St Edmund
The Knights of Saint Edmund

The Cattlemarket Development - The Miller Group and the Press (2)

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"But simple as the tale is there is hardly better historic training for a man than to set him frankly in the streets of a quiet little town like Bury St. Edmunds, and bid him work out the history of the men who lived and died there. In the quiet, quaintly-named streets, in the town-mead and the market-place, in the Lord’s mill beside the stream, in the ruffed and future brasses of its burghers in the church, lies the real life of England and Englishmen, this life of their home and their trade, their ceaseless, sober struggle with oppression, their steady, unwearied battle for self-government. It is just in the pettiness of its details, in its common place incidents, in the want of marked features and striking events, that the real lesson of the whole story lies. For two centuries this little town of Bury St. Edmunds was winning Liberty to itself, and yet we hardly note as we pass from one little step to another little step how surely that Liberty was being won."

John Richard Green (1837-1883), grandfather of British social and cultural history.

Green, J. R., (1876), Stray studies from England and Italy, Macmillan & Co., London p.218-9

The Cattlemarket Development

The Miller Group, Johnston Press PLC, Anglia Newspapers Ltd. and the Bury Free Press (Part 2)

The Story So far...

The 'vision of the future' as the Bury 'Free' Press called it in 2004.
In Part 1 it was established that Mr Bowdler, Chief Executive of Johnston Press PLC, has an interest in the developer of the Bury St Edmunds cattle-market site as a non-executive director of one of Centros Miller parent companies, the Miller group. In addition, that Johnston Press PLC owns one or more of the local newspapers in Portsmouth, Boston, Burys St Edmunds and Lancaster. Moreover, it was also established that in Bury St Edmunds Anglia Newspapers Ltd owns part of the Cattle-market development site, thereby establishing a clear commercial relationship between Anglia Newspapers Ltd and Centros Miller the developer. Finally, that Anglia Newspapers Ltd publishes the Bury Free Press, the Bury Citizen, the Suffolk Free Press and the Haverhill Echo. This means Mr Bowdler own the all the local papers within the Borough of St Edmundsbury with the exception of two regional papers, the East Anglian Daily Times and Eastern Daily Press, as well as the Bury Mercury, a local free paper, which are all owned by Archant.
http://www.archant.co.uk/index.aspx

The freedom of the press is important in an effective and healthy local democracy. With out a fearless and effective local news media questioning local politicians and honestly informing the public of the issues facing the community then there is no democratic life. The balance between the demands of owners of Newspapers and editorial freedom can be most delicate. It is therefore interesting to see how Mr Bowdler has managed his newspaper companies and how Johnston Press PLC practices editorial freedom in the recent past.

(H'angus the Monkey and Mayor of Hartlepool, aka Mr Stuart Drummond)
Monkey Business in Hartlepool: Mandy, Tony & Tim
On the 2nd May 2002 H'angus the Monkey was famously elected mayor of Hartlepool on a platform of "free bananas for school children".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1965569.stm

The 'vision of the future' as the Bury 'Free' Press called it in 2004.

H'angus the Monkey, or rather Stuart Drummond's, election was deeply embarrassing for New Labour. A man dressed as a monkey-suit, who had started his march to political power dressed as the local football team's mascot, had beaten the Labour Party candidate and personal friend of MP Peter Mandelson to the £53 000 a year job. Even worse Town Mayors were a flag-ship policy of New Labour and Tony Blair, so that it looked very much that the electors of Hartlepool were making monkeys out of the Prime Minister and the government by not voting how they should.

Peter Mandelson MP was furious and complained on three separate occasions that the editor of the Hartlepool Mail of 30 years, Mr Harry Blackwood, was bias against Mr Mandelson and the Labour candidate, unfairly favouring the Monkey. Shortly after a 3 hour meeting between Mr Mandelson and Mr Bowdler, Mr Blackwood found himself forced out of his job as editor.
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2003/03mar/030325wood.shtml

Mr Blackwood
Mr Blackwood, the sacked editor of the Hartlepool Mail

On 24th February 2003 a new allegation were printed by the Independent regarding the removal of Harry Blackwood from his job. The article suggested that the Prime Minister Tony Blair had personally telephoned Mr Tim Bowdler to ask that Mr Blackwood to be removed as editor of the Hartlepool Mail.
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2003w08/msg00020.htm

This allegation was fervently denied by Number Ten Downing Street. However, articles by Bristol members of the National Union of Journalists, freely available on the internet, suggested how the request from the Prime Minister's office to Mr Bowdler might have been made.
http://www.public-interest.co.uk/bnuj/oldlist/8mar03.htm

Finally, Harry Blackwood broke his self-imposed refusal to give interviews and put on record what he knew. By then these included new charges levelled against him by Johnston Press PLC. However, Harry rejected the allegation made against him and pointed to the involvement of Peter Mandelson MP and Prime Minister, Tony Blair in his removal.
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/2003/03mar/030303harry.shtml

It remains unclear precisely what passed between Mr Mandelson and Mr Bowdler at their three hour meeting or the Prime Minster's alleged role in the sacking of Harry Blackwood. However, what is of importance to people of Bury St Edmunds is the following question; if Mr Bowdler was prepared to allegedly do favours as chief executive of Johnston Press PLC for Mr Blair and/or Mr Mandelson by removing a troublesome editor from one of his titles, what may he be prepared to do to insure that a development company that he is a non-executive director of get the go ahead to build that development on land another company he controls owns? For example, could Mr Bowdler get the Bury Free Press to actively support the deeply controversial development by Centros Miller in Bury St Edmunds or Portsmouth or Lancaster?

The Knights of St Edmund invite the reader to make their own mind up.

Then the reader should consider three questions:-
  1. Why did the Borough of St Edmundsbury not inform the council tax payers of Bury St Edmunds of the relationship between the Miller group, the Bury Free Press and Tim Bowdler before signing the development agreement with Centros Miller?
  2. Why has the Bury Free Press not bothered to inform their readership of the relationship between the Miller group, the Bury Free Press and Tim Bowdler before signing the development agreement with Centros Miller?
  3. Why has the Borough of St Edmundsbury or the Bury Free Press or Mr Bryson, Centros Miller's press officer, never drew elected officer's attention to the monkey business in Hartlepool, in all the publicity they produced before they signed the development agreement with Centros Miller?

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