Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Pardon as I get a trifle Juvenal on the subject ...
Tory justice minister Jonathan Djanogly will not be investigated for setting a team of private investigators on his own constituency staff. Djanogly spent £5,000 getting private detectives to pretend to be journalists in order to find out what local party officials thought of him. His staff criticised him as a poor politician …
The ICO is a toothless wonder. Unless they are prepared to act against the wishes of their poilitical overlords, then they are not independant and therefore have no value.
As for Mr Djanogly, I suspect that once his constituency party find out what kind of a man he is, they will probably be seeking nominations for a new candidate for the next election.
Any MP should be entirely comfortable about wandering around his constituency and asking people what they think. If he doesn't have the time or wants a more honest opinion, do a survey which promises anonymity. The fact that he used PIs is just ... well, weird and creepy. Why did he feel the need to do it like that?
"How is this different from marketing or carrying out a survey ?"
It isn't ... I suppose the most you could say is that by pretending to be journalists seeking info from constituents is a bit of subterfugue ... but then again, marketing surveys normally will not tell you who they are doing the survey.
Basically its a case of a Labour MP using the "throw enough mud and some will stick" technique of politics ... hope his constituents notice the mud on his hands!
Hmmmmm........not so if you read all the questions as they era written out on the question form usually the last five or six questions will give it away as the will often ask something like what do you think of,or do you like,use product "x" or company "y".
Just to be the devils advocate.
It's got nothing to do with them.
The only people who could have an interest in this are:
- The Police if illegal methods are suspected as being used, which appears not to be the case.
- The Conservative Party as he may be risking losing a Conservative seat by being an idiot.
- The Labour Party as John Mann MP is also risking losing a Labour seat by being an idiot.
His constituency *workers* think he's lazy and dishonest, not his constituency *party*. Incidentally I think you'd find most people think their boss is dishonest and/or lazy. It's the default opinion of any employee.
Sounds to me like he's just a bit paranoid. I knew a man once who got in early and hid a cupboard to listen to what his employees thought about him.
As I commented on The Register's previous poor reporting of this issue:-
The reason he had to hire a PI was that someone was giving false stories to the press about his expense claims, and he was trying to find out who was responsible. The PI was instructed to pose as a journalist and approach staff and consistency members to see if they would leak further lies.
It is a fair and reasonable thing to do with your own money, when someone is trying to damage your reputation by associating you with the expenses scandal for political motives. Unfortunately the Right Honourable Mr Mann (Labour) then tried to damage his reputation by associating him with the phone hacking scandal for political motives, as confirmed by the ICO.