Collins In New Battle With the 'Post'

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Oh dear, he's off on one again.

Yes, Cllr Collins has picked another battle with the Nottingham Post, claiming that they made up a quote from him. I won't put that in speech marks, you'll see why later.

It all started off with Collins' motion criticising corporate tax avoidance at the full City Council meeting on 11 February. The Post later wrote an article on it with the headline "Council leader: 'Boots are avoiding paying corporation tax'".

Cllr Collins didn't like that at all and responded on Twitter thusly (read from bottom up);

That link to what he says he actually said is here.

So, broadly speaking, Collins appears to be saying that 'Boots are avoiding paying corporation tax' is completely different to saying 'Even Nottingham based Boots paid just £14 million tax on profits of £475 million in 2009/10' in the context of a speech condemning tax avoidance. It's a question of interpretation, obviously.

So, to help us, let's get the impression of a totally unbiased party. Someone who was at the meeting if possible. And who was live-tweeting it. That should prove Cllr Collins' point shouldn't it?...

Oh.

Now the thing is, the Post clearly didn't write exactly what Collins said on the day, they used a journalistic technique called 'paraphrasing'. I think it's fairly common. Collins would have legitimate grounds for complaint if the Post had significantly altered his meaning but, seeing as his own party Twitter feed reported him as saying almost exactly what the Post said, I think he's onto a loser with arguing that one.

Thing is, he's still banging on about it, weeks later, posting these tweets earlier this evening;

Frankly, it's all getting a little undignified, not to mention getting a bit close to the bone re defamation and stuff. This might go on for a while yet.