On September 11th 2001 – the day the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York were brought down by Osama bin Laden’s militants – Jo Moore a communications manager in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions circulated a memo. That memo said that it was “a good day to bury bad news.”

Alastair Campbell’s prominence in the New Labour project brought the “spin doctor” to public awareness in the UK. One of the tricks employed by media managers like Campbell was releasing damaging stories while the media was distracted. Or what might be called using “a good day” to “bury bad news.” This allows government to release things that they have to announce, but that would otherwise cause embarrassment.

While no-one makes the mistake of saying that they’re burying bad news, you can be assured that on any day when something like a royal wedding happens a raft of bad news will be buried. On the 15th of November last year, the day that the royal engagement was announced there was a rush to “bury bad news.”  This included the removal of David Cameron’s vanity photographer from the public payroll, plans by Manchester police to cut thousands of officers. Most shockingly they buried the payouts based on Redfern report on how the Nuclear industry harvested body parts from nuclear workers over 40 years.

So, today we’ve already heard that the cuts to be imposed on the NHS will be 6% not 4%. Yesterday the cost of the Aircraft Carriers was announced to have risen from £5bn to £7bn.

An important role for blogs is to cover real news while the mainstream media are distracted by frippery. So we’re hoping to crowd-source bad news – allowing you to know what the government have to announce but would rather you didn’t know. So we’d like you to let us know if you spot anything that would make news on any other day.