Friday 31 January 2014

Spiral Notebook: Council newspaper reaching the end of its East End Life

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COMMENT
By Giles Broadbent

East End Life, like the rest of the press, appears to be drinking in last chance saloon.

A Government bill to crack down on "town hall Pravdas" has cleared its final Parliamentary stage in the House of Lords.


Shame, I think, if East End Life - often cited as the most partisan of the council free sheets - were to disappear too quickly. If John Biggs were to win the mayoralty and the Labour were to reclaim cabinet posts from Lutfur Rahman's Rubber Stamp Collective then it would be an interesting test of their purpose and integrity.

Labour, when in office, were fans of East End Life, but suddenly found the Ra-Ra-Rahman Cheerleader a distasteful waste of money when they were no longer welcome in its columns.

(Only last week, it was pointed out that there were 164 pictures of Rahman in the previous six months of EEL - a rate of one a day from which taxpayers could make their papier mache Lutfur idols.)

Would a new Labour executive suddenly find itself having a change of heart if they reclaimed the editorship? Would they wrestle over a set of weasel words - perhaps relating to employment and print contracts - that gave them an excuse to rekindle their love? They wouldn't, would they?

Now we may never know.

Follow Giles Broadbent on Twitter: @MediaGulch