CRUMBRIA: 07/05/2025
LABOUR Council leader Mark Fryer should get a gong for services to Spin.
In any acceptance speech, our local media deserves a special mention for helping “Spin Fryer” keep the Council’s laundry whiter than white.
At a meeting last week of Crumberland Council a concerned resident asked a pedestrian question as to whether the authority’s budget is going down in flames?
Cllr Fryer, (Lab, Damage Limitation) reassured the resident that the Council has made progress and that he welcomed the “positive remarks” by the Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy.
(Not long ago, Auditors gave the Council a financial lashing over 50 pages.)
They found it has been racking up significant overspends, has unmet savings targets, has failed to meet legal accountancy deadlines, and had no ‘coherent’ contingency plan!
Hardly a ringing endorsement and not a situation fixed by “positive remarks”.
Cllr Fryer, who delivers promises as well as services, also bravely spun the phrase “huge strides” when explaining the Council’s response to 11 red flags/critical risks that had been found by auditors.
Huge strides? Possibly straight off a financial cliff!
Our “newspapers” – always around when a turd needs polishing – echoed these upbeat utterances verbatim without referral to the fact that the Council is £100m in hock to the Government and that it’s racking up spending to put right its problems.
Exclusive: The Council Says Everything’s Fine, So We Printed That!
The offending article was littered with Fryer’s impossibly sunny view of the situation and weighed down with Council jargon.
Not too long ago, The Cumberland News was the newspaper in Cumbria to turn to for the lowdown on county politics.
Although not since the dim and distant CN Group days of the irrepressible Caroline Barber and, before her, the relentless Julian Whittle. His ability to drill deep into Council affairs and come up with a highly readable exclusive remains unsurpassed.
In their place have come wishy-washy articles like the one below – relying heavily on re-parroting Council PR in place of robust analysis.
This type of weak and weedy ‘journalism’ only helps Crumberland’s politicians whitewash the dirty stains of a financial crisis.
Not convinced? Give it a swirl!
News & Scar: ‘CIPFA report – ‘Measures already in place – Council Leader’
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