Regular readers of The Guardian‘s own letters page will quickly see the difference in style between those two letters pages, for many of the unpublished Telegraph letters would have fitted well in the Guardian, with its house style preferring short, quirky and amusing letters of the sort that do not get past the letters page editors of the Telegraph.

Given the entertainment value of many of the unpublished letters, it does also make you wonder why newspapers do not use the extra freedom of their websites to publish rather more letters and instead are still so heavily driven by the limitations of space in the printed edition in choosing which letters get a public airing. It is particularly odd as the collection of letters shows how many unpublished letters are more interesting, illuminating and entertaining than many of the online comments which newspapers do happily host on their sites.

You can buy Am I Alone in Thinking…? by Iain Hollingshead from Amazon here.

Today it is Olly Grender, who blogs at http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/olly-grender.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
A toss up between my Mum voting in favour of joining Europe in the referendum and my Dad feeling agitated about and improving workers rights in industry.

2. When did you start blogging?
In January, so please be gentle with me! (though all constructive feedback from fellow LibDems welcome).

3. Why did you start blogging?
Have been thinking of doing it for some time, as occasionally you need a few more words than Twitter or broadcasting allows – plus the New Statesman asked me!

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Politics, liberalism, media, coalition, punditry.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Liberal – that is all.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
As a total novice there is little to choose from. However I enjoyed having a pop at the Daily Telegraph in this one about Nick Clegg’s Red Box.

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I thought this was the most astounding blog of 2010. It’s by Peter Watt, former General Secretary to the Labour Party, and it summed up in so many ways why working with Labour right now would be such a challenge because, as Peter describes, they currently have an inability to listen and struggle to believe that others in politics wish to do good.

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
God would love to do something political but I LOVE this Virgin Atlantic ad soooooooooo beautifully done I could watch it over and over. Enjoy!

9. Which bloggers, writers or thinkers inspire you?
I like writers that surprise, even if I disagree, such as Peter Oborne, John Rentoul and Matthew Parris. The amount of work Andrew Rawnsley puts into both his books and columns rewards the reader. If you share my fascination with the use of rhetoric then Max Atkinson’s blog is a brilliant guide and I love reading Gaby Hinsliff.

Recently I have been really impressed with the insights into the Lib Dem side of the coalition with Allegra Stratton at the Guardian. Paul Waugh is the essential political blog in spite of his recent move from the Evening Standard to Politics Home.

10. Give us a surprising fact about yourself:
I played the clarinet in a jazz band as a teenager.

You can see all our posts featuring Liberal Democrat bloggers here.

Conservative London Assembly member Brian Coleman has backed down from his attempt to ban questions to him at London Fire Authority meetings.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is to investigate the Daily Telegraph, following complaints from Tim Farron and others that the newspaper had gone on a fishing expedition rather than having the sort of public interest case which justifies journalistic subterfuge. On the substantive policy issue at stake, Ofcom look set to recommend that the Sky bid should be referred to the Competition Commission.

We’ve occasionally covered the travails of the Conservatives on Sefton Council over the years. The latest news, as carried by Birkdale Focus, is that three Conservative councillors have suspended and one quit. In recent years the Conservatives there have had two leaders quit, one suspended and a fourth suspended twice. Tory Mayors have not done much better with one quitting, one being deselected and one – again – being suspended twice. Two treasurers have also been arrested in amongst the long list of incidents enumerated on Birkdale Focus.

All has not been wonderful on the Lib Dem local government front, however, with a deselected councillor in Eastleigh quitting the party and being followed by two colleagues who have also left, joining him as independents. Two councillors have also left in Winchester.

Certainly there’s some embarrassment for Vince, but I suspect Oliver Letwin won’t be too overjoyed at being splashed across the media as one of the most regular Lib Dem allies in coalition debates.

Given that there is no hint of an allegation about laws or rules being broken, I’m rather uneasy about the way the Telegraph used two undercover journalists to pretend to be someone else in order to sting a politician – even if it does result in the wonderful irony of a newspaper running a story criticising an MP for being too honest. I’m sure the “More dishonesty is needed now to make Britain great again!” leader will be along any moment now…

That uneasiness is strengthened by the Telegraph’s editing of what is describes as a “full transcript” of the incident. It’s nothing of the sort – not only missing out part of what Vince Cable said but also missing out all the words spoken by its own undercover journalists. Similarly the audio version has been edited to remove parts of the exchange. Odd.

The second half of the list is also now out and you can read it here.

The biggest story is Clegg’s clear steer on a graduate tax as the way to square financial demands with the party’s dislike of tuition fees:

While David Willetts, the universities minister, said this week that it was for Lord Browne’s ongoing study to recommend increased tuition fees or a tax, Mr Clegg comes down firmly for the latter. “[Poorer] children are very intimidated by levels of debt. That is why I and my party have always been critical of tuition fees. The tricky bit is finding a progressive way [under which] the graduate who goes into the City pays a different contribution to someone who enters low-paid social work and that the money goes back to universities rather than into Treasury coffers.”

But some form of graduate payback is, he confirms, the preferred option. “It’s one we think is acceptable. The perception of [tuition fees] is that it imposes a wall of debt as you walk through the entry gates of university. This has a chilling effect on applications. It sends a signal which seems to be discouraging.”

Mr Clegg acknowledges “workability” problems, adding: “We’re genuinely waiting for Lord Browne to try to work through the problems. But the signal I’m sending to you is that we will look very kindly at a system that is fair, progressive and encourages students from [poorer] backgrounds to apply.”

