Medcraft not so independent

On this blog I generally shy away from politics per se, except when it intersects with issues in the media. In that spirit I address the following issue which has arisen in my little corner of the world, and is being comprehensively ignored by my local newspapers, who never touch a story when it reflects on one of their most constant sources of inflammatory quotes: former councillor Jack Medcraft, also known as Steve Medcraft when he is dispensing his own brand of justice to the Herald-Sun or to one of the tabloid ‘current affairs’ shows.

What is known so far is that Jack either joined or attempted to join a political party called ‘People Power’ and run as their candidate in the electorate of Macedon for the forthcoming Victorian state election. He was glimpsed at the People Power launch, broadcast on the ABC's Stateline program. He was also quoted by the Hume Star to this effect, a paper which does not circulate in the actual electorate for which he’s running. Needless to say, this was not picked up by either of the local newspapers which do.

This is all despite Jack claiming many times that he was and always would be an independent, and now (apparently) crowing about that fact on GuruAnn’s blog, though no one can be sure that this is actually him speaking.

Now it appears that he has been spurned by the leadership of the party. This is not surprising, as Jack’s brand of right wing populist whining is nowhere near their area of political focus, and it is frankly weird that he ever thought they would be interested in him.

However, the interest they might have for him is obvious, at least to me: money.

Jack recently lost a court case he brought against Ann Potter, the current Hume City Councillor who beat him in the last ballot. Costs were awarded against him. He then declared that he would be running as a candidate in the next state election as an independent. It remains unclear how he would be able to finance this venture, since he doesn’t appear to be a wealthy man.

Jack is a member of the Sunbury Residents’ Association, who have endorsed candidates in the past. To my knowledge, they have not said who they would be supporting in this one but it’s not going to be Labor. Will they be financially backing Jack? If not them, then some other financially well-endowed supporter?

To make matters worse, it now appears that the Sunbury Leader contravened their own publication policy and ran an unattributed political letter to the editor in a recent edition. I have read enough verbiage from Jack in the past to know a Jack letter when I read one, with its characteristic approach to grammar, inability to distinguish personal abuse from debate, and lack of logical rigor.

I was under the impression that corespondents are always required to include name and address in letters to the editor. I know that in certain circumstances, the editor can act on requests to run a letter without publishing this information at his own discretion.

Now, if he used his discretion in this case and ran the letter without attributing it to Jack, what was the reasoning, given that it was (I strongly suspect) a letter from a candidate in an election attacking the policies and character of the other candidates? If it wasn’t signed by Jack, but claiming to be from another source, then surely this blatant misuse of the paper’s guidelines should be looked into?