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WC seems to have adopted George Orwell's 1984 as its new manual.
I have received the following 'explanation' from a senior officer at Wiltshire Council.
'Dear Councillor Clark,
Thank you for your email. Please be assured there is no way that I am attempting to interfere with a Councillor's communications with their constituents.
However my responsibility is to ensure that Wiltshire Council does act lawfully and fairly. The difficulty is not your wish to communicate with your constituents but the request to use Council resources (the letterhead) for a political purpose (to lobby a particular viewpoint) (Protocol 2 of the Council's constitution) and the even handedness of any communications clearly identified as a product of the local authority (The code of recommended practice on local authority publicity).
I will discuss these issues with xxxxx xxxxx to see if there is any way the matter can be resolved.'
In the past, 'political purposes' has been construed (quite rightly and correctly) as meaning that a councillor could not use WC facilities to criticise other councillors, or political parties, or for self-promotion. If we can no longer rely on WC to assist us in making our constituents aware of what is going on in their locality, what will be the next 'cut'?
To me, this is a truly worrying development and I will be taking the issue up at the meeting of the political group leaders later this week.