Eric in a pickle over film idea

THE FRIDAY THING:

I AM not sure whether Eric Pickles is offering we mere mortals a tit-bit from the table of the gods or a punishment for not honouring our esteemed leaders.

Big Eric - he who can shut out the sunlight and probably doesn’t need curtains at home - not only wants us to attend council meetings, but to film them too.

“Guidance” from Eric apparently tells us how we can attend and report on the local council meetings and even film them, though why we should I am not entirely sure.

No doubt because they are bashful and camera-shy many councils across the country have so far snubbed the idea that their meetings should be filmed.

Next they will be putting up big notices on the council HQ advertising the irresistible film “Dustbins in Derker” starring heart-throb Charlie Parker in high-viz jacket and a team of extras from the health-and-safety department showing how bins should be lifted, emptied and then left by the roadside for local residents to move.

But if film cameras do move in, how will it affect council members and officers?

Will they have to go to make-up before filming starts (I can think of several who might benefit, though others might require too much scaffolding for family viewing).

Council leader Jim McMahon will, of course, be protected from the intrusion of cameras and will probably have the final say on his close-ups.

The good folk of Wales, from where I am recently returned, have the right idea. A blogger was recently arrested and handcuffed by the police for filming a council meeting in Carmarthenshire. Wrexham council also banned a journalist for tweeting a council meeting. Eric says councillors should not be shy about the public seeing the good work they do, though to be honest, it’s not the good work they do that worries them. I suspect, however, that those who will not be appearing on a screen somewhere near you soon will be heaving a giant sigh of relief.



FINAL WORD: Is it just me or is it really bizarre that the BBC, the flagship of honesty and probity, has spent a vast fortune of licence-payers’ money to prevent its own staff spilling the beans about sexual harassment, misdeeds behind closed doors and bullying?

This hush money from an organisation that is supposed to tell us what is going on, when and why, in Britain and abroad, has swallowed up £28 million with 77 individuals pocketing £100,000 each and others £300,000.

These are not paltry sums and we should be told precisely what it was that these lip-sealed moneybags were not telling us, the people who actually pay their wages.

Vast payments for keeping quiet are surely not part of the BBC Charter. Its integrity is surely damaged.