It was hardly the biggest transgression in the list of questionable MP's expenses claims (no wallpaper, garden landscaping, moats, second homes) but the East Kilbride News had suggested that local MP Michael McCann had pocketed £1,150 in hotel bills (so obviously not bedding down with Lenny Henry at Premier Inn then) while at the same time having a rented property in London. Not so it would seem as Mr McCann was only slumming it in a hotel until he found a flat and in adjudicating that "the claim in the article could have misled readers into believing that the claims for hotel bills and rent were made concurrently, rather than consecutively" the PCC found that the East Kilbride News had been misleading.
Please read on...the exciting part of this example of self-regulatory scrutiny comes next - while the paper published the PPC adjudication with due prominence (rather than burying it deep inside a readers' comment page) the PCC bared its dentures and declared that in publishing the adjudication over its misdemeanour the paper had "made some minor amendments to the text and failed to publish a proper reference to the PCC in the headline". Naughty East Kilbride News which,as a result, republished the adjudication in full today.
So while this may seem trivial to some it is nevertheless an example of a published inaccuracy that breaches Clause 1 of the PCC Code
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