Basildon’s Council’s hired spin doctor - on loan from the nastiest of nasty councils, Tory Westminster - complains about the “emotive” tactics of Dale Farm Travellers.
In an interview with PR Week, Basildon council’s head of communications, Cormac Smith, has today claimed there is a “huge amount of misinformation” in the media about the council’s bid to evict the 88 Irish Traveller families from the illegal Dale Farm site in Essex.
Commenting on the tactics of campaigners, Mr Smith reveals the Conservative council’s frustrations with how their PR war is going:
“I’ve got to co-ordinate the council’s comms against a group that are media savvy and very emotive…
“They are fighting on emotional terms. They use women and children to tell their story – you don’t see many men in the coverage.”
There is no mystery to this. Around 100 of the 400 or so travellers living on-site are children. Could that be why they figure prominently in the coverage?
The fact that there are so many women, children and elderly people living at Dale Farm is why the local Catholic Bishop, Thomas McMahon, describes the forthcoming eviction as a “humanitarian” issue.
Mr Smith complains that a leader column in Monday’s Guardian which referred to the travellers’ imminent eviction as ‘ethnic cleansing’ was “extremely unhelpful”.
In contrast, the council’s strategy is to emphasise “legality” and “equality” and that it is being “fair and decent”. However, it surely stretches the definition of decency to snapping point to throw 100 children onto the streets, having made no contingency for their education or welfare.
Mr Smith, it turns out, is an employee of Westminster City Council, which is currently overseeing Basildon’s PR operation. Of course right-wing Westminster is not exactly famed for its generosity when it comes to dealing with vulnerable people…
The council remains infamous for its illegal gerrymandering under disgraced former leader, Dame Shirley Porter, in the 1980s – when poorer council residents were shipped out of flats in marginal wards in order to sell their homes to more affluent (Tory) voters.
Leopards do not change their spots. Earlier this year it was revealed Westminster had threatened to introduce a byelaw banning charity soup runs for homeless people, claiming they caused litter and nuisance. After widespread opposition, the council was forced into a humiliating u-turn. Is this now the standard of PR expertise being sold to Basildon?
Rather than spend money on an expensive spin operation to justify what is beginning to look like a dogmatic plan to forcibly evict the Dale Farm travellers at all costs, Conservative-controlled Basildon council would be better off seeking a way to avoid confrontation and support the moves of the local Catholic and Anglican bishops who are working together to find a less confrontational way of resolving the impasse.
Meanwhile the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has today said the evictions should be halted until there is somewhere appropriate for the Dale Farm travellers to go. The committee says any eviction will “disproportionately affect” the lives of “women, children and older people”:
“The committee urges the state party [Basildon council] to find a peaceful and appropriate solution which fully respects the rights of the families involved.”
Cormac Smith is certainly correct about one thing, however:
“This has the potential to seriously damage the reputation of the council and, if that happens, the people who will suffer first and foremost are the residents.”
They will not only be left with an £8 million policing and clean-up bill but also a hefty invoice for PR services.
50 Responses to “Basildon’s hired spin doctor complains at “emotive” tactics of Travellers”
Leon Wolfson
@5 – Irish Travellers, Pavee in their own language, are an ethnic group. Please do some research before you insert your foot into your mouth like that, thanks.
@8 – 90% of planning request permissions by both Pavee and Roma are rejected. Many councils reject them on a blanket basis. Basildon council staff have been caught using racist terms about this eviction.
@11 – Never mind the facts, move the gyp’s on! Good old Tory policy! Never mind that those same rules are being torn up by the Tories…
Ed's Talking Balls
‘Never mind the facts’
Quite the opposite of what I was saying, actually. We certainly do need to pay attention to the facts. These travellers have been, and still are, breaking the law. Eviction is the legally prescribed consequence.
Leon Wolfson
No, not necessarily. There are a lot of potential consequences. The one which is prescribed in this situation regardless of the facts is only because they’re Pavee. Again, Basildon council employees routinely use racist terms.
Thanks for defending them, though.
Kevin
The bottom line with this case – as with others – is that local councils are simply shirking their responsibilities when it comes to providing adequate pitches. There are an estimated 300,000 Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the country. 80% are said to live on legal plots (according to DCLG). That presumably leaves 60,000 uncatered for. Until that gap is bridged there will be many futher cases like Dale Hall.
Yes, uphold planning law, but this is not a case of a millionaire pulling a fast one on a barn conversion. This is 100 children and their families who have promised to move off the site if there is somewhere else for them all to go. Rather than beligerence we should be seeing more compassion and imagination in coming to a better result.
And just to echo Leon’s point above, Irish Travellers (in this case) are a seperate ethnic grouping, recognised now by successive governments and should have their needs catered for by statutory agencies. This clearly doesn’t happen nationally (not just to pick on Basildon/ Essex CC). Ethnic monitoring is notoriously patchy and is evidence of public bodies not obey ing the law either.
Also worth pointing out that a group of Jewish leaders toured the site today in solidarity. Check out what Rabbi Janet Burden had to say here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/04/dale-farm-travellers-jewish-backing?CMP=twt_fd
gerry oates
Trawl through media blogs and you will find lots of comments which are themselves breaking the law
viz race relations Act while at the same time telling the travellers that they must obey the law to the letter.Rabbi Janet Burden(whom the Lord reward)reminded us of dark days gone by when minorities were used as scapegoats.