I'M going to tell you a secret, and you're not going to tell anyone until tomorrow.

This is the stupid scenario we ended up with yesterday when a West Lancashire story arrived in our inboxes which we all reckoned was of huge significance to the readers, and just happened to come with an embargo dictating that we can't do anything with it until midnight on Thursday.

Embargos, in case you're wondering, are polite requests at the top of press releases asking us nicely if we wouldn't mind not running a story until a predetermined point in the near future, before going on to tell us absolutely everything us nasty journalist types needed to know anyway. As a rule of thumb, we almost always ignore them.

Asking us if we'd keep schtum on something and then giving us the story on that condition - or at least alerting us vaguely to the existence of something in advance - is fair game on the basis that we at least agree to the principle of it beforehand, but I've always thought the idea of dangling information in its juiciest, most digestable form in front of our eyes and demanding our cooperation afterwards a bit unsporting. Particularly if obliging unquestioningly means missing out an important West Lancashire story for an entire week and handing it to the opposition on a plate.

One embargo we didn't break, for instance, were the details of what Ed Milliband said in a statement to Labour MPs when they visited Southport for their regional conference last weekend, pictured above, but only because the paper wasn't due out for another three days and as a result didn't matter anyway. But put yourself in the position of the press people at the other end. If you're keen not to have details of Ed Milliband's statement leaked by the press, surely the logical step would be not to send it until you're happy with it going public?

Embargos also, contrary to what PR officers might like you to believe, don't have any legally-binding restrictions at all, meaning the oft-written “Strictly embargoed until...” is about as threatening as Justin Bieber brandishing a balloon. I take a simplistic view of the matter; if we have the information, we should use it.

Oh, and now that I've told you all of this I ask just one thing. Don't tell anyone until tomorrow!

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