I suppose no-one should be too hard on Glyn Davies. Faced with Lembit Opik as the incumbent MP, he probably feels that writing a piece worthy of the Daily Mail would be one rung higher on the ladder down to hell than writing for the Daily Star. This probably explains why he's chosen to write a blog entry that displays the journalistic skills the Daily Mail has honed to perfection.
Glyn would have us believe that he went to the Powys Council website to find the dates of the half-term school break:
Council-speak
We wanted to know when half-term fell this year, so checked the Powys County Council web site. It informed us of the following;
Non-pupil days may be varied into alternative dates within a school year, other than pupil school days, subject to a minimum of one term's notice to the Heads of Schools and Inclusion. If schools wish to vary a non-pupil day into a pupil day, this change can only operate on a catchment basis and must involve all the schools in a particular high school catchment area to avoid increasing the Authority's transport costs. Up to 3 of the 7 non-pupil days may be converted into twilight sessions, subject to a minimum of one term's notice to the Heads of Schools and Inclusion, with one non-pupil day being deemed to be the equivalent of 3 twilight sessions of 2 hours each. The calender allows for 188 school days and 7 non-pupil days in line with legal requirements.
Well that's clear enough then.
Well yes, it does say that. But if we look at the document itself, we can see that what Glyn has quoted is only a footnote from the bottom of the page.
What the same document says much more clearly in the top half of the page is that Powys's half term is from 26th to 30th October, with the Friday before (the 23rd) as a non-pupil day.
In other words Glyn had got the information he wanted, but then went out of his way to convey the impression that Powys Council could not give him that simple piece of information, and had instead resorted to gobbledygook.
-
It's cheap political spin. No doubt with the sub-text of wanting to convey the impression that the Tories would make sure that residents and taxpayers would get simple, straightforward information if they were in charge.
Glyn Davies might be a decent Tory ... but he's still a Tory. And that means he'll still do all the cheap things we expect Tories to do in the run up to an election.
3 comments:
Glyn Davies said this about what you'd written:
"Anon - You had better inform MH, whoever he or she is to check his or her facts before accusing me of misinformation. I took this straight off the form - word for word."
I read the reply on his blog. It's amusing to see Glyn feigning ignorance. He and I have had several exchanges over the past year or so.
But I guess he thinks it better to portray his memory as defective, rather than admit that his idea of truth is selective.
It looks like Glyn believes that burying his head in the sand is the best way of avoiding embarrassment.
It's quite sad. Someone had asked him the direct question:
Blodyn said ...
"So when's half term?"
But if he says that he was given the answer all along, he lets his readership know that he was deliberately misleading them. Therefore I'm not surprised that he didn't publish what I said in reply on his blog. However, just for the record, this is what I wrote:
MH said ...
"It's amusing to see you feigning ignorance, Glyn. You and I have had several exchanges over the past year or so.
"But I guess you think it better to portray your memory as defective, rather than admit that your idea of truth is selective.
"I provided the link to back up what I said in my post, so everybody who cares to read it can see the facts for themselves.
"... and if Blodyn is one of them, she will see that Powys had given you a simple, clear answer to the question she has just repeated."
Poor Glyn. Doesn't he know that when he buries his head in the sand, his backside is left sticking up in the air ... and his convoluted attempts at deception are likely to come back and bite him just there.
Post a Comment