County becoming masters of media spin

A pattern is forming at the County Council involving the Labour administration, U-turns and good old fashioned ’spin’…. something the Labour County are getting better and better at!

Not long ago Conservatives opposed Labour’s plan to grab some quick cash by selling off almost all of the publicly owned farmland in Staffordshire…. much of it potentially for large housing developments. We were successful with our opposition and an embarrassing Labour U-turn followed.

But the County spin machine spun into action trumpeting Labour’s, ‘foresight in keeping publicly owned starter farms and helping sustain what will become an even more important industry for Staffordshire in the future’. One of those things I suppose and the evergrowing, and now very substantial, media office are just doing what they are paid to…. and doing it pretty well to boot.

Then about two months ago I made enquiries to County around what was being done regarding proposed post office closures in Staffordshire and as far as I could find out…. nothing was the answer. So a month ago I asked the Cabinet Member responsible the same question in open Chamber. As expected her answer rather confirmed that she either didn’t know, or nothing was actually being done…. the latter I suspect.

So a couple of weeks ago I provided the County Leader with some formal written questions around the post office issue. As expected, the written replies I got were pretty vague with confirmation of some sort of low level (Countywise) and even lower level (Post Office wise) meeting taking place but achieving nothing. I suspect it was hastily arranged after my Chamber question but I’m not certai on that. The fact is it achieved nothing and was for show!

But, Hey Presto, as if by magic, the written, radio and even TV media locally have since been full of how Labour and, in particular, the County Leader are fighting the causes of communities threatened with losing their local post office. If only they worked as hard at lobbying Government on post offices or actually trying to find sensible and cost efficient ways of making, particularly, rural post offices more sustainable. But no, the greatest effort is going into spin.

In media spin, they’ve actually found something they are good at finally!

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