Open council meetings to bloggers, urges Eric Pickles

Tim Montgomerie

Eric Pickles and Bob Neill have issued guidance to local authorities, urging them to allow citizen journalists and bloggers to have full access to public council meetings. Mr Pickles commented:

“Fifty years ago, Margaret Thatcher changed the law to make councils open their meetings to the press and public. This principle of openness needs to be updated for the 21st Century. More and more local news comes from bloggers or citizen journalists telling us what is happening at their local council.

“Many councils are internet-savvy and stream meetings online, but some don’t seem to have caught up with the times and are refusing to let bloggers or hyper-local news sites in. With local authorities in the process of setting next year’s budget this is more important than ever.

“Opening the door to new media costs nothing and will help improve public scrutiny. The greater powers and freedoms that we are giving local councils must be accompanied by stronger local accountability.

“We are in the digital age and this analogue interpretation of the press access rules is holding back a new wave of local scrutiny, accountability and armchair auditors.”

As traditional local media declines, new media will be an increasingly important way of holding local councils to account.

See BBC report.

The Good Tweet Guide for councillors

My own Tweeting efforts have been pretty feeble so far. They usually consist of an alert when I have put up a piece on Residents First, which is the blog for Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives.

But there are some useful tips here (from Adrian Short via Cllr Liam Maxwell) for beginners like me with aspiration for enhanced status in the Twitter community.

What constitutes a good Tweet? Here is what Adrian says:

Conservative councillor bloggers awards

Congratulations to the following Conservative councillors whose blogs have been included in the prestigous Total Politics magazine Top 30 Councillor Blogs.

Paul Scully (who was runner up.) Richard Willis (in third place.) Steve Tierney (in fourth place.) Sean Haffey (a new entry at 13). Iain Lindley (14). James Cleverly (17). Roger Evans (19). James Cousins (21). Tim Dodds (22). Rene Kinzett (30).

Salford bans twittering during Council meetings

After Swansea another council, Salford, has decided to ban councillors from Twittering during Council meetings.

In the case of Salford, at least, the ban will apply to journalists as well as councillors. I wonder if the argument is different. Councillors are paid at public expense to be participants in the process not just observers. They should be concentrating on what is going on and showing proper respect for the Mayor and the office they hold. Journalists are there to get news - part of which is getting news quickly.

Cllr Iain Lindley, a Conservative councillor on Salford, will naturally respect the ruling while it is in force but would like it reconsidered. He feels that both councillors and journalists should be able to Twitter duiring Council meetings:

The public gallery is usually empty. Our Council meetings make decisions that affect local residents across Salford, but we make it as difficult as possible to actually allow residents to see democracy in action.

Twitter changes that. I can get across to local people what is happening in our Council meetings, together with the sterling work that the Manchester Evening News is doing by covering our Council
meetings live. I understand that 500 people logged on to watch coverage of the January Council meeting – and that’s 500 more than turned up in the public gallery. Now that outlet to the communities of Salford has gone, in a flash.

I make no apologies for wanting to make our Council meetings more accessible. I will continue to argue for more transparency and openness in local government and particularly here in Salford City
Council. I hope that some local residents benefitted from the insights that I was able to give at the previous Council meetings and that I will be able to do so again in future.

 

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.