Putting a Spin on a Difficult Year

A STORY on page 2 of today's Daily Mail caught my eye, headlined "Brown's 'Stalinist' rewrite of history".

It tells of how a review of the Prime Minister's first six months in office, published on the Number 10 website, fails to mention what the Mail says is "a catalogue of embarassing scandals, failures and blunders".

It reminded me of West Lancs District Council leader Geoff Roberts 'review' of the year which had "lots of good news stories".

He mentions that "customer services are stronger than ever and our Customer Service Point in Skelmersdale was named 'Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year' in the recent National Customer Awards."

Strangely, he (or whoever wrote it) omits the fact that the poor souls who staff the cash office at the Point only found out that the facility was being axed after reading it in the Advertiser just a week before Christmas

Also, there's no mention of the fact that local tenants are now threatening to the council to the Ombudsman because they did it with no consultation and voted on it behind closed doors.

Sticking with Skem, Cllr Roberts says "progress has been made on a wide range of key initiatives including the Skelmersdale Vision."

But then again, there's no mention to the mass public outcry of Firbeck residents whose homes are under threat from this development. The statement also omits the fact that more than 1,000 people have refused to back the controversial idea of building on the Tawd Valley. Both of these have dominated the coverage of the Vision project this year.

Other points of interest which were missing from this round-up included:

- The highly embarassing chief officers pay review (also done in secret) which saw the council's two top men frozen out at the last minute. The review was carried out by consultants at a rumoured £16,000.

- The climbdown over the Aughton Street artwork scheme after huge public pressure

Downing Street, Derby Street... it's all the same when it comes to spin.

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