Cornwall county council has justified launching its own newspaper by pointing out how much money will be saved on advertising in the local press.

This argument is, however, a total nonsense. If the council wanted to save money on advertising it could do so tomorrow without employing a £40,000-a-year editor and without printing and distributing 250,000 copies a month of a taxpayer-funded 24-page newspaper.

My masters at the Packet wrote to the chief executive officer of Cornwall county council in February 2003 seeking a meeting to discuss "huge savings" that could be offered in advertising costs. They received no reply. They wrote again three weeks later enclosing a copy of the original letter, but again there was no reply.

In November that year they wrote yet again, pointing out that there had been no reply to the two previous letters. Again there was no reply.

In January 2004, a fourth letter was sent, this time complaining bitterly that previous correspondence had been ignored.

This finally prompted a reply and an apology from one of the chief executive's underlings.

This reply gave reasons why the council advertised jobs in the far more expensive rival newspapers which, it was snootily claimed, produced the "desired calibre of applicant."

The letter went on to say, inaccurately, that "this view was undoubtedly based on the audited readership figures for these papers, figures which are not available for the Packet series, some of which are free papers." Audited figures were - and still are - available for the Packet. What's more these figures showed that the Packet had just as many high calibre readers as its main rival and could offer substantially cheaper advertising charges.

You would think, wouldn't you, that with a reported budget overspend at that time of £1,928,000, the council would have welcomed such an opportunity with open arms? If saving money on advertising was a prime objective, you surely would have expected the council to enter into immediate negotiations to reduce its expenditure? But nothing happened. The council has carried on advertising in the same expensive newspapers even though their readership has been in sharp decline ever since then.

Now, four years later, the council has decided to move 80% of its £700,000-a-year advertising budget into a totally untried and untested new free newspaper without having a clue about the likely "calibre" of the readers and with no audited circulation data available.

The truth is that Cornwall's Liberal Democrats want their own version of Pravda and they'll tell local taxpayers any old cock and bull story to try and justify their decision.

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Another reason has been given by Cornwall's Liberal Democrat councillors for wanting a publicly-funded newspaper of their own They claim that the existing local newspapers don't give them the publicity they think they deserve and that local taxpayers therefore don't get to hear about all the good things the council does for them.

There is probably some truth in this - but they've only got themselves to blame if there is.

For as long as I can remember the council has had a press office but - for whatever reason - it has in recent years been a waste of space. Only a trickle of badly-written, boring and shoddily presented press releases ever arrive on the Packet's newsdesk these days so it's hardly surprising that the council doesn't get too many favourable headlines.

Many years ago County Hall had a highly-experienced former local newspaper reporter as a press officer and he used to churn out dozens of well-written and interesting press releases every week. He attended most of the council's meetings and used his initiative to write sparkling stories that kept taxpayers informed via the local press.

How things have changed! But I don't necessarily criticise the current press office staff for this. It could be that the politicians and bureaucrats now interfere too much in this vital role.

It's not unknown for press officers to have their well-prepared and well-written news releases emaciated by senior managers more interested in propaganda than truth.