We’d like to congratulate the Manchester City Council press office for providing such a good example.

[Wait for it, wait for it….]

• For providing such a good example of the many things the Council will have to stop doing if it wants to be taken seriously.
• For doing the opposite of what is needed if the Council wants to fulfil its role as a leader in preparing the individuals and communities of Manchester for the inevitable and unpleasant challenges that lie in wait.
• And finally, for providing a clear and easy test of whether Manchester’s elected members are serious when they talk about the need for greater honesty and engagement with the electorate.

On Thursday 24th January both MCFly editors contacted the press office.  We were trying to publicise the January 30th presentation by Kevin Anderson to full Council. We asked

• For what purpose has Richard Leese invited Kevin to speak?
• What brief has Kevin been given?
• What is the format – how long will Kevin speak for, how much time for question and answer.
• Is there follow up work planned to inform the councillors further, or is this a “one-off”
• Anything else you’d like to add.

We chased them and chased them, and they assured us they would give us the statement.  In the end, AFTER the talk, they finally released an asinine and anodyne blurb that answered NONE of the questions. (see footnote 1)

This “news management” is, we suspect, taught on day one of “being a press office meat puppet” training.  It works well if the journalists in question are desperate to be fed snippets of “information” to fill their paper, and are willing to reprint banalities in exchange for little “scoops.” (2)

That might be how a private company can act.  But Manchester City Council is supposed to be a democratic organisation.  It is supposed to be dealing with citizens, not “clients” and “customers.”

Anyone who has dealings with the Council, though, will recognise the above –

a) Straightforward questions that it could EASILY have answered are met with delay after delay
b) Contemptuous and contemptible disdain is shown for the principles of honesty, integrity and clarity.
c) Spin is used in a desperate, needy attempt to get “positive” responses.

The council is always banging on about how awful Central government is, and how Manchester is being treated unfairly. Fine, a lot of people (including the MCFly co-editors) agree with that. But maybe the Council could set a good example by treating people in Manchester with MORE respect than MCC is shown by Central Government? It would be a straightforward act of “behaviour change” (see various climate action plans) that wouldn’t cost a penny.

Are councillors, democratically elected and allegedly concerned with improving the health of democracy, happy that – on an issue as important as climate change – the paid officers of Manchester City Council are behaving like this?  And if they are not happy about it, will they DO anything about it?

Footnotes

(1) Councillor Nigel Murphy, Manchester City Council’s executive member for the environment, said: “It was inspiring and useful for all Manchester’s elected members to hear Kevin Anderson’s clear and at times challenging address. “He gave us information and encouragement for action both as individual councillors and, corporately, as a council. Commending the ambition of the city’s plans to address climate change, he made a case for them to be even more radical: we will respond to this. Firstly by working with partners across the city to make sure we deliver on the actions set out and agreed in Manchester – A Certain Future and secondly, by giving consideration to what more we might do to add to these plans in the future.”

(2) We like to believe that this isn’t how MCFly rolls.  After all this time, the City Council press office are still unable to get it.