Coming up smelling of Roses? Labour propaganda secrets revealed (From Worcester News)

Coming up smelling of Roses? Labour propaganda secrets revealed

11:48am Thursday 19th March 2009

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IF there's one piece of literature guaranteed to stir up a row down at Worcester's Guildhall, it's that infamous political pamphlet the Labour Rose.

Pushed through the doors of thousands of lucky residents across the city every few months, this particular piece of party propaganda is designed to keep Worcester voters up to speed with what their local lefty councillors have been up to.

Nothing wrong with that, of course – such is the grease that keeps the wheels of our oily political system turning.

However, Worcester Conservatives have long made it clear they feel the Labour Rose often pushes the boundaries of, well, factual accuracy in the claims it makes about the local political scene.

During the council elections last year there were several furious rows over articles which local Tories felt were a wee bit economical with the truth.

Here at the Worcester News, we tend not to get involved in these sorts of slanging matches - it’s not really for us to verify the truth of every claim the parties make.

But I had to smile this week when I happened upon a St John's edition of the Labour Rose which featured a fascinating article headlined 'Labour Exposes Scandal Of Tory County Council Waste'.

Sounds like a good story, I thought - and indeed it was. Two good stories, in fact.

According to the pamphlet, 'Labour' had 'exposed' the fact there had been a huge rise in the number of council staff paid more than £50,000 a year.

Our hard-working Labourites had also 'exposed' how the council had spent £1 million on consultants' fees last year.

Wow, I thought, both of these could be potential front-page stories for the Worcester News.

Actually, funnily enough, they both WERE front-page stories for the Worcester News - I know, because I was the lucky one who spent many boring hours last summer trawling through the council's accounts to, erm, expose them.

Unfortunately the Labour article did not have sufficient space to mention that both 'exposés' had been lifted straight from these pages.

To be fair, 'Worcester News Exposes Scandal of Tory County Council Waste' is probably a bit too long for a decent headline – and anyway, they do say mimicry is the highest form of flattery...