Brown accused of ‘website whitewash’
By politics.co.uk staff
The government have been accused of a “website whitewash” by the Scottish National Party (SNP) for changing information on new website less than 24 hours after it was published.
The SNP claim the government’s new “real help now” website listed action taken by them as key efforts to combat the recession only yesterday.
Today, that information has been removed and replace by a statement from the Scottish Office almost three weeks old.
The SNP have reacted angrily to the change, and taken the opportunity to highlight cuts to the Scottish budget at the same time.
“Just hours after launching this website Gordon Brown has already had it airbrushed,” said SNP Scottish Office spokesman, Angus MacNeil.
“He is now looking more like Winston Smith than his spindoctors’ preferred role model of Winston Churchill.
“Apart from making Gordon Brown look incredibly petty, he has replaced the real economic action taken by the Scottish government with a link to a department which is all but irrelevant in tackling the financial crisis.
“Instead of website whitewashes, if Gordon Brown is serious about tackling the economic crisis, he should rule out Labour’s planned cuts to public spending in Scotland which would be so damaging in the teeth of recession.”
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The real help now website is updated with news on a constant basis.”
The real help now website was launched yesterday and, much like president Obama’s Recovery.gov, seeks to explain and highlight what the government is doing to help in these difficult economic times.
