Tories' threat to crack down on council-run newspapers

Nov 27 2009 by Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Mail

By Jonathan Walker

TORIES have threatened to crack down on council-run newspapers – as Birmingham’s Tory-led council considers reviving its own £600,000-a-year paper.

Shadow Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman, MP for Meriden, said a Conservative government would order councils which publish their own newspaper to review whether they were needed.

The Tories would also consider tightening up rules which determine how councils spend their money, to stop them publishing “propaganda”.

Birmingham City Council suspended its Forward newspaper, previously called The Voice, in June. Before then almost 400,000 copies went out every fortnight to homes, community centres and libraries.

A spokesman for the authority said: “We’re currently consulting members, partners and other stakeholders to determine the future of our publication. We will be reporting back to the executive in the new year before a decision is made.”

The Newspaper Society, which represents the newspaper industry, has warned that council-run publications provide unfair competition to commercial newspapers.