Today, 27th Oct, I started fixing the links working backwards through the Blog (changed broadband provider etc). The old ones will be finished next week...
Meanwhile, have a look at my new Blog - which will run in parallel to this one - about my adventures on Merseyside!
S.P.Q.L
'AN EXPENSES ACCOUNT' Jim Miller's adventures in the banana republic of Nth Herefordshire leominsterindependent@live.co.uk
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Thursday, 6 October 2011
The Hereford Times they are a-changing
... but not voluntarily, you understand.
A year ago next Wednesday the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges found that my MP Bill Wiggin had seriously breached their rules in claiming false expenses.
The influential local paper the Hereford Times had to report this, but the editor, Wiggin groupie Fiona Phillips, published a false story making out that the breaches weren't serious and were some kind of accident.
Today the Press Complaints Commission forced her to publish this retraction on page three with the same prominence as the original false story.
It shows the weakness of the PCC that it took them so long to have a seriously false story amended. But it's rather splendid too, as Mr Wiggin's wrongdoing is splashed to the people of Herefordshire (everyone reads it) just as he hoped they'd begun to forget about it!
Ms Phillips hates my guts - she recently published a spiteful piece more or less commending the police for intimidating me on Mr Wiggin's behalf ( that is currently under investigation, I'll post stuff about it when it's no longer an official case).
What the editor doesn't know is that this year, especially during the May elections, I was running a mole inside her paper. Here is the transcript of some of the facebook messages between the mole - whom we'll call 'Hereford Hack' and me, edited to protect confidentiality & so La Phillips can't guess the identity of the mole.
I think it's in the interest of everyone in Herefordshire to see just how much information about dodgy politicians and execs the reporters uncover which is then spiked by the editor...
A year ago next Wednesday the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges found that my MP Bill Wiggin had seriously breached their rules in claiming false expenses.
The influential local paper the Hereford Times had to report this, but the editor, Wiggin groupie Fiona Phillips, published a false story making out that the breaches weren't serious and were some kind of accident.
Today the Press Complaints Commission forced her to publish this retraction on page three with the same prominence as the original false story.
It shows the weakness of the PCC that it took them so long to have a seriously false story amended. But it's rather splendid too, as Mr Wiggin's wrongdoing is splashed to the people of Herefordshire (everyone reads it) just as he hoped they'd begun to forget about it!
Ms Phillips hates my guts - she recently published a spiteful piece more or less commending the police for intimidating me on Mr Wiggin's behalf ( that is currently under investigation, I'll post stuff about it when it's no longer an official case).
What the editor doesn't know is that this year, especially during the May elections, I was running a mole inside her paper. Here is the transcript of some of the facebook messages between the mole - whom we'll call 'Hereford Hack' and me, edited to protect confidentiality & so La Phillips can't guess the identity of the mole.
I think it's in the interest of everyone in Herefordshire to see just how much information about dodgy politicians and execs the reporters uncover which is then spiked by the editor...
Monday, 3 October 2011
Kafka's "The Trial" now playing in Herefordshire
This letter from the office of our Deputy Chief Executive came through my letterbox, swiftly followed by this one.
They illustrate how he earns his six figure salary.
Another couple of 'investigations' and 'trials' of me are to take place & they are kind enough to tell me that these will take place entirely in secret. So far, no surprises: this is how the Council conducts all its business these days.
But here they've gone one further, or should I say two further.
Look at the letters. Nowhere do they say what these allegations against me actually are.
Nor do they say anywhere who has made the allegations (whatever they are) against me.
So I'm facing a secret trial which I can't attend, which will hear accusations about me which I'm not to be told about, made by people who are to remain entirely unknown to me.
"Publisher: These plots you're bringing to me are increasingly implausible, Mr Orwell. Get out of my office!"
They illustrate how he earns his six figure salary.
Another couple of 'investigations' and 'trials' of me are to take place & they are kind enough to tell me that these will take place entirely in secret. So far, no surprises: this is how the Council conducts all its business these days.
But here they've gone one further, or should I say two further.
Look at the letters. Nowhere do they say what these allegations against me actually are.
Nor do they say anywhere who has made the allegations (whatever they are) against me.
So I'm facing a secret trial which I can't attend, which will hear accusations about me which I'm not to be told about, made by people who are to remain entirely unknown to me.
"Publisher: These plots you're bringing to me are increasingly implausible, Mr Orwell. Get out of my office!"
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