I was amused to discover that Mark Cullinan, the chief executive of Lancaster City Council (just down the road from Kendal), has been nominated in the “Shit of the Year” category of the Rotten Boroughs awards.

The nomination has arisen from an incident last April outside the city’s Toast nightclub at 2.26am. I should add at this point that Lancaster City Council have decided that Mr Cullinan did not contravene any of the authority’s policies or procedures when he got involved in a late-night row with a taxi driver.

The row between the taxi driver and Mr Cullinan’s friend, Graham Atkinson, who insisted that the cab had bumped into him, injuring his knee, escalated when Cullinan wrote a comment underneath the You Tube footage which the taxi driver had shot of Atkinson walking around after the incident.

He also according to the Lancaster Guardian

invited interested parties to come and see photos of Mr Atkinson’s alleged injuries on Morecambe Town Hall steps.

It appears, however, that the reason Mr Cullinan has been nominated for the “Shit of the Year” awards is his willingness , in Private Eye’s words, to resort to Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne, claiming that the Lancaster Guardian newspaper and a community website, virtual-lancaster, had libelled him in reporting the story. The newspaper told Pannone LLP (representing Cullinan) to get lost and have heard no more. Sadly Christine Satori, who runs virtual-lancaster, is being pursued for damages and costs – currently estimated at £15,000 and counting.