Miliband ’s Pro-Labour Blogging is a Repeat OffenceMandarins Do Sock-Puppetry Too
Guido was (as normal) perusing the Farmer’s Weekly Interactive when he noticed that Peter Ainsworth, Miliband’s Tory shadow, has joined in the complaints about the Miliblogger making partisan pro-Labour propaganda points on a civil service run website paid for by the taxpayer despite promising he wouldn’t do that when he started.
click to enlargeThe Miliblogger has now taken that Civil Service Code breaking post down. But this is not the first time he has broken the rules and his promise, he has previous. On March 9, in a post headlined “Land fit for Heroes“ he claimed that “One of the great achievements of the 1945 Labour Government was the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. It was inspired… blah blah blah”
So another partisan claim, another breach of the rules, paid for by taxpayers whom he promised that “because this is a Government site I won’t lapse into party ranting”. Will he take this one down as well?
A co-conspirator called to draw Guido’s attention to a comment by Owen Barder, formerly Blair’s economic private secretary, latterly a mandarin at DFID and not a person unknown to the Miliblogger himself. He says of the Miliblog “..this is excellent value for money. People should be impressed that a Cabinet Minister is blogging at all, not whinging about the very reasonable costs.” Now that is sock-puppetry of the highest order…
UPDATE : A Whitehall satsuma tells me that Owen Barder actually worked for Miliband when he ran the No. 10 policy unit.
