UNIONS have been criticised for distributing a leaflet wrongly advertising that a BBC journalist would be speaking at their meeting.

Barnet Trade Unions Council (TUC) had circulated a notice ahead of last night's launch of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services claiming Newsnight journalist Paul Mason would be appearing, but in a personal capacity.

The news outraged a number of political figures in the borough who said the Economics Editor on the BBC2 show should be politically neutral and not be seen to be supporting the trade unions movement.

The meeting, held at North London Business Park, in Oakleigh Road South, was to bring union members, staff and the public together to oppose cuts to services, privatisation and Barnet Council's move towards what has been dubbed easyCouncil.

But in a letter to Tory Councillor Brian Coleman, in his capacity as London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden, the director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, said: “I can assure you that Paul Mason will not be speaking at this meeting, nor did he ever intend to do so.

“The leaflet was produced before Paul had a chance to decline. When the leaflet was brought to his attention, Paul contacted the organisers and asked them to remove his name.

“The individual who issued the invitation to speak does not know who included Paul's name on the leaflet, and is investigating why his name was included.”

Cllr Coleman welcomed Mr Thompson's response, but condemned union bosses for name-dropping Mr Mason in the first place.

He said: “If he had been coming, I would have been furious. He is a national journalist who is supposed to be politically neutral.

“I saw the flyer and thought you can't have a BBC journalist doing this.

“The trade union movement in the borough is a complete shambles and they are a group of no-hopers. They are lone voices bleating in the dark. They are trying to resist progress and the inevitable.

“They can't even organise a platform for a public meeting properly.”

TUC members said they believed Mr Mason had been approached and accepted the invitation, and emphasised his appearance would only have been in a personal capacity.

But they said his name only appeared on early editions of the leaflets and was removed when it became clear he would not be attending.

Mr Mason could not be contacted to comment further.