• A brief analyses of the ‘Press’ past and present;

• The ‘quality’ – future of ‘reporters’;

• The ‘quality’ – Lancashire press;

• Press Bias – a particular political party;

• The political policy – Lancashire Evening Post;

• Councillor ‘Desperate’ Driver – his noms-de- plumes;

• Defamation – Lancashire disabled Fire Service Veterans;

• The savvy of a ‘stupid’ Lancashire Electorate;

• Gilbert & Sullivan opera – the star – Cllr Driver;

• ‘Knuckles’ Driver – at work;

• Dirty work – at the Crossroads;

• Cllr Driver – Conservative Political embarrassment and General Election liability.

So why has the Press changed so dramatically for the worse considering such matters as the current ‘hacking’ trial in London?

Is it because they believe they have become untouchable by the law of the land, or perhaps those who control the media actually are more powerful than the law of the land and can, not only control the judiciary, but manipulate them to the advantage of themselves and their ‘family’?

When considering the press world many changes have occurred over a relatively short period of time most likely due to the advance in technology. In the olden days this Editor spent his professional life dealing with the media, and once for a time as a specialist Press Liaison Officer.

Disaster and tragedy brings out the media, or it used to. Along would come the ‘reporters’ of the old school. Professionals in their own world. People who were interrogative and determined to pursue their story who would then with integrity report it all, sub-editors permitting, in  objective, impartial, balanced accuracy, using above all else, a comprehendible literate style.

It all seems so simple but it required a vocation and devotion to the journalistic task in hand but that now seems to have mutated into a much lazier, seamier, and at times a lawless approach. Murdock’s minions has much to answer for as we are seeing daily at the Old Bailey.

 It was easy at that time to develop a professional rapport, an ‘on’ and ‘off the record’, relationship in an atmosphere of mutual trust but there were unspoken ground rules and their operation was clear.

Breach the ‘off the record’ trust and that medium was no longer to be privy to the reality on the ground. In all those decades this only happened with one reporter.

The Editor recalls many other trustworthy journalists of the ‘old school’ old with warmth and respect and still meets them in their retirement today.

Without local news, which comes free from those who supply it, the Public, there are no local newspapers to carry the local advertising which is the recognised lifeblood of any newspaper; without local newspaper sales there is no local advertising revenue to pay the staff; or give a return on printing investment to say nothing of the hidden income generated by this ‘local’ news which is then fed to press agencies and ultimately in distribution to the national/international media who may or may not pick up the ‘piece’ and pay for the use of it.

The magic formula still remains true even in these changing times though now with general collapse of the newspaper industry into the gutter these golden rules no longer seem to be understood by newspaper proprietors who in the main are not actual journalists but more likely to be parachuted in accountants from their last paid off failure at another task which may not have had the remotest connection with the news media but who as usual understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

However things have changed and it seems always for the worse.

Today’s computer operators, because they cannot be described as either investigative journalists or reporters, sit ensconced in front of their monitors and what they see must be true and so they reproduce it for the masses. A handy bit of column inches to fill up the odd corner plagiarised or often reproduced inaccurately from some news agency elsewhere in the world.

Somewhere someone wrote and published an article and put it on the Net, it is therefore true and requires no further investigative work. In effect no one gets up from their desk gets on their bike and goes immediately to the source of a local story and interviews people on the ground who actually saw, were involved in, or were keen observers of what actually happened.

The ‘if you were there let us know’ is the latest bright idea in journalistic licence for laziness, the ‘IF’ brigade. Any proper journalist worth their salt will inform the reporter ‘cubs’ of today that if someone in ‘authority’ pulls a ticker tape across an ‘incident’ the local weirdoes, usually bearing the proceeds of a local mugging in the form of a mobile phone will just pour out of the crevices to take pictures and to get paid for them if they are really street savvy.

Add blue flashing lights and it would be prescient to send for the men in white coats to pick up these melodramatic ‘contributors’, the ‘if only I had been here a few minutes early that would have been my corpse lying in the gutter’,  brigade.

This seems to be the ‘quality’ of news reporting today which is spelling the end of newspapers as the 20^th century knew them and, it must be said, the end for the need for reporters on the ground.

