Miss Greenwood, from Widnes in Cheshire, had been angered by Miss Blears's ability to avoid paying capital gains tax on the sale of her designated second home.
Miss Blears wrote out a cheque for more than £13,000 to cover capital gains tax - claiming she had done nothing wrong - before resigning from her job as communities minister on the eve of the crucial local and European elections in June.
She subsequently apologised for her timing of her resignation, saying it was "stupid, thoughtless and cruel", then survived a vote of no confidence by her local party in Salford.
On May 13, Miss Greenwood wrote on the internet of Miss Blears: "How dare you wave a cheque about on national TV, saying that you are sorry.
"You are only sorry that you have been caught. You are a disgrace (including all the other honourable members). Why haven't you been sacked?"
The administrator, who had worked for the DCFS for seven months, was brought before a political commissar disciplinary panel and fired on May 22.
"It has been extremely upsetting that I have been sacked for having an opinion.
A DCFS spokesman said Miss Greenwood had been found guilty of
"The civil service has a clear code of conduct for its employees, which states that civil servants should be politically impartial
TheyWorkForYou nothing to do with this sacked civil servant story
Monday, July 6th, 2009 by Matthew SomervilleNote: Post likely to update as we get further information
You may have seen coverage on various websites saying that a civil servant was sacked after posting a comment on TheyWorkForYou.
We’ve no idea what this story is about, but we’re pretty certain it has nothing whatsoever to do with TheyWorkForYou. No journalist bothered to contact us before running the story.
- There is no comment on TheyWorkForYou containing the text quoted in that article, nor anything like it, nor has there ever been. Nor in fact (as we’ve checked), on HearFromYourMP, WriteToThem, or WhatDoTheyKnow.
- Only one comment has been left on any contribution by Hazel Blears in 2009, and it’s definitely not related to this.
- 27 comments were left on 13th May, the date the comment was apparently posted; we’ve read them all and they’re all nothing to do with this.
So frankly, we’ve no idea what’s going on.
What we do know is that the implication that mySociety would merrily hand over sensitive personal data that ends up in getting someone sacked, without fighting tooth and nail for their privacy every inch of the way, is a complete misinterpretation of the way we work and the things we hold most dear. No-one has ever contacted us to ask us to hand over such data, nor have we ever done so.
We think what might have happened is a simple mis-remembering of the website that contained the problematic comment. We’re hoping to get in touch with Lisa Greenwood so we can get full details before asking the various media companies that have run with this for a correction.
See http://www.mysociety.org/blog/
So getting stranger an stranger, still stand with my comments on Hazel Blears, even if the rest of the story turns out to be arsewater.
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