When Haringey Council voted to close four elderly people's drop-in centres, the users of the centres contacted the council to point out that they could save the centres if they simply stopped wasting public money on publishing the cat-basket liner "Haringey People".
Dropping through the door six times a year, this self-congratulatory pamphlet serves the same two slightly sinister purposes as all such local government "newspapers" - to present the council's squandering of public money in a positive light, and to crowd out such independent local journalism as might actually subject the council to proper scrutiny.
Amusingly, when put to the vote the coucil overwhelmingly supported the continued publication of their magazine and council leader Claire Kober told the Haringey Independent newspaper that "cutting Haringey People would seriously diminish our ability to communicate effectively with residents". Any communication problem would, of course, be better solved simply by paying a modicum of attention to what those residents want - which unsurpisingly appears to be an unambiguous call for services instead of propaganda.
(The details of the story originally appeared in the print edition of Haringey Independent - I cannot find the same story on the website, presumably a failing on my part which I will remedy as soon as a link becomes available.)