The result of this lazy approach to journalism is often illustrated in the local Lancashire Evening Post(LEP) in which readers regularly and vociferously complain of the poor quality of the general reporting; the eternal pixilation of photographs which no one seems capable of technically correcting; the absence, or inaccuracy of photographs if attached in caption headlines; the melodramatic creation of  ‘headlines’ of a non-story; the non-existent  proof reading before going straight to plate; and the ‘facts’ not being anywhere remotely connected to the truth or the reality of an event; all delivered with the panache of  ‘standards’ of literacy which are cringe worthy of a primary school which just failed its Ofsted inspection;

Perhaps that is why the newspaper industry is in such decline?

Live ‘feeds’(if that is not an oxymoron) are taken direct from Council chambers but their ‘man’ on the ground, if present, asks no questions off camera and no insights of political manoeuvring are actually accomplished or reported upon. It is all too much of an effort. A refusal of ‘comment’ is accepted as a fait accompli, not as a challenge to dig deeper to find the truth, but as a lazy excuse to return to the cosy office and fill out the expenses sheets.

Today the harsh facts of the matter are that it is understandably easier to acquiesce with the ‘policy’ of the employer/editor than to hazard employment, but it sells short the apparent vocation and zeal it is presumed one was driven by to become a reporter in the first place.

Any editorial management which tolerates such ‘standards’ is simply sloppy and not worthy of the description editorial control but it seems part of the general malaise which afflicts an ‘industry’ which has clearly thrown away its political and editorial independence or more accurately had its ‘principles’ bought out by the highest bidder.

Political control of editorial content is easy to read from the editorial comment and banner headlines and partiality abounds and is unfortunately now accepted. The stark fact is that because a newspaper is ‘owned’ in its loosest sense by a political party they can print exactly what they wish and, as we must remember in a democracy, they have a perfect right to do so, the final arbiter being the Public who decide to buy the paper or not.

But as with many issues in life it does not come without a price. Blatant partiality, manipulation, gagging, and censorship is simply a one way ticket to bankruptcy as thoughtful readers(the ones who usually buy a daily rag) depart seeking a more balanced view or opinions with which they can engage or discuss. Press barons clearly believe that hitching their newspaper to this or that political party is the way to go and indeed it is if they want their accountants to report incomes haemorrhaging away year on year as loyal readers depart looking for quality, truth, and objectivity.

Whilst being politically partial may work nationally the same cannot be said for a limited print run local newspaper where such ill-advised commercial decisions can have immediate and unforeseen consequence for the balance sheet.

If for example a local newspaper, exists in a monopolistic sense with no competition in a county or small city there is little doubt that this monopoly of press/political power can unwisely be applied by its editor to support those in whom it has either identified a vested financial, or other controlling interest, and from whom it hopes political largesse will flow in the form of advertising income revenue.

The monopolistic winner takes it all, but who speaks for the opposition in this laughable state called democracy and what if it all goes disastrously wrong when the Electorate whimsically decides to eject the local ruling Party from office; the very one the editor has unwisely backed?

The problem now arises that having committed itself to a particular party and its leader rather than delivering its readers impartial news based on respect for the intellectual level of its local readership and knowing full well that political Parties come and go, when the Party of their choice departs and the newspaper finds itself out of step with its readership and the Electorate, what does it then do?

Does it struggle on financially for the next years until the Party of its choice is returned to office; if ever; or do they draw a line under their catastrophic commercial mistake, sack the editor, and start again only this time with a middle of the road editorial policy which appeals to a local broader more fair minded readership and hope sales will rise or at least stop falling?

A prime example of short sighted managerial failure is how the local LEP(a monopoly) in its recent editorial choice made the wrong long term commercial choice.

The LEP decided that it would back the Conservatives in Lancashire and in so doing it did not hesitate to either suppress, manipulate, gag, and censor the ‘facts’ in its unreserved support of the Conservatives.

It is hard to contemplate how any editor with street savvy could make such a poor, short term, short sighted, commercial decision but she did.

Nevertheless having chosen the wrong commercial path during the last tenure of office of the Conservatives under their Leader Cllr Driver column inches flowed in support of his ‘regime’. Cllr Driver could do no wrong. He was the LEP’s golden man of the moment.

A man who, in the briefest of times set up the world of a banana republic lorded over by power crazed unscrupulous Conservative politicians aided and willingly abetted by not only their central government but by an ever unctuous ‘Evening Post’. It was off the back of such misbehaviour in public office that CBE’s are earned and indeed they were, all from a grateful Conservative leadership in Whitehall.

This just confirmed yet again, if it was needed, that everyone has their price especially politicians who seem to have the lowest price of all, but as time will tell there are even greater prices to be paid for the free ride of this local Conservative belligerent bellicose autocracy.

