The big question of the day is………
Why has Cllr. Khan wiped his Twitter account clean?
Even at this unearthly time of day, it’s a complete mystery why the Deputy Leader of the South Tyneside Independent Alliance has wiped his Twitter page clean of the thousands of posts vilifying his opponents and posting links to local “attack blogs” . I know he has been the subject of a recent investigation by the Standards Board for England and Wales but surely there must be another explanation to why he has decided to wipe the slate clean?
He originally decided to use Twitter to be the first South Tyneside councillor to “connect” with his constituents, but it descended into a rather childish bun fight with the Conservative councillor for Cleadon Village and East Boldon, David Potts, (which reminds me – who will be the next Independent Alliance councillor to leave the sinking ship?) hopefully Cllr. Khan will now use his time on Twitter to promote the work he is doing in his own ward, rather like the now defunct blog once used by Earnest Gibson and Bill