Councillors can blog on - with caution

The vexed issue of blogging by Boston Borough councillors - and whether to put forward specific guidance to members - is to be discussed at tonight's meeting of the council's Standard's Committee.
The recommendation is that the Monitoring Officer arranges to remind councillors that the borough's Code of Conduct applies to all their communications, including blogs - the idea being that all members get the same advice, which hopefully helps prevent complaints of breaches of the code.
The main report says that "weblogs" - the hoi polloi call them blogs - are now frequently used by councillors to get their own views out to the electorate or to give people easy communication with the member concerned.
The report says that questions have been raised about the content of member web pages and blogs, particularly where they include comments about other
parties or members of other parties.
It says the basic points to bear in mind are that all councillors are bound by the Code of Conduct, and that councillors' blogs are open to allegations of breaches the Code.
Most of the recent complaints, both formal and informal, about councillors' blogs have been about allegations of failure to treat others with respect, and the report reminds them that whilst criticism is fine it should not descend to personal attack.
However, we recall that the bulk of these complaints have come from an over-sensitive serial objector who - whilst happy to dole out criticism, is less than pleased to receive it in return.
To contradict the report to the committee, blogs are not "frequently" used by councillors in Boston - although they are elsewhere.
Only two of the 32 borough councillors produce them, plus a third county councillor who represents a Boston ward. A third borough councillor caved in to pressure from the serial complainer that we mentioned earlier.
We believe that far more councillors should be blogging.
The reason is that Boston Borough Council is a poor communicator, and if the ruling Bypass Independents had their way we would probably be get even less information than we do at present.
Every councillor who blogs sheds more light on the democratic process - or often the lack of it - and can tell their electorate what is going on in their ward.
Of course, there was briefly one other blogger - the leader of the council Richard Austin - whose blog appeared to great fanfare last October.
It generated an immediate rash of complaints on the grounds that it was a party political polemic produced by the council's IT department and not by the leader himself, and it vanished within days of its appearance.
The report to tonight's meeting says: "Boston Borough Council does not offer individual web pages to members. Even if it did, under the rules such pages could only properly be used for general council business and certainly not for party political work."
However, visitors to the Borough's website will note a link to a "Message from the Council Leader" which at the moment comprises his New Year rant to the great unwashed which appeared in the local press.
Aside from being branded a "message" rather than a "blog" we fail to see the difference between the current offering on the borough website and the first blog that disappeared so rapidly.
Will someone please confirm to us that this is not an "individual web page" provided by the council's IT department for the leader, and that it is about "general council business and certainly not for party political work?"
We think that the answer is obvious.

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