An editor has hit out at a council leader who told a group of schoolchildren “don’t believe everything you read in newspapers.”

Martin Trepte, who edits the Maidenhead Advertiser, has accused the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead’s cabinet of behaving like characters from George Orwell’s Animal Farm after a row over its reporting of the authority’s care budget in recent weeks.

The Advertiser reported earlier this month how the council was looking at ways to fill a £13m ‘black hole’ in the budget, which Martin says led to councillors on the Conservative-run authority accusing the paper of “irresponsible reporting” on social media.

At a meeting of the council’s cabinet on the same day, Thursday 9 February, a group of children from Maidenhead’s Cox Green School were invited to quiz leader Simon Dudley, with one of the pupils asking him about the Advertiser’s story.

He responded: “If they had more accountants working for them they’d understand how budgets work. Clearly, they haven’t got enough accountants working at the Maidenhead Advertiser.

“My final piece of advice in life is, don’t believe everything you read in newspapers.”

The Advertiser reported that the comments were met with laughter from Councillor Dudley’s colleagues in the Conservative group, which currently holds 54 of the council’s 57 seats.

But Martin hit back at the comments in an editorial likening the cabinet meeting to scenes in Animal Farm, Orwell’s 1945 allegorical work which criticised Stalinism.

He wrote: “Just like the chickens and sheep in the novel (who can’t think for themselves) chant ‘four legs good – two legs bad’ the refrain at cabinet was effectively ‘Council good – Advertiser bad’.

“Cabinet members took every opportunity to bleat and cluck that refrain at the cabinet meeting, which was held at Cox Green School and attended by a group of its sixth formers.

He added: “Our point was that, whether it’s budgeted for or not, there is still a ‘black hole’ in care funding. It’s an issue nationally and it’s an issue in the Royal Borough – and it’s only going to get worse.

“To most of us a black hole is something that sucks in more and more resources. But to the council it’s not a black hole because, in the final analysis, it’s going to be paid for by the council tax payer.”