Like many residents of Crawley, I was very surprised to see that following the defection of one Councillor from Conservative to UKIP five months ago, that the Crawley Observer immediately decided to give this Councillor, Karl Williamson, his own weekly column.
Let us not forget that this Councillor left the Conservatives under a very dark cloud indeed, having received a huge 98% No Confidence vote from the Crawley Conservative Association because of his behaviour. It very much felt like a defection of convenience and necessity, rather than of any sudden and genuine political conversion.
Despite this, and the fact that Crawley has never, ever, seen anyone elected as a UKIP Councillor, Crawley’s premier local newspaper decided to give him his own weekly local column. This effectively elevated him in the eyes of their readers, to being on a par with the Leader of the Council’s column (representing 20 Conservative Councillors) and the Leader of the Opposition group’s column (representing 16 Labour Councillors).
These local political columns are supposed to have some relevance to Crawley and of course be written by the columnists themselves - not copied and pasted from party political websites or from other newspapers. Both the Crawley Conservative and Labour Councillor groups manage to write their columns themselves and come up with their own original material.
Let’s scrutinise
some of Karl Williamson's UKIP columns. Many don’t appear to be published
online by the Crawley Observer, but I did manage to find some and
I have taken photos of others I found from previous weeks. The last six weeks of Crawley UKIP Councillor Karl Williamson’s Crawley Observer columns are as follows - all six have been copied from elsewhere.
8th January 2014 Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column.
Copied and pasted from UKIP national website 31st December 2013.
Copied and pasted from UKIP national website 16th December 2013.
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| 25th December 2013 Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column |
Copied and pasted from the Daily Express Farage on Friday column 13th December 2013.
The only change I can see is just one word. In Nigel Farage's column, "With only 19 days" has changed to "With only several days" at the beginning of Karl Williamson's otherwise exact copy. I guess this had to be done as they were published on different days. Did Cllr Williamson assume that no one reading the Crawley Observer over Christmas would not also have seen the Daily Express two weeks earlier? This blatant act of plagiarism, in passing off Nigel Farage's Daily Express column as his own written work, is very insulting to both the Crawley Observer and it's readers - the people of Crawley.
18th December 2013 Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column.
Copied and pasted from UKIP national website 13th December 2013.
The UKIP article is fully copied and then has five sentences added at the end.
Copied and pasted from UKIP national website 13th December 2013.
The UKIP article is fully copied and then has five sentences added at the end.
11th December 2013 Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column.
Copied and pasted from UKIP national website 5th December.
4th December Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column.
Copied and pasted from the Daily Express Farage on Friday colomn 29th November 2013, and then padded out with some extra words. This is Nigel Farage copy number two. Given the dates of the copying, maybe "Farage on Friday" should be renamed "Farage on Friday and Williamson on the following Wednesday"?
As well as the last six weeks, I have managed to find four earlier columns. All four are copies including two more directly from Nigel Farage.
Copied and pasted from the Daily Express Farage on Friday column 15th November 2013.
This is Nigel Farage copy number three. It is copied exactly from the Daily Express and then pasted straight into the Crawley Observer but passed off as Karl Williamson instead of Nigel Farage - the real author. Again, "Farage on Friday" was copied by "Williamson on the following Wednesday."
Incredibly, both of these columns (three weeks apart) are copied and pasted from the same UKIP national website article on 16th September 2013.
His 6th November column is fully copied with a couple of sentences added and his 16th October column is partially copied and then padded out. This feels like treating the Crawley Observer and it's readers with contempt.
His 6th November column is fully copied with a couple of sentences added and his 16th October column is partially copied and then padded out. This feels like treating the Crawley Observer and it's readers with contempt.
21st August Cllr Karl Williamson Crawley Observer column.
Copied and pasted from "A message from Nigel Farage" on 12th March 2011 and then padded out with more text. This is Nigel Farage copy number four. The second paragraph is new as is the second half of the final paragraph. Other than this, it is a direct copy of Nigel Farage writing three years ago!
Conclusion
All the evidence presented here (not hearsay like how UKIP find innocent people guilty) clearly shows that Cllr Karl Williamson’s local columns are a sham, and are mostly copied and pasted from national UKIP sources or from Nigel Farage in the Daily Express. It must be highly likely that what I have proved here has been happening for most of the 23 weeks of his weekly UKIP column, which started on 7th August 2013.
All the evidence presented here (not hearsay like how UKIP find innocent people guilty) clearly shows that Cllr Karl Williamson’s local columns are a sham, and are mostly copied and pasted from national UKIP sources or from Nigel Farage in the Daily Express. It must be highly likely that what I have proved here has been happening for most of the 23 weeks of his weekly UKIP column, which started on 7th August 2013.
Out of his 23 columns that have
been published by the Crawley Observer, I have found and highlighted 10 of
them. All are copies ranging from 40% to 100% exact
copies. Readers may well ask if UKIP’s Cllr Karl Williamson is
capable of writing any original material for his own column and why he has nothing to say about Crawley?
