Tidying up the loose ends about *that* cycle route meeting

(Warning: this post contains facts and documentation. If you are of a nervous disposition and are easily confused by evidence you may wish to skip the post before posting the obligatory comment saying ‘It’s all spin!’)

There are a couple of loose ends to tidy-up from the non-emergency, non-Liberal Democrat meeting featuring a cycle lane that Harry Cole and Guido Fawkes got so wrong during the week.

Getting a story wrong is, in itself, something many bloggers (including myself) have experienced. But even after having the errors in the story pointed out to him, Harry Cole has continued to try to defend it.

Not to mention as his politeness slipped a bit the other comment addressed to me: “You’re either delusional or knowingly denying the obvious”.

So just to sort those subsequent claims from him…

In response to the point that it wasn’t a Liberal Democrat meeting, but in fact one that council officers and non-Lib Dem councillors had been invited to, Harry Cole continued to claim otherwise: “funny the independents were not invited then as they should have been”.

Untrue – both the email invitation to the meeting on 20 April 2011 and the reminded email invitation of 23 May 2011 went to non-Liberal Democrat councillors.

In response to the point about the cycle route, Harry Cole protested: “two hours on a cycle lane? Who are you kidding?”

Well, the whole two hours weren’t spent on the cycle lane, sure.

There were other matters discussed too.

Such as as local car park.

You can read the agenda for the “emergency” meeting in all its glory here. If you really want (and trust me, it’s not worth it) you can zoom in on satellite imagery to see the car park in question for yourself via Google Maps.

Note, by the way the date on the agenda – 31 March 2011 – which confirms what I’ve also been told about the plans for the meeting having been set in March, in other words before the publication of the claims about Chris Huhne’s driving or election expenses.

Possibly psychics were involved in the meeting scheduling?

That’s a puzzle I’ll leave to our readers along with this one: how could someone have known both enough about the meeting to tip off Harry Cole or Guido but also so little about the meeting that not only such an error-riddled initial report was made but that Harry Cole has kept on defending it?