In a daily ritual, which the LEP was complicit in, under the guise of being ‘independent’ thinking LEP readers/respondents, Conservative Councillors and their then abundant supporters used ‘creative’ nom-de-plumes to bombard the LEP comments columns with the ‘good news’ about Cllr Driver’s regime, ‘news’ which was fed out to these ‘correspondents’ straight from the ‘Leaders’ mouth and to the LEP, a facility denied to other Parties with a contrary opinion.

Notable among these nom-de-plumes was ‘girl-in finance’ (still sheltering in the LEP bunker) and ‘realmanworld’(active), and others yet to be revealed, though Cllr Driver really does needs to change his copy writer if only to disguise his hackneyed phrases…. “you couldn’t make it up if you tried”… and other such literary gems.

These nom-des-plumes were no less than Cllr Driver himself, though ‘girl-in-finance’, the greatest figment of his fevered imagination and a daily covert ‘contributor’, that was until in a crass outburst of ill-advised triumphalism he exposed himself by managing to cross the defamation line by accusing all of Lancashire’s retired disabled Fire Service Veterans of being pension ‘fiddlers’.

When challenged(and finding himself bang to right yer ‘onour) he failed either to apologise or to present evidence supporting such an outrageous statement. Then a desperate Cllr Driver in a blind panic ran for his bunker and called for support from the editorial staff of the LEP.  

An editor who  then promptly pulled up the data protection drawbridge in defence of his ‘honour’ by covering up and obstructing the release of the home address and real identity of ‘girl-in-finance’ which in any event the whole of County Hall already knew as Cllr Driver.

Such was the farcical level the ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ right wing press of Lancashire sank to. If there was ever any doubt of their impartiality up to this point then their connivance in protecting  Cllr Driver’s ‘honour’ and his covert identity rapidly disabused the Public of any such  notion.

These shenanigans and accusations regarding honourable disabled Fire Service Veterans were all rather rich coming from a politician, so desperate to be elected, that pre and post-election he made published false promise after false promise to these self-same Veterans, who supported his candidature with their honest votes.

Disabled Veterans who were later short changed, which as the electorate now know well was Cllr Driver’s modus operandii matching the tone and taste of his failed ‘leadership’ whilst in office.

Lest there be doubt, we will publish his ‘promises’ later.

It seems in concluding this shabby affair that duplicity and dishonour are a prerequisite for Conservative leadership in Lancashire though as one astute Veteran in a prescient post meeting comment (after a meeting requested by Council Leader Driver) described his impression as one of as ‘a rather flash untrustworthy used car salesman’.

If Cllr Driver would act so dishonourably with disabled Veterans who had, unlike himself, served their community with dignity and honour and in the process become disabled and who simply wanted fair play, how would he treat the able bodied in his employ at the LCC?

The answer was not long in coming.

Cllr Driver was well practised in the black arts of deceit which he regularly demonstrated with his deliberate failure to adhere to the usual inter Party courtesies and protocols by denying the usual transfer of first-hand information to opposition Leaders and Councillors before his ‘done deals’ were publicly announced.

This was the obnoxious ritualistic playing of the triumphal Party trump card, the effect of which was the intended neutering of any attempts by other Parties to prepare or present a contrary balanced political view of internal events at County Hall which he regarded as his personal fiefdom. These rituals were simply anti-democratic.

However after much grumbling the Opposition who absolutely abrogated their own responsibility to the electorate simply returned to their sleepy hollow where they were all quite content to count their expenses accompanied by the then Conservative Chair of the Fire Authority Cllr O’Toole who,  like the Commissioner of Police after one Police investigation of their ‘expenses’, are still not in the clear, despite what Cllr Driver might say in respect of Cllr O’Toole.

A Cllr Driver who knew the ‘result’ of O’Toole’s Police investigation before the CPS and the disabled Fire Service Veteran complainant did.

All this was a facsimile of Blair/Campbell at their very crooked best and Cllr Driver simply poured scorn on the opposition dullards as he regarded them and they richly deserved it. But did it serve the sacred trust of democracy he and they were entrusted with? Indeed it did not, but it did serve him well.

But the canny voters of Lancashire, many of whom found themselves on the dole, as a direct consequence of Cllr Driver’s rampantly abusive regime, had other ideas when the local voting time came.