I do not believe that this blatant plagiarism is in the spirit of what the Crawley Observer is looking to achieve by having local columnists. Not only is it highly questionable that Cllr Williamson has this elevated and wholly undeserved platform in the first place, I believe the Crawley Observer and its readers are being dishonesty deceived by having a column consistently copied and pasted from the national UKIP website and the Daily Express.
It is very clear that Karl Williamson is not the original author of his own column, and also very noticeable how Crawley hardly ever features. Many will view this hoodwinking of the Crawley Observer and its readers as deceit. It surely begs the question that if this can occur in such a prolonged and blatant way, how else are the public being deceived by UKIP in Crawley?
Now that this plagiarism has been exposed, the Crawley Observer would be totally justified in pulling the plug on this sham of a column, for this blatant and systematic abuse of trust of both themselves and that of their readers. It really is a disgrace for this sham to have happened for so long.
I do not believe that this blatant plagiarism is in the spirit of what the Crawley Observer is looking to achieve by having local columnists. Not only is it highly questionable that Cllr Williamson has this elevated and wholly undeserved platform in the first place, I believe the Crawley Observer and its readers are being dishonesty deceived by having a column consistently copied and pasted from the national UKIP website and the Daily Express.
It is very clear that Karl Williamson is not the original author of his own column, and also very noticeable how Crawley hardly ever features. Many will view this hoodwinking of the Crawley Observer and its readers as deceit. It surely begs the question that if this can occur in such a prolonged and blatant way, how else are the public being deceived by UKIP in Crawley?
Now that this plagiarism has been exposed, the Crawley Observer would be totally justified in pulling the plug on this sham of a column, for this blatant and systematic abuse of trust of both themselves and that of their readers. It really is a disgrace for this sham to have happened for so long.
15 comments:
Its surprising that it has taken you so long to notice something when it was right in front of your eyes. You can tell by reading them that they are party political broadcasts. But what is a joke is how the newspaper were printing without asking any questions about the real source.
Surely the Daily Express would be interested to read that the Crawley Observer are reprinting what I assume they believe to be Exclusive to them!
Crawley had two Libdem councillors for very many years who were never offered their own column in the Crawley Observer. A Tory who had only been a councillor for two years, gets chucked out of his own party, joins Ukip, and is given a newspaper column. Go figure?
I am appalled by this. Say no more
I feel for the Obby. Much better then the Crawley News. If I was the editor I would pull his article ASAP. Then maybe Crawley News could take up this story as well and show how this UKIP Councillor has been misleading all the people in Crawley
LOL! UKIP are so stupid that today they are sharing this week's Williamson column on their Facebook pages without knowing he's been shown up to be a copycat fraud.
Adam @14.00 - you raise one of four civil legal concerns that this throws up. The first theoretical legal risk is to young cllr Williamson and is if Nigel Farage decided to sue him for copyright infringment. This is unlikely for a host of reasons, not least because Farage would probably not sue one of his own councillors over something that didn't involve money between the two or reputational damage. The second legal risk is again to the councillor. Johnston Press could decide to sue him for breech of contract. Again this is unlikley but not imposible, especially if the third legal wrangle came up. That would be between the Express Newspapers and Johnston Press. As you say, the Express have the exclusive Farage column and presumably use it as a marketing tool to sell papers. While they would probably not be adverse to reproduptions, they would want their name associated with it elsewhere. Whether they would bother remains to be seen, but they could make a case against Johnston Press, who in turn would say they published in good faith and blame the councillor. A fourth possibility is Express Newspapers going after the councillor themselves. There would not be an ignornace defence such as that Johnston Press could use. Again it remains to be seen if they would bother.
Is this breaking the councillor code of conduct? The Nolan principles of public life which are adopted in councillor codes of conduct include honesty and integrity when acting in the capacity of a councillor. The writing of this column appears to be in that capacity but with an absence of those principles. Any reader of this Crawley paper could be entitled to lodge such a complaint if they were minded to.
he is giving ukip a bad name and should resign
My own personal opinion is he should resign based on the fact that he has been dishonest to the area that he represents. A very foolish man who has ruined his integrity, his friendship in who believed in him and most of all he has been dishonest to his party, to the Crawley newspaper, and ukip supporters.
RESIGN Cllr Williamson if you are reading this. Do it now before you hurt to many more people.
I have reluctantly allowed the above comment but will not allow any more that contain either swearing or crude insults. Blogger does not allow me to edit comments or I would have edited out the final sentence, which I do not like being posted on my blog.
I've just discovered that the "remove content" tag on Blogger removes the whole comment rather than edit, which is what I attemped to do. My apologies to 'Southgate Voter' as I only intended to remove your final sentence, not your entire comment.
has the daily express been informed of this?
will he be blaming equal marriage as the reason for the floods like his councillor mate in henley did?
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