Would no news be good news?

"Bad News Is Better Than No News At All", Horace Greely, editor of the old New York Herald once said. I suppose that could be applied to Hilton Dawson. Since his short course at the Millbank School of Media Awareness he's had a lot of column inches in the Citizen and, sure enough, most of them have been bad news - for him. But when you're the local MP and your party is losing support you feel as though you ought to do something. Anyway, it can get pretty lonely out there. At the recent poll a lot of voters showed their disappointment with his new party's product and switched brands with the result that many of the local reps were laid off. It seems that head office have had a stern word with him. 'Get out there, Hilton, and rustle up some publicity! Get a result or you could be next!' The trouble is that Hilton's efforts might not be what his managers had in mind. What he's done so far to bolster morale amongst those who remain, in these pages at least, is to open up an obscure debate on racism which has only earned him a mauling by his erstwhile critic, Citizen Smith, and a chorus of disbelief from half the readers. His press paranoia, woolly prose and long winding arguments must leave his Millbank tutors wondering just where they went wrong and a lot of ex-councillors in despair of ever working again. It's a shame, really, because what he's selling isn't all bad. It might be better if he forgot Horace Greely's dictum and fell back on that other famous saying; 'No News Is Good News'. But then the letter pages wouldn't be as entertaining!