What happened next from the LEP editor’s standpoint can only be described as an appallingly horrible miscalculation, because the very readership who she misjudged as completely incapable of making rational decisions or understanding the politically biased game of partiality she was playing, were after all proved capable of thinking and politically deciding for themselves by voting in a Coalition whilst rejecting and ejecting the Conservatives and Cllr Driver from office…“you couldn’t make it up if you tried”…

Desperate times breed desperate solutions but Cllr ‘Desperate’ Driver, as it seems he is referred to in the vernacular corridors of County Hall, was simply not up to the leadership task much as his ego manages to convince himself that he is. Nor is he comfortable in Opposition much to his obvious complete disgust and frustration and his palpable and physical disgust with the LibDems.

It seems from the County Hall cleaners that Cllr Driver only understands the vernacular and is quite incapable of understanding the civility of the Queen’s English whilst in the debating chamber. His demeanour repeatedly collapses like an envious child deprived of his favourite treats.

The well known facts of the matter are that in the political manoeuvring/inter Party negotiations to form a new administration which followed a disastrous election result  for the Conservatives and Cllr Driver in particular, he simply lost complete control of his personal composure and his grasp on the reality of the entire political debacle in which he found himself and of which, it might be added, he was the principal author.

A situation simply descended into another fiasco the like of which he had already presided over with the disabled Fire Service Veterans Pension dispute. He simply could not handle it when put to the test and was incapable of delivering his promises even if he was minded to.

It seems from the reports of those involved in physical scuffles with him – this is the way to negotiate in a civilised democracy is it? – that the only language that Cllr Driver uses is either the lingua franca of the profane streets or the school yard where apparently his gleeful, intellectually robust, opponents privately find the whole scenario as hilarious as a Gilbert and Sullivan opera in which he is the ‘star’ and whom in reposte can now be expect to be called ‘fattie’ or some other such colourful sobriquet when matter get really dire, such as deciding such heavy matters of state as a coffee break.

There are two lessons for observers of this impromptu operatic idiocy.

Firstly, in spite of technological advances it is still not possible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and secondly, Greek legend has a lesson for all politicians when they have over imbibed from the cup of power…it tells us that those whom the Gods’ wish to destroy they first make mad…

So how did the LEP handle the loss of their golden boy with his power crazed avarice and his overwhelming abuses of power with its accompanying and perpetual stench of political corruption?

Very simply, they shut down the electronic feedback facility provided to their readers to comment on the fall from grace of Cllr Drivers’s dream regime. It was all they could pathetically manage.

In effect they gagged and continue to censor the electorate’s right to express their democratic views in the LEP columns, and worse, they continue to treat their paying readers with intellectual contempt, the sort of contempt Cllr Driver had routinely used on those who challenged his political ‘ethics’ when attempting to call him to account.

So is this all the Bugler’s wild imaginings, hardly?

Here is a prime example. When Cllr Driver’s crooked CEO Halsall got the sack, or if you prefer left to spend more time in his counting house, no comments were allowed on this particular announcement in the LEP feedback columns. Whenever any ‘bad’ news about Cllr Driver arises, which is increasingly frequently, it is fleetingly touched upon, for example, that he is going to be the subject of a Police investigation like his chum Cllr O’Toole but once more no comments are allowed.

This is simply raw, blatant, and childish gagging censorship from another bunch of banana republican hackers masquerading as reporters of the truth.

Soon the hackneyed excuse will be trotted out that this is all ‘sub judice’ but as far as the Bugler is aware no one is suing anyone, or as yet, being prosecuted, so one wonders what is ‘sub judice’?

Is honesty, integrity, decency, and transparency in public office now to be subject to ‘sub judice’ in this over exercised charade?

The fact of the matter is that the LEP and the Conservatives are stuck with a political loser of gigantic proportions. To described Cllr Driver as both a loose cannon with the liability of a badly fused hand grenade is to take mixing metaphors too far even for groaning Lancashire Conservative politicians who can at this point see the way the wind is blowing only 12 months or so from the next General Election.

Their major problem is that they have neither the courage of their convictions nor the political acumen to remove their leader Cllr Driver who at the moment equates with Captain Smith of the Titanic with water up his lower lip.

The LEP dare not publish the accurate facts or its so obvious role in contributing to this Conservative horror story but they can at least engage in a crystal clear damage limitation exercise which is what they will be about for the next 4 years as Cllr Driver’s regime and his dubious activities come under increasingly well-deserved political and Police scrutiny.

Cllr Driver made no friends on the way up except those who would serve his purpose after his  election; he made no friends when he was there except those who lived off his political power base to their own personal avaricious advantage and he will find, in rather a harsh lesson of life, he has none on the way down to his political demise in the gutter either.

