Mr Hilton may not like it, but it is called democracy NO SAYS Rex Makin, lawyer
AT A time when our freedoms are under threat, it takes either a very brave man, or a very stupid one, to censor freedom of speech. But the new chief executive of the city council, Colin Hilton, is guilty of that in banning the Liverpool Evil-Cabal blog from computers in Liverpool's public libraries.
Cllr Warren Bradley did not appoint Mr Hilton as Big Brother to the bloggers. Nor was Mr Hilton appointed to decide what the people of Liverpool choose to read or believe.
The council taxpayers of Liverpool pay for the council's computers, the public libraries and the £190,000-a-year salary for Mr Hilton. It is up to them what they do when they surf the web in their local library, provided, of course, that no offence is being committed.
And certainly the blog's growing army of thousands of daily readers are not committing any offence. Nor I believe is the blogger himself, who goes under the name Tony Parrish. What Mr Parrish and his associates are doing is, arguably, providing a vital public service to the people of Liverpool.
Liverpool-evil-cabal is merely exposing a wider Liverpool audience to startling allegations about the regime of former chief executive Sir David
Henshaw which have been circulating among the great and the good in the city for months.
The blog asks some serious questions about the awarding of council contracts worth millions of pounds, and questions the relationships and actions of highly-paid senior officers who, we should remind Mr Hilton, are servants of the public. Mr Hilton may not like this, but it is called democracy.
Along with the blog's serious purpose comes a fair amount of humour, direct language, gossip and innuendo from Mr Parrish and his readers, of the sort that might be heard on the number 79 bus every day of the week.
Mr Hilton's over-reaction has been to ask the police to arrest the bus driver. The police should be after burglars, not bloggers.
Banning the blog from council computers has predictably sent thousands of city council staff rushing home to avidly log in for the next instalment.
As for Mr Hilton (if it was he who was really behind the ban), he would better serve the people of Liverpool if he investigated the allegations being made.
People will not tolerate a cover-up of past procurement irregularities. They look to Mr Hilton to come clean and put his own house in order first.
For, as Mr Parrish has eloquently stated, the genie is now out of the bottle and it can't be put back in.
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