A political blogger who founded a hyperlocal news website to scrutinise former council colleagues has died aged 44.

Tributes have been paid to Daniel Hope, pictured left, who ran the Barnet Bugle site, in North London.

Prior to setting up the Bugle in 2006, Daniel spent four years serving as a Conservative councillor in Barnet.

As well as political comment, the Bugle featured videos of Barnet Council meetings, including one in which he filmed councillors voting on whether or not to allow filming at council meetings.

Former Barnet Council leader Brian Salinger, for whom Daniel acted as chief whip, said: “He was exceedingly diligent. If you wanted something you would ask Daniel to do it and he would do it well.

“He became one of the early bloggers. He was determined to open up the council to make it more transparent.”

Mayor of Barnet David Longstaff told the Barnet & Whetstone Press that Daniel turned up to film “an awful lot of meetings”.

He said: “His principle was that he just wanted to film anything and get it out there so other people could watch. He liked to point out inconsistencies.”

“He was very political and loved going to political conferences – it didn’t matter whether it was the Conservative Party or The Labour Party Conference, and I think he even went to the Lib Dem conference.”

Daniel died on Wednesday 11 January after a serious illness.