Leicester Mercury political correspondent
South Tyneside Council
Monkey business up north
Aug 4th
American lawyers, anonymous bloggers, and Californian courtrooms.
It’s like a John Grisham novel up at South Tyneside Council, where bosses have unleashed legal experts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Their aim? To unmask an anonymous blogger who appeared on the political scene in the north east for a year with a mix of scoops and scandal. The (unverified) leaked document shows a senior council solicitor admitting that they’ve hit a brick wall, and are struggling to find who was behind the blog.
The blog itself closed a year ago, but reappeared last week and posted the document as its first ‘scoop’. I have chosen not to link to the blog due to its content.
I, of course, have a personal interest in seeing him unmasked. He was the blogger who nicknamed me ‘Birdman MacLean’ after a photograph of me being attacked by a seagull was published (right).
The document itself is a fascinating insight into what goes on behind closed doors at local authorities across the country.
One would imagine this investigation has been going on for some time, but I’m informed that not even the main opposition group knew of the legal action.
Surely questions will now be asked by the north east media about who signed off on the legal escapade, exactly how much it has cost so far, and why opposition members weren’t told.
“Eric Pickles is big and fat”
Jul 1st
It’s rare that I blog about my old patch up-north, but I couldn’t resist this.
Frank Sidebottom-lookalike cabinet member Ed Malcolm was secretly recorded at a public meeting calling communities secretary Eric Pickles “big” and “fat”.
At first glance it’s simply childish, but when you consider that Ed is lead member for finance at South Tyneside Council, and Pickles is the man holding the purse-strings on local government, you realise it’s rank stupidity. Things go wrong when he isn’t reading from a pre-prepared statement.
Ed, a man who prefers to toot words out of the corner of his mouth rather than pronounce them, was suspiciously lost for words following the incident. Presumably he’ll be more careful when doling out his pearls of wisdom in future.
People of Houghton and Sunderland South, you have had a lucky escape.
