Does the End of Civil Serf mean Civil silence?
Civil Serf, the civil servant secret blogger, was silenced recently after Whitehall launched a hunt to find her. Whatever your political persuasion, and some of her posts were not flattering to her employers, one has to ask, surely, that isn’t a blog part of free speech? By definition, it is the opinion of an individual and therefore (currently) exempt from the powers of the Press Complaints commission. The Head of the Press Complaints Commission makes a valid point when he said that “if you want to see what the newspaper industry would be like unrestricted, take a look at the internet.” Many bloggers have come out in Civil Serf’s defence. Dizzy Thinks is a big fan. But more surprisingly the newspapers across all political spectrums from the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times and Guardian also made the point that she was doing a service to the tax paying public by lifting the lid on Whitehall. We deserve transparency, in order to build trust and understanding in the public sector, don’t we?
