• An awkward acronym? Check
• An amazing truism? Check
• The word ‘major’ in the intro? Check
• News hook is an “official launch”? Check
• 600 word release that’ll be used as a nib, at most? Check

Hold the front page, boss, because five “research clusters” from well-known European regions such as Aquitaine and Molise will be teaming up with researchers in Leicester to come up with one of those “green traffic management systems”.

The council press office went wild and capped-up the entire project acronym – THE ISSUE – which is the ‘Transport Health Environment – Intelligent Solutions Sustaining Urban Economies’ to your man on the street.

In a moment of press office magic we’re helpfully told that “local partners will be working in partnership”.

And the whole thing is funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, which “promotes knowledge exchange and joint working”. Obviously.

The note to editors offering “further media opportunities” is, shall we say, ambitious…

i am the student of msc information mamanement in robert gordon univeristy aberdeen.i have an assignment on the topice of finding a job as information manager through inetrnet or news papers.i found a job in this website as information manager and now i need some information about this council .so please if you help me to find some information about this council and its way of work taht should be so much help to comleteing my assignment.i am not applying for this job but just imagining for my assignment that i am applying .so what i need to apply for this job and what kind of proposal and stragties i need to make for them.i am very thank full if you give me the name of some journals or book that written on this.please reply me as soon as possible

I became a political journalist to cut through spin and to report the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it was for those in authority. One of the most frustrating things as a journalist is not having any freedom in your role. 

Many journalist friends across the country tell me they don’t have that freedom. Editors tell them which public figures to target, which political parties to go easy on, and which issues are no-go areas. Those same editors, who started off as young and enthusiastic seekers of truth, often simply become another member of the local establishment.

Before arriving at the Mercury I turned down a job offer at another newspaper because I wasn’t convinced that I’d have the freedom to report on politics in the area.

But when I moved to the Mercury it was clear that Keith was very keen for reporters to do some traditional digging and contact-building and come up with stories that press officers would have kept hidden.

When I started there were two political reporters, and Keith wanted to make sure we both knew the Freedom of Information Act inside out to help expose the workings of local authorities, and courses in London were offered to us. Two years down the line and I’ve pulled in some cracking tales from FOI.

As a former political journalist himself Keith’s door was always open for advice on how to cover the complexities of local government. And while he wasn’t one of those editors who turns up to the opening of a civic envelope, he was plugged in to Leicester life and politics and I’d often leave his office with a tip off about a developing political issue.

Back in 2009 when many regional editors didn’t want their journalists blogging and Tweeting, Keith encouraged it. It wasn’t unchecked, of course, but there was just one very simple proviso: If you wouldn’t say it in a column, don’t say it on the web. It’s now a major part of my job.

After previous experiences elsewhere it was a joy to be able to report on politics knowing that politicians couldn’t get stories spiked simply by going above your head to the boss. Stories would be held by him if he spotted any holes in them, but none were ever spiked because of their potential to upset a politician or party.

Several local politicos, from across the political spectrum, sent messages to me this week saying that he brought bite back to political reporting at the Mercury. Long may it continue.

Thousands of readers, more every single week, all following the Leicestershire’s various political soap operas.

Latest figures from Google show that while many of my readers live in Leicestershire, thousands log on from elsewhere the country.

Dig a little deeper into the statistics and it shows that many of them are logging on from local authorities around Britain; councillors checking up on LGA buddies and chums from training courses, and senior council officers checking up on former colleagues or doing background checks on potential new recruits.

A chunk of visitors log on from servers on the parliamentary estate. MPs, researchers and other staffers from Leicestershire and beyond stopping by to see what’s happening in the city and county.

I also get a significant number of visits from think tanks, big business and other media organisations. The powers-that-be in the headquarters of the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties also drop by regularly.

The graphic on the right shows that visitors to this blog come from Aberdeen to Aberdare, Liverpool to London. The large dark orange circle partly visible in the centre is Leicester.

Once in a while a visitor takes me by surprise.

Recently someone from Witney in Oxfordshire logged on for a couple of days in a row and pored through every post I’d made about Conservative MPs and councillors in Leicestershire.

Witney, of course, is Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency. He was in the country, but not in London, at the time. Could it be?

However Amanda Crowden, from charity Support our Soldiers, is quoted in today’s paper, by a different reporter, saying pretty much the same thing.

As I wrote yesterday, I found it bizarre that the council tried to discredit the story despite making a full climbdown earlier in the day.

The update was quickly removed.

This morning I asked the council who uploaded the Tweet in question.

So who was it?

Step forward Monopoly-mad press office supremo Mark Bentley (pictured). Tut tut.

Straight to jail, do not pass Go.

Which Leicestershire-based political official has received threats of serious violence from individuals all claiming to be loyal to the same politician?

I’m assured that the victim is doing everything possible to bring it to the courtroom.

There’s no evidence that the politician has played any part whatsoever in the threats. But the unprecedented situation should never have arisen in the first place. The fact that political allies of an individual are willing to engage in such dark actions will always reflect badly on the individual concerned.

Their judgement in associating themselves with such people must be called into account.

The phrase “If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas” comes to mind…

The New Year festivities have started early for some, it seems.

A colleague is compiling New Year messages from the great and good of the city and county to be published in the first newspaper of 2011. They include celebrities, campaigners and politicians.

One contribution was particularly notable; it was left as a rambling message on the Mercury’s voicemail system at around 5am today by a local politico who sounded rather tired and emotional.

The apparently heartfelt plea for peace and goodwill was slightly undermined, however, when he wished the people of Leicestershire a happy 2001…