This sounds a ringing endorsement of a graduate tax. “As soon as you mention a tax, people go a bit loopy,” he says. “It’s saying that students make a contribution, but we’re not going to do it in a way that stops students applying, and we’re going to make it dependent on how much benefit you get from going to university.”

Clegg is also asked about Simon Hughes’s recent comments, pithly reported on The Voice by Stephen as Simon Hughes states the bleedin’ obvious, sparks news media frenzy

“I would gently remind those colleagues who have misgivings that Coalition politics is the different politics we have advocated in the past.” Is that a rebuke to Simon Hughes, the Left-leaning Lib Dem deputy leader, who has suggested a backbench veto option for Coalition policies?

“No. To be fair to him, if he said the weather was cloudy, there would be headlines about Simon Hughes casting a shadow over the Coalition. He was saying that if you do something very big outside the Coalition agreement, then of course MPs must have their say.”

Nick Clegg also used the interview to reinforce the party’s scepticism on TridentL

Mr Clegg casts doubt on whether the £20billion renewal scheme will ever happen. “As Deputy Prime Minister, I’m committed to the replacement of the deterrent, but I will continue to argue for the alternatives, and there are alternatives. We’ve set up a value-for-money study to see if there are ways of doing it which don’t cost the earth, and I’ll see what that comes up with.’’

As for Philip Green, whose appointment resulted in public criticism from several Liberal Democrat MPs, Nick Clegg’s answer is starkly minimal:

Sir Philip’s role as the Coalition “cuts tsar” sits uneasily with Mr Clegg’s promise of a crackdown on tax avoidance. Did he know of the appointment? “It was all done by the right government procedures. I was away on holiday.”

In itself, an expensive website is not necessarily a poor use of funds as good, popular sites often also save costs (e.g. by reducing the number of phonecalls the council has to handle). As a result, Medway Council – one of those picked out in the article – may have a good case for spending £250,000 in revamping its site given that the last major revamp was in 2003. In the last seven years the internet has changed significantly as have people’s expectations of how information is presented online. The current site gives the impression of having additions somewhat uncomfortably shoe-horned into an old system and set of templates.

On the other hand, Haringey Council’s website is certainly a fair target of criticism:

Haringey Council spent more than £500,000 on a redesign in 2003, which included annual recurring costs of up to £200,000 per year, not including staff salaries. Haringey has admitted it intends to cut the cost of some of these services, including a £36,925 per annum contract to provide webcasting and video hosting. [My emphasis]

The webcasting cost reinforces my view that webcasting, particularly when the footage doesn’t then end up on YouTube, is the biggest mistake councils made with online engagement. Let’s hope at least that some of these funds see the current paucity of RSS feeds on council websites reduced and maybe even a better blog or two.

The Telegraph should be congratulated, by the way, for providing the background data in a useful and detailed form. Nicely done.

However, there are two important caveats to that. First, the massive lack of trust in journalists, who are regularly rated one of the least trusted professions in the UK. As I wrote last year on this topic,

Isn’t a major reason that people increasingly turn elsewhere for news that they don’t trust the quality of what comes from traditional and paid-for sources enough above those other sources? “Pay for news from us because it’ll be accurate” could be a good sell. If people trust you.

(As an aside, it looks as if this his how The Times is trying to position itself compared to The Telegraph, with The Times‘s rather more balanced political coverage during the general election and since. The Times was in a very different league from The Telegraph with stories such as its misleadingly truncated data, page 1 splash despite admitting not knowing the truth or double-standards on tax.)

The second caveat is that though newspaper circulations are dropping, many magazines carrying news and current affairs are seeing circulations rise, as was the case with the latest ABC circulation figures – and this was no flash in the pan as it’s the continuation of an existing trend.

So is the problem people’s unwillingness to pay for news, or is it that newspapers are stuck in the wrong format and wrong styles?

Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2008: “Recession pulls hemlines down“.

Daily Telegraph, 6 March 2009: “Hemlines rise during economic downturns”.

Daily Telegraph, 9 July 2010: “It’s happening again. Hemlines are falling in times of hardship”.

But perhaps it is neither up nor down?

Daily Telegraph, 5 February 2009: “the relationship between fashion and the economy is often more subtly complex than that”.

Never let it be said the Daily Telegraph doesn’t cover all the angles.

Former Labour backbench MP Frank Cook has filed a libel writ against the Sunday Telegraph over a front-page story from May 2009 about his expenses.

He is demanding damages of up to £50,000 from publishers Telegraph Media Group over a front page story and two inside pieces in May 2009 in the Sunday Telegraph.

The stories, which he claims were defamatory, were headed “MP claimed £5 for church collection” and “I’m sorry church claim was unfair.”

Cook, who represents Stockton North, is also suing over a comment headed: “Now it is the people’s turn to be heard.”

He says the articles meant he represented low “value-for-money” as a parliamentarian, and that his £5 claim, which was refused, was an extraordinary abuse of MPs expenses, and was particularly embarrassing and hypocritical because of his support for the campaign to commemorate a Battle of Britain hero …

He says the allegations were given “disproportionate and excessive prominence” in the newspaper and online, and that by mentioning his former job as a gravedigger, the paper hoped to ridicule him.

When speaking to a reporter, he had denied he did not represent value-for-money, but says the paper failed to report that he was ineligible to vote on bills he had chaired, which gave a false impression of his voting record.

You can read the full story here.