Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour

The Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia says that “Gossip is idle talk or rumour, esp. about the personal or private affairs of others”. Whether you call it gossiping, rumour mongering or Lashen Hara (I will let you look that one up for yourself) I’ve never been a big fan of the practice. Which makes one element of being a councillor a bit of a peculiar lark.

Before I became active in local politics , relative strangers would never pull me to one side to have “little chats” about some morsel of local scandal or crumb of salacious tittle tattle. National media organisations had never once called me as part of their investigations into a “big story” or to solicit opinions from me about local issues. I have to say, up until one year ago, apart from the usual general chit chat concerning my own circle of close friends or family, I just didn’t get hear about anything really ‘juicy’.

That all changed when I was elected as a Borough Councillor, then it became “can I have a quite word with you Ian”, “what do you know about this” or “you need to look into that”, all discreetly bestowed with the fundamental instruction and assurance of total discretion. One specific example of attention-grabbing information, came to me from a totally unexpected source, someone I had hardly ever spoken to in my life, suddenly and albeit guardedly began talking to me about a council related matter. I often have to ask myself, what’s their real agenda or motive and ultimately what’s in it for them?

Are they a concerned community spirited resident or are they attempting to have a little political mischief and fun at someone's expense, who knows? I never really know if there is something in the information they have or not, either way, who does one go to for advice, who can I really trust to discuss it with?

Although I must be clear to separate the 'genuine' request for assistance, from the sort of gossip I generally receive, which is on the whole negative, thriving on the contentious and sensational, often camouflaging itself as concern for a person or issue.

The reality of most gossipers is that they are not genuinely concerned about solving the problem, more in perpetuating and exaggerating the rumour. Growing up in Liverpool, we had a name for people who did this sort of thing, the first word would be inappropriate for me to use on here, the second word is "stirrers".

Sadly, in a world where gossip can be more powerful than truth, I have the words of an old sales manager of mine still ringing in my ears, when he kept drumming his mantra into my psyche "perception is reality", people will believe what they see and in general, ultimately believe what they are told.

Sometimes the truth can appear extremely dull and mundane, in comparison to the excitement of a bit of unsubstantiated hearsay.