| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Whose quote this is about 'Around Ealing' | |
| Posted by: | Dawn Ryder | |
| Date/Time: | 01/04/09 15:46:00 |
| Phil, Interesting you would describe your change of mind in terms of 'developing your ideas'. You never know, your ideas have already 'developed' from Lib Dem to Tory. What will they develop into and which side of the fence will you be sitting on next? Whatever, at any rate, consistency just isn't your thing is it?! And interesting that you would still try to hold that the state promotes itself too much - but Ealing Council doesn't. It doesn't occur to you that that amounts to double standards? The cost of Around Ealing is one issue we could disagree about no doubt but I believe the argument here is about the substantive content of the mag so I'd be grateful if you didn't try to confuse these issues. If Around Ealing stuck to being neutrally informative there would not be a problem. The trouble is it doesn't. In the first place it is selective with its stories. It only prints stories that portray your administration in a good light. It avoids all stories that are contentious (eg. Arcadia being called in to scrutiny, losing our money in an Icelandic bank, imposing contentious fines on motorists at Ealing Broadway station and Mansell Rd/Ruislip Rd junction etc...etc...etc... ) and fails to put things in any sort of context. Around Ealing and other literature is being used to bombard us with advertisement style bragging about there being a 0% council tax increase this year. Why? Doesn't every householder receive a bill informing them of this? And why does the bill also contain a letter trumpeting this again? The mag contains absolutely no information about the corresponding cuts to front-line public services in Environment & Trading Standards. Nor any mention of the 50% cut to the Somali Schools/Home Liaison Officer service. And why does it not mention that you are putting council rents up by 4.7% while keeping council tax down? In short nothing in Around Ealing is contextualised or balanced and therefore by default, it serves the encumbent administration, which in your case happens to be you. In short it is an attempt at duping residents into thinking that everything is rosy in Ealing when it certainly is not. If the residents are funding this publication then they ought to be entitled to a balanced interpretation of things and we are not getting that for our £85,000! |