Advisers asked to provide ammunition for attack on coverage of Almo ballot

SECRET documents show how New Journal reporters caused panic in the heart of government as ministers saw plans to convince Camden’s council tenants to accept a massive management shake-up crumble before their eyes.
Using new Freedom of Information rules, this newspaper has uncovered a string of private messages sent between flustered Whitehall officials and ministers working for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
They show how staff in one of the government’s most important offices were rattled by the New Journal’s coverage of the campaign to transfer control of council homes to a new board known as an Arms’-Length Management Organisation (Almo) in 2003.
In a series of astonishing emails, press chiefs accused the New Journal of “misinformation” and “negative” and “unprofessional” reporting. The claims came even though, at the time, the New Journal printed views for and against the proposed change, and each week published a lively letters page open to anybody who wished to comment.
Instead of advising former housing minister Keith Hill to join the debate, press officer Victoria Buxton at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said he should “continue to take the high ground and do not respond”.
In January 2004, Mr Hill’s worst fears were confirmed when tenants and leaseholders emphatically voted against the unpopular scheme.
The landmark result sparked an 18-month stand-off between Camden Council and Whitehall over how improvements to council homes should be funded. The row has still not been resolved, and a programme of urgently-needed repairs has hit the buffers.
Mr Prescott, furious at the failure to support the government’s flagship policy for council housing, has kept £283 million worth of funding under lock and key.
Mr Hill – for so long Mr Prescott’s right-hand man – refused to accept the defeat was the result of general suspicion of the Almo policy and instead blamed the New Journal.
Soon after the vote, a civil servant working for Mr Hill revealed the minister’s feelings in a briefing for Ms Buxton.
The message simply said: “When Keith appears before the Select Committee in its Decent Homes Inquiry, he wants to be able to attack the role of the Camden New Journal. He has therefore asked if you could provide all of the press cuttings from the CNJ on this. In particular, the CNJ seriously misrepresented Keith’s own interview with them – grateful for a copy of this also.”
When Mr Hill did explain himself before the Select Committee, he told MPs that Camden’s rebel tenant leaders were “communists” and “Trotskyists” and that the New Journal had run an “unremitting campaign” against him.
During the campaign in Camden, Mr Prescott’s office came up against stiff resistance from rebel tenants and pressure group Defend Council Housing (DCH). They argued that Almos are part of a wider plan to privatise social housing.
Throughout the debate, DCH called for a “fourth option”, which effectively amounted to a call for traditional direct investment.
When Mr Hill visited Camden in September 2003 – two months before the crucial ballot – he hinted to a New Journal reporter that such an option might be considered if residents voted “No”.
On tape, he said: “If this one were to go down, which I sincerely hope it will not, then we would expect Camden to come forward with a further proposition.”
A subsequent front-page article quoting the interview infuriated the minister.
A post-interview briefing from Ms Buxton to Mr Hill claimed: “You spoke to Richard Osley… Unfortunately it appears he has deliberately misrepresented your conversation.”
It was a far cry from a briefing written by Ms Buxton before the visit, which said: “Richard Osley is the fairest of the Camden New Journal reporters.”
The exchange is typical of a file of correspondence between Ms Buxton and Mr Hill – most of which was also sent to other key ODPM figures, including top civil servant Wendy Jarvis and junior minister Yvette Cooper, who replaced Mr Hill as housing minister last month.
In July 2003, Ms Buxton said that a New Journal article covering an Almo debate was “inaccurate and negative”.
In January 2004, the New Journal was compared unfavourably to a lower-readership competitor.
Ms Buxton said: “The Camden New Journal set its editorial stance on this issue in parallel with Defend Council Housing. This has been shown by their unprofessional reporting.” Astonishingly, even though the New Journal was the only newspaper providing serious in-depth coverage of the Almo debate, scrutinising every aspect of the pro and anti-campaign, Ms Buxton suggested reporters had failed readers.
She said: “This stance and lack of interest in providing their readers with balanced articles has often resulted in factually inaccurate reporting.”
The tone hadn’t changed by March 2004 – after residents had thrown out the unpopular scheme – when Ms Buxton said: “Camden New Journal run an article along these lines every week.”
And in April 2004, as the New Journal began a campaign to bring warring factions together in support of a petition for direct investment, Ms Buxton’s briefing had a certain familiarity.
She told Mr Hill: “CNJ’s campaign of misinformation continues unabated I am afraid.”
Mr Hill even wrote to Camden tenants’ leader Silla Carron, warning her to be wary of the press.
He said: “I am sure you know newspaper reports cannot always be relied upon to reflect the true picture.“
Despite the comments passed back and forth, Camden Council leader Councillor Dame Jane Roberts and other Labour councillors steered clear of criticising the New Journal’s coverage.
Instead, they say they regard the 77 per cent “No” result in the ballot as a message that tenants were unhappy with the proposed changes.