Stanley Crossick is having a row on his blog with Bruno Waterfield, EU correspondent of the Telegraph.
Essentially it boils down to the roasting Myparl got in the UK press over the weekend. Myparl is the European Parliament’s pilot social networking site due for launch in October - a sort of Facebook for MEPs.
Godfrey Bloom, a UK Independence Party MEP, attacked the project as “a colossal waste of money”. “Anybody who wishes to involve themselves in social networking is already on Facebook or LinkedIn. This is just more propaganda, masquerading as information.”
After receiving an online demonstration of the website, one Euro-MP’s office asked MyParl organisers whether there was a cost for the service. “Totally free. Well, not for the taxpayer of course,” was the answer.
But who will be Tom? Well, Stanley Crossick will be moderator. Frankly I doubt anything involving dialogue between Euro-parliamentarians and civil society will need moderating, but there you go.
MEPs will be organising flashmobs at the Rond Point? Drunken orgies on the Brussels trams? Unlikely.
Brussels blogger defends the contractors hired to spend all this money:
…it is wrong to blame all this on EurActiv or Mostra. The tender specifications have been developed by DG Communication. So the two companies are just contractors for a EU project.
Not just any contractors, though. Mostra and Euractiv would find life a struggle if the Commission didn’t exist, and their close ties to the institutions mean they should stand in the firing line too. If they benefit from the public purse, there’s only so far that the notion of commercial secrecy can be stretched.