The Government continues to promote bloggers and hyperlocal news-sites with a missive from Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, urging councils to ensure they are given full access to council meetings.

A letter sent to councils says bloggers should have the same routine access to meetings as traditional journalists.

In the past, the Government has encouraged bloggers to scrutinise town hall spending. Ministers have ordered authorities to publish every item of expenditure above £500, and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles hopes bloggers will plough through the information and highlight inefficiencies or abuses.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has issued a press release about allowing bloggers access to meetings, which I reprint below:

Can Liberal Democrat councillors really get away with warning that government spending cuts will damage the economy and hurt the most vulnerable people in our communities - as if the policy was nothing to do with them?

You can certainly continue to be an active member of a party if you disagree with some of its policies. Nobody expects every party member to agree with every single thing the leadership says.

But the need to significantly cut public spending quickly is currently the single most significant policy that Lib Dems hold, it seems to me. And Nick Clegg has repeatedly made it clear that it is Lib Dem policy - not just a Tory policy they are forced to go along with.