This is Dad’s Army- ‘don’t panic’ -in full epic proportions of  flight but he must wait for the inevitable.

Even now he seems quite incapable of regaining either his sang froid or any semblance of ‘leadership’, if it ever existed in the first place, but he is also cunning enough to know that not only is he a political liability to the Conservatives of the highest magnitude but it is simply a matter of time until the axe falls, wielded by his ‘et tu Brute’ former ‘chums’. The looming May elections will tell a tale…

It is also predictable that all those who simply wanted to do a decent job at their work for the public and the LCC; those who had pride in their Lancastrian heritage of decency and care for others; and those who were trampled underfoot by his jackboots and those of his avaricious cronies as they were propelled in droves to the County Hall exits on their way to the dole queues will have their say and day as every dog does.

If Cllr Driver thinks things are bad now then it is as certain as the next sunrise they can only get worse as his former abused and disgruntled employees form a whistle blowing queue outside the nearest Police station willing to speak to those who will at least be prepared to listen to them, carrying with them the documented secrets of Cllr Driver and his ilk who so unceremoniously dumped them on the human scrap heap.

Everything comes with a sobering price.

Presently the LEP and its Scottish masters remain perfectly at liberty to attempt to mislead their remaining and falling readership in Lancashire but such arrogance has not served them well in the immediate past nor, if they continue in this direction, will not serve them well in the future either because it is simply condescending to assume that all Lancastrians have not the brains nor the political acumen to read the wind as indeed even the LEP ought to have witnessed with an empowerment of a Coalition now at County Hall.

It will be interesting over the months ahead to watch the LEP distance itself from its golden boy and the Conservatives as it attempts to find the centre ground of  common consent in which it might hope to regain some of its previous credibility and sales.

Those are all good reasons why the readership of a severely damaged local press ought to consider saving their wasted subscriptions buying the LEP when they can save a few months subscriptions and then have their very own uncensored soapbox and newspaper on the web similar to the Morning Bugler, or in fact using the Bugler to print their story,…as Cllr Driver would say it will ‘save millions of pounds’… and competition is healthy… is it not?

Currently Cllr Driver is still writing under his nom-de-plume ‘realmanworld’ so apparently he has still not yet woken up in the political wilderness of his actual real man’s world or then again, perhaps he has?

Recently commenting on the appointment of the next Lord Lieutenant for Lancashire who is duty bound to safeguard the Judiciary within the County Palatine, Cllr Driver in a wince worthy craven piece Uria Heap would have been proud of, informs us all what a worthy appointment this is. Why is this so necessary?

Could it be in reading his crystal ball Cllr Driver anticipates calling in another favour from his ever friendly Judiciary, if as seems likely, according to contra pundits in already changing and ungagged LEP columns he is heading for jail? Now that would be a pretty ‘desperate’ situation and he might well earn his informal title.

Once more there is a lesson for him regarding the Judiciary …you can put a wig on a goat, but it is still a goat and it is not be relied upon when the supplicant is such a high profile disastrously embarrassing Conservative politician.

Meantime, back at County Hall among the Conservative desperadoes both they and the LEP are, for the present, stuck with the greatest loser in Conservative history in Lancashire and unfortunately for the Conservatives the new united Coalition are taking frantic and extreme measures to ensure nothing desperate happens to Cllr Driver because he is such an asset for them and, clearly from his ranting ratings, a guaranteed election winner…

…but alas for the Coalition!

The Morning Bugler is delighted to report that the Lancashire Conservatives have taken the Bugler’s advice to heart and have set out to muzzle ‘RealManWorld’ aka CC ‘Desperate’ Driver.

However, he continues to make significant contributions for his chums columns at the LEP on such weighty matters as wind farms, an environment in which no doubt he feels entirely comfortable.

But all is still not plain sailing for the Lancashire’s Conservatives because they are still lumbered with their Party Whip, none other than CC O’Toole whose Police investigation will not ‘go away’ and according to the word on the street will indeed get worse.

It seems not content with fiddling his mileage and thus his expenses he decided in his greed that he would fiddle the reporting of this ‘benefit in kind’ to the HMRC.

You simply have to admire such dogged stupidity or is it brass necked greed?

The HMRC, unlike the Police, cannot be muzzled or manipulated, and have a really bad habit of actually biting.

Al Capone for all his decadence and ‘muscle’ found out about tax evasion.

Y’all come back now… for more tales of ‘Desperate’ Driver and ‘Al’ O’Toole, or as ‘DD’ is wont to say ‘you couldn’t make this up’…