Jackie Danicki

David Milliband, Minister of Communities and Local Government, is happy for (undisclosed) government employees to post comments full of praise for him on the taxpayer-owned blog he uses to promote himself and his department. When a taxpayer - in this case, journalist David Tebbutt - asks if the fawning comment is indeed from a government employee, Milliband won’t even publish the query, let alone answer it.

This, in a blog discussion about how MPs and ministers can prove to us through blogging that they do listen to taxpayers and are not as out of touch as we silly people imagine.

The state is not your friend and politicians certainly do not work for you, no matter whose propaganda (theirs or the taxpayers’ rights’ groups) you’ve bought into. Taking your money under threat of violence and actually working for you are not the same thing. David Milliband is one of many who take your money and work on their own agendas, on which self-promotion is paramount. This is an obvious fact, and David Milliband’s abuse of his taxpayer-owned blog is just one more piece of evidence which proves it.

I submitted the following comment to the David Milliband promotional blog:

Dennis Howlett - who I know personally and like - misses the point about the difference between other blogs and this one: This blog is not the private property of David Milliband. It is being financed by the taxpayer and is using government (taxpayer-funded) resources.

Which makes it all the more disgraceful that David Milliband refuses to publish comments that might make readers realise his ‘integrity’ is not quite what it seems. (I do not expect this comment to be published, either, but only hope it imbues David Milliband with some degree of shame when he reads it, if he is capable of feeling such a thing.)

Quite apart from this abuse of a taxpayer-funded blog, this is a sterling example of abhorrent customer service. Then again, when the customers don’t actually choose your ’service,’ and are forced under threat of violence to pay for it, you have the freedom to be endlessly selective about which ones you pay any mind. Right, Minister Milliband?

Filed under: Blogging, Communication, Friends, Manners, Media, Politics, The State Is Not Your Friend, Treating Customers Well