Rotten Boroughs

We have freeedom in speech in this country, unless of course we are not being nice to minorities, or they perceive it to be so. Otherwise, we are more-or-less able to express our opinions provided we don't stray into the calumny zone.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, December 1948

In my "about the Blogger" page, I have the following statement:-

I have no malign intent to libel anyone, make implications that are misleading or breach copyright of other people’s images but will robustly defend my stance if I am bullied or manipulated. If you are paid by the public purse, you are subject to public scrutiny and I regard you as fair game. If you are a politician, I am reluctant to give you the benefit of the doubt.

In that spirit, I turn my beady eye to the latest goings on locally. There are rumours circling the Morley chattering classes that Leeds City Councillors have approached the line managers of two Leeds City Council employees who have made postings on Facebook about what the councillor considers to be inappropriate remarks, i.e. disagreeing with them. Neither of these employees are believed to be in jobs that are classed as politically restricted posts.

Now this concerns me greatly as I regard this as suppression of free speech and depending on the circumstances, quite possibly an abuse of the Councillor code of conduct re 3.1 Treating others with respect, 6(a) Using your position improperly, 3 (b) Bullying and 3 (c) intimidation.

Now, I can understand this approach for the Private Sector. If I posted opinions about the Board Policy of the PLC that I work for I would expect some form of disciplinary procedure against me but there are clear guidelines in my terms of employment that I must not do such things and that all media contact is to be via our Corporate Communications team.

A Public Body, however, is another matter. I imagine that 95% of local government employees are not in politically restricted posts and I consider it perfectly fair that a bin man, say, should be able to argue about library provision, or a social worker hold strong views about education. They are employees of a legal entity with a statutory instrument of Governance powers and the Councillors are elected Members subject to full public scrutiny of their actions. All council tax payers are stakeholders in local Government and provided that they do not cross the line into defamation, there is no human right to not be offended. (Indeed, a defence against defamation proceedings is "fair comment in the public interest" so politicians have less protection than others against libel.)

Now I don't know too much about the details about these cases and what I have heard is inevitably one-sided, some may well be hearsay distorted by the nature of story swapping. The two employees are inevitably going to be circumspect so I intend to find out about this the other way round, by asking the Councillors.

There are 99 Councillors on Leeds City Council, pictured below. (The images are copyright Leeds City Council but I clain fair use). I'm sure that most of them are honourable. I will shortly be composing a model email to enquire as to whether they are involved in this matter. It may take a number of weeks but I don't give up willingly.

These days the Press have mostly abandoned investigative journalism, certainly at local level. However, bloggers are journalists as well and Citizen Journalists are starting to ask questions.

This isn't a massive scandal, but it fits in with the Morleygate ethos. Councillors, explain yourself.

(Rotten Boroughs is a Private Eye feature about Councillors who overstep their authority.)