The Daily Mail has apologised over a now-withdrawn article which said “woke councillors” had sent Brighton into decline.
Deputy council leader Jacob Taylor complained that the article, headlined “What IS happening to Brighton?” was “littered with inaccuracies”.
It said the council had spent money on “pet projects” such as a weedkiller ban and low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) while homelessness, litter, rubbish, drug-dealing and graffiti are rife.
This week, the Mail apologised for not labelling some of the pictures of rubbish to show they were taken during bin strikes before last May’s elections.
It also said it was incorrect to say this year’s £30 million worth of budget cuts – which had not yet come into force at the time of publication – had left residents in poverty.
And it said sorry for suggesting that Labour was responsible for a u-turn in policy on reopening toilets when a decision to put more money into the budget had been made when the Greens were in power.
The article quoted Conservative councillors Ivan Lyons and Alistair McNair saying that the decision to ban glysophate had led to pavements being overrun with weeds.
Councillor Taylor said: “The Daily Mail published a dishonest article about our city last month – full of distortions and outright lies.
“This city has a long way to go in terms of improving our basic services, and delivering a city that looks how it should. That’s why residents elected us, and exactly what we’re focused on doing.
“But I wasn’t going to let the Daily Mail – egged on by local Tory councillors – publish lies about my hometown, so we took them on and forced a complete withdrawal of their article and a full apology.”
The Mail’s apology said: “The article was subject to a complaint by the Labour council administration, who pointed out that it contained a number of photographs showing litter overflowing onto the streets which had been taken some years previously, when the council was under a different administration.
“The article claimed budget cuts combined with tax rises had ‘left residents in poverty’ – the administration noted that this was not possible given the changes to the budget had not taken effect at the date of publication.
“The article further stated that the council had rowed back on a decision to shut almost all public toilets in the area following a public backlash, and suggested that the Labour administration had performed a U-turn on a policy it had previously supported.
“They say that Labour councillors had in fact forced the Greens to abandon these plans before they took overall control of the council.
“We are happy to clarify the Labour council administration’s position on these points, and apologise for any misleading impression given.
Several public toilets were closed in the winter of 2022. A council report published in January 2023 said this was the result of a combination of factors, including successive budget cuts since 2015 and a resulting lack of maintenance, inflation and an increase in staffing costs following the cleaning service being brought in-house in February 2022, a decision made by officers.
The report said a further proposed cut of £300,000 – noted by both Green and Labour members of the finance committee the previous month – would result in some toilets being permanently closed unless charging was brought in.
Within days, the then-Green administration reversed that cut following an outcry.
Go on jacob, get it right up them!
Don’t forget the huge losses from the i360 that have also affected the Council’s Budget into the future – a period of 25+ Years in total! £40.2 Million of Public Money was put into that scheme after the decision by Green and Tory Councillors. The Council are already owed well over £15 Million cumulatively as a result of that.
I do hope the Daily Mail come back and repeat the article with verifiable facts.
Seconded. It not unusual for newspaper to use photo archive images either. We don’t see BHCC complaining about out of date photos every time there is a ‘What a Scorcher!’ day featuring a crowded seafront.
Daily Mail & verifiable facts, haha good one.
One can hope, but it has the Daily Fail moniker for a reason.
£300,000 public toilet budget given to £13m Kingsway to the Sea vanity project during Green and Labour BHCC secret Memorandum of Understanding. It should have been a much longer article.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cllje5zj0qlo
The article could have just said that Brighton is a filthy, dangerous tip, caused by the ineffective policing and the council wasting our money. Sadly, since Hove was joined with Brighton, Hove has gone the same way.
Agreed
Nothing to apologise for. It’s all correct, and there is plenty more to say.
Why did they apologise for getting facts wrong if it was all correct?
Just because they got some facts wrong that doesn’t mean their description of Brighton was false.
I agree, just because the article was wrong it doesn’t mean it was wrong.
Let’s face the facts – Brighton has become a complete sh1thole.
This was under the previous Green Council’s tenure , but it is important to remember that Labour supported most of the Greens’ dogma-driven cretinous schemes.
Maybe this was because Labour was , at the time, controlled by Momentum Fruitcakes ? Labour has to show it is now listening to residents and businesses – cancelling the idiotic VG3 would be a start.
The Daily Mail might have used some incorrect photos but it doesn”t change the fact that Labour won locals elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023. The only reason Greens ran the council for a few years recently was because the Labour administration fell apart during the pandemic (that’s not to say they got it right either). At every election Labour have promised to sort the bins and they haven’t. Everyone knows that the bins in the city are the problem, Labour need to stop whingeing and accept they have been part of the problem and just properly sort it – that means getting their own house in order – including addressing the dodgy relationships and behaviour that was referred to in the Cityclean bullying report over the summer which criticised Labour councillors, which they have done nothing about.
GMB should be shut down, mafia not a trade union.