Opinion: Inappropriate Criticism? You Decide

Published on: 23 Jul, 2016
Updated on: 30 Jul, 2016

By Martin Giles

Council leader Paul Spooner is getting more and more histrionic about The Guildford Dragon NEWS these days. He reminds me of Violet Elizabeth Bott, Richmel Crompton’s Just William character, whose tactic when things were not going her way was to stamp her foot and shout: “I’ll thceam and I’ll thceam ’till I’m thick!”

He really should calm down. If The Dragon is truly just the “gutterpress” or an “anti-establishment blog”, as he contends in his over-excited tweets and emails, surely he has nothing to worry about?

But this morning (Jul 23) he tweeted: “The @guildforddragon needs to make its mind up. Editor Martin Giles keeps stating partial personal opinions whilst stating he is impartial.”

So I had a quick check of the most recently published opinion pieces.

Over the last month they have included one from a Conservative member of the GBC Executive, one from a Lib Dem, one from a Labour party member and two from independent contributors – surely quite an even, balanced and comprehensive spread of opinion, better than you will find in many parts of the national media.

Of my personal opinion pieces, which surely I am entitled to write: one was supportive of the council’s rejection of its refusal of Solum’s lamentable planning application for redeveloping the railway station and of Cllr Spooner’s action, ejecting their representatives from Millmead, following a meeting he held with them. Another was on Brexit and, the most recent, was on the impact on the Local Plan of Brexit. This was indeed critical of the council but it was clearly my personal view.

It is the critical comments, whether mine or those from our readers, that Cllr Spooner, and a small band of his colleagues, seem to find the hardest to stomach. But The Guildford Dragon NEWS will not censor comments on the basis of whether or not they are critical of the council. What kind of newspaper would do that?

I am confident that our intelligent readership is perfectly capable of telling the difference between a carefully labelled opinion piece, a reader’s letter or comment, and a news report, even if Cllr Spooner can’t.

On Wednesday (July 20) our excellent student reporter, Will Parsons, informed me of an email he had received from Cllr Spooner. Will had been given the assignment of following up a press release from The Guildford Vision Group. Here is the exchange:

For GBC’s council leader to respond in such a way to a polite request, especially from a student reporter, I thought was completely unacceptable so I reported the incident to the council’s monitoring officer, Satish Mistry, in the faint hope that he might remind Paul Spooner of the standards of behaviour that are expected of someone in his position.

Just two weeks ago Cllr Spooner announced, again by Twitter, that The Guildford Dragon had reached “a new low” and hashtagged “gutter press”.

Was this some lurid sex scandal we had salaciously headlined? No. It was a letter from a reader comparing the spinning of information by the government in the run up to the Iraq war with the spinning of information, in his view, by GBC in connection with the Local Plan.

To publish such a letter was, Cllr Spooner opined, insulting to those who had been killed in the conflict.

As someone who as a soldier saw the blood of my comrades and of innocent civilians spilt, I found this deeply offensive but I forgave Cllr Spooner who has never, as far as I am aware, had to put himself in harm’s way for his country.

Although relatively young during my military service I was always very well aware that one of the things I was helping to protect was freedom of speech. It is all too easy for those of us brought up in the UK to take this precious freedom for granted but even here in Guildford it can be threatened.

Some readers might be aware that, as reported in Private Eye, Geoff Davis (Con, Holy Trinity), lead councillor for asset management, threatened me, in May, with legal action over mild criticism of his handling of the future of Guildford Museum in an opinion piece. He was worried, he said, that the criticism would affect his professional reputation and his reputation as a lead councillor.

Was Cllr Davis not aware that the freedom to criticise our politicians is an essential part of our freedom of speech? Does he really think that he is so important, so perfect that no one should dare point out perceived weaknesses and failings?

If he does, he needs to be disabused of any such notion. Scrutiny of those who govern us, in the press and elsewhere, is an essential part of our democracy and we will continue to scrutinise, as best we can, without fear or favour.

We will leave the judgement of how well we succeed to you our readers. We are independent and we have no allegiance to any political party.

You are free to read The Guildford Dragon NEWS or not, to criticise us or not, and, of course, where you think it deserved, to criticise the council, or not.

Responses to Opinion: Inappropriate Criticism? You Decide

Dave Middleton Reply

July 23, 2016 at 7:17 pm

Perhaps some of our elected representatives on the council need to be reminded that are are in fact elected to serve us, not to be in authority over us and if they can’t stand the heat, then it’s time to get out of the kitchen.

Yes, they shouldn’t be subject to personal insults, but if you’re a public figure in local government, then your opinions and actions are invariably going to be subject to examination and sometimes criticism and some folk are sometimes going to disagree with you.
Stuart Barnes Reply

July 23, 2016 at 7:48 pm

Is the criticism because we (the little people) have had the impertinence to go against the advice of “our betters” and vote to get out of the corrupt EU, amongst other impertinences?
Neville Bryan Reply

July 23, 2016 at 8:11 pm

Well said, and thank you for The Dragon.

Totally support your stance. As a regular contributor to your press, I both respect the articles published, and occasionally write one, with the expectation it too will be open to honest feedback.

Having recently been accused of mudslinging on Twitter by the same Cllr Spooner – this time for reminding him and his new more senior colleagues of their promise to protect the green belt, while building nearly 8,000 houses on it – I have come to the conclusion that his approach is, if you don’t agree, get aggressive or resort to insult.

The repost in my case was return the front page of the Conservative election newspaper which I was told apparently did mean what it said. Really.

Cllr Spooner’s approach won’t work on any of us, I hope. I will personally continue to attempt to hold politicians (of any denomination) and civil servants to account for their actions, as I hope electors and The Dragon will. We are fully entitled to do so.
Jim Allen Reply

July 23, 2016 at 11:48 pm

Well as an avid responder on The Dragon I would say there is a carefuly balanced approached to council news.

I am a little concerned that the council Executive cannot stand the scrutiny of one web based ‘blog’, as Cllr Spooner inaccurately describes it, which seems to polish off a long line of accurate reporting on council matters.

Loosing ones temper is a sure sign someone ain’t getting his own way.
Roland McKinney Reply

July 24, 2016 at 11:17 am

Lord Acton said: “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

There has been a lot of research on the effects of power – and none of it disproves Lord Acton’s belief, above, in fact most of it is depressing for the governed.

What is important is how those with power are checked – if there are few checks and balances then that comes close to being absolute power. If you look at GBC, the scrutiny committee provides few checks to the Executive.

And when a leader with near absolute power is challenged, say by a media outlet, the response is most likely to be: “How dare you, don’t you know who I am?” rather than a reasoned, well considered response.

So, I say to The Dragon – keep up the good work!
Valerie Thompson Reply

July 24, 2016 at 11:23 am

Cllr Spooner’s rude and ignorant response to Dragon reporter Will Parsons just shows to what low level our elected representatives have sunk. I was shocked by his casual rejection of a perfectly reasonable request.
Nick Norton Reply

July 24, 2016 at 4:53 pm

Does this mean that other commercial media outlets in the area are more willing to bend?
- Stuart Barnes Reply
  
  July 26, 2016 at 8:06 am
  
  I must say that that is a very interesting question.
RWL Davies Reply

July 28, 2016 at 6:13 am

Keep up the excellent work.

Councillors Spooner and Davis and their camp followers need constant reminders that they cannot curb free speech, need to work on their community engagement skills and manners and be a less “precious”.

Perhaps their roles are too much for them and they should step down for the sake of their own wellbeing?
Philip Morris Reply

July 29, 2016 at 11:29 pm

I would love to see The Guildford Dragon NEWS venture out and talk to residents of Guildford that don’t follow its pre-established editorial position. Guildford should have a truly independent news outlet but at the moment I don’t believe that is being achieved.

Is it possible that councillors talk to residents with a wider range of views than The Dragon? The views I see represented on these pages certainly do not match the majority of people I meet. I can see that our entirely human elected officials may at times get frustrated with the self-righteous tone of the content.

If The Dragon could broaden its base to become a genuine forum for debate then it could become a truly valuable asset to the town.
- Frank Phillipson Reply
  
  August 1, 2016 at 10:58 pm
  
  In reply to Mr Morris, I think he is confusing the content of “Opinion”,”Letters” and “Comment” that appear in The Guildford Dragon, as representing what is its balanced reported news stories.
  
  All newspapers have “Editorials” and “Letters”, that doesn’t mean they don’t have balanced news reports.
  
  In the recent Brexit debate, arguments for both sides of the debate were given in The Dragon, by two Conservative councillors.
Bernard Parke Reply

July 30, 2016 at 7:26 am

An interesting point, but could it be that these people that are referred to are just not interested or cannot be bothered to comment.

You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink!