, three weeks after being elected in 2006 with an article entitled “Does cyberspace need another blog?” I believed that it did then and after 280 articles and 1200 comments from residents, I believe that there is plenty of room for more now.

Blogging is a fantastic way of getting a message over in a hurry. Maybe you have just returned from a committee where you have been instrumental in rejecting a proposed eyesore in your village idyll? Whilst everything is fresh in your mind, you can get it down in writing, whereas a printed newsletter has a lead time for design and printing causing some smaller stories to date too quickly if left to traditional means. Space on newsletters is precious. Use the blog for as much as you want - as long as it is likely to be interesting for the reader. This way people can dip in and out of your blog, seeing how much time you are spending fighting for their concerns. I also use mine as a repository for my stories and photos, picking out the best for newsletters every few weeks.

Leaflets tend to be glanced at on the way to the bin. I am one of an ever-increasing number of people that get the majority of my news locally and nationally via the Internet. Not that paper has had its day after 2000 years; far from it. Everything that I print has an advert for my blog. This isn’t Field of Dreams stuff, “build it and they will come”. Keeping the film theme, “In cyberspace no-one can hear you scream.” It’s a lonely place unless people know that you are there and care about what you write, so put the address on your letterheads, leaflets, business cards, anywhere.