Well well well, this is a bit of a rum turn of events in Cornwall.
Councillors send tweets during council meeting.
Western Morning News runs a story about this, taking a few potshots and quoting The Taxpayers’ Alliance slamming the councillors for this behaviour.
One of the councillors then points out that someone from the TPA was actually sending them messages on Twitter during the meeting asking them questions.
But TPA then say, no – they weren’t being hypocritical for criticising councillors for tweeting whilst also encouraging them because the quote they gave the press was in fact in response to being told tweets had been sent containing “sexual innuendo too explicit to print in a newspaper”. So the TPA was slamming the sending of such tweets, not tweeting in general from council meetings.
Yet the newspaper has not published any such tweets and there’s no record of anyone having sent such tweets. (Plus denials all round about there having such tweets.)
So back to the Western Morning News on this…
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3 Comments
Hi
Had we been approached simply for comment on the concept of councillors tweeting in council meetings, we certainly wouldn’t have given a critical statement. The fact I was in Twitter conversation to express my support for Cornwall Lib Dems’ opposition to the idea of raising councillrs’ allowances illustrates that we are big fans of councillors tweeting as a means of political engagement.
If you read the TPA statement in the story, I hope you’d agree it clearly has wording that is appropriate for a story about obscene tweeting rather than tweeted reports of a council meeting!
I’ve spoken to the News Editor of the WMN today and he’s investigating what happened – though the journalist who wrote the story is apparently now on holiday until next week. In the meantime, as well as publishing a comment from us on their website, he has agreed to print a letter from us explaining we were misled by the journalist who wrote the story, and expressing our support for those councillors who are using things like Twitter to engage with the public.
Mark Wallace
Campaign Director
TaxPayers’ Alliance
Thanks for that comment Mark. I agree the quote from the TPA reads very differently when put in context. Will be interesting to see how the newspaper responds.
I do wonder why the Taxpayers’ Alliance is the natural port of call for opinion on obscene tweets (if any were ever sent). It’s not as if the councillors were being paid public money for the tweets. How about asking a Church of England bishop to get all moralising on us next time instead?