Do you remember the shockwaves that reverberated when I revealed that Minister Miliband’s blog cost £6,000 to set up while Boris, like the rest of us lesser mortals, blogs for free?
These juicy facts were revealed by inquisitive Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne who discovered that two members of Defra’s staff were spending 40% of their time working on the blog. Surely they should be sorting out climate change, the farmers late payments, meeting recycling targets etc instead of blogging.
And how can this justify David Miliband’s position as a finalist in the New Statesman New Media Awards where he is a guest speaker? Surely these are grounds for disqualification.
Last year, the award was not presented in the elected representative category because it was felt the standard of entries was not high enough. We know the Tory bloggers lead this field, and I think they do too.
This is Pandora’s report:
“According to research by the Liberal Democrats’ urbane front bencher, Chris Huhne, the amount is somewhere approaching £40,000 a year.
“Huhne has come to this whopping figure after tabling a written question to the recently promoted Environment Secretary’s office earlier this month to ask what sort of manpower was involved in maintaining the site. He was told that two members of staff employed by Defra had recently dedicated as much as 40 per cent of their office time working on it.
“So far, claims Huhne, this also means the blog has cost around £1 a word to upkeep. “How can it cost £40,000 a year of taxpayers’ money for staff to capture David Miliband’s hot air on climate change?” he says.
“Ever since the blog was launched to great fanfare back in March, it’s been heavily criticised. Some politicos complained that the content was too boring, while others claimed it was failing to attract intelligent debate on its message postings.
“A spokesman for Miliband said yesterday: “I don’t quite know how Chris Huhne worked out that figure. At the moment, we think it’s going to be a small percentage of one existing member of staff’s time.”
Thanks Geoff for bringing this tasty little snippet of news to my attention.
Update: Sunday, 18th June. One of my favourite social media correspondents has picked up on this after a nudge from me. See Antony Mayfield. Chameleons on Bicycles followed suit, as well as ConservativeHome.
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