Mercury, he was that messenger fella wasn't he?

I had words with some people from the city council today. They keep accusing the Mercury of "talking the city down".

The politicians have been saying it for some time and now, most recently in a letter we published last week, the civil servants are saying it too.

One of them rang up to ask me why I'd left a fairly facetious comment in response to the letter on our website. I decided to defend our honour.

Why, I'm asking, is this same phrase cropping up time and time again.

It smacks of a PR strategy. I might be wrong though because this really isn't my field.

But, my reading of it is that some of these council people really do see our scrutiny of their affairs - sometime critical, sometimes supportive - as an attack on the city itself.

No, it's nothing of the sort.

If we have a pop at a council policy we're aiming at an administration, not a city.

There is a big difference.

Browsing Twitter earlier today, we found this post from the "Labour voice of New Parks", Councillor Colin Hall - otherwise known as Ultra_Fox. We know from past experience he's not our biggest fan.

He has referred to us as the Daily Heil. A good socialist lad should know better than to mess around with Nazi imagery. It's poor taste, isn't it?

He was reflecting on the failure of the city's bid to be part of the World Cup party. He's not happy with the football authorities and, it seems, us.

Councillor Hall - the city's high bailiff no less - wrote the following: "Recriminations over this defeat will continue. In particular, the treachery of the Mercury in past 6 months won't be forgotten or forgiven."

We've backed the bid from the very beginning.

Treachery?

Isn't this all getting a little overheated?

Thankfully, my job doesn't take me too far in to the political world.

I covered the city council beat for a wee while some time ago while we waited for a new correspondent to arrive.

I hated every minute of it.

A few days in, I wrote a story about some part of town getting new road safety measures.

I spoke to one of the local councillors. "Great news for my ward, I'm delighted.....", he told me.

A day later someone from another party said to me: "I saw your article. Did you know he voted against those road safety measures at every opportunity?" Grrr.