Your Dorset: A Rant
Dorset County Council's newspaper Your Dorset. The Red Bladder questions its value at a time when the council is planning to cut £31 million.
SO, EVEN in these straitened times, Dorset County Council has still managed to bring us yet another edition of that little belter Your Dorset.
A 16-page, full-colour publication that unashamedly assures us that the council is constantly striving to make our lot a better one and glorifying in its own spectacular achievements in a way that would make even the Communist-era Pravda blush.
Self-gratifying, vainglorious and Panglossian are words that might spring to your mind when thumbing through its turgid prose but they are not ones that I would use to describe it – I would be a lot blunter.
It comes at a time when old Eric ‘give him the money Mable’ Pickles, our much-loved Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, keeps harping on about what a waste of money these ludicrous rags are.
After all they have to be written, designed, printed and then, probably most costly of all, distributed to every household in the county. None of that comes cheap.
Still the bigwigs in County Hall are facing tough decisions, burdens must be shouldered and the pain shared out.
So come on then lads, which is it to be, lollipop ladies guarding and protecting the children of the area or another batch of free lining for the bottoms of their hamster cages?
We know that you are all wonderful on the Council, we know that you labour tirelessly both night and day to improve our lot and we know that making cuts hurts you just as much as it hurts us.
So for pity’s sake stop telling us about it in expensive publications and, just for once, face up to your proper responsibilities.
Editor’s Note: You can download a PDF of Your Dorset by clicking on this link – that is, if you never got your copy, or you’ve mislaid it, or you’re visiting from elsewhere and you’d like to assess it for yourself.
Your Dorset is written by the county council’s communications team, designed by Deep South Media of Bournemouth, printed by Newsquest in Weymouth, and distributed by the Royal Mail. The council says the cost is about 12 pence per copy.
2 Responses to “Your Dorset: A Rant”
So it’s costing me 12p to light my fire in the evening then!
I have to agree this rag is a real waste of taxpayers’ money.
It would be much better spent filling some of the potholes in our roads rather than our recycling bins!
These papers are required by central government. So whilst our ‘much-loved’ Eric Pickles may complain about them, he hasn’t gone to the trouble of making them non-compulsory.
Comments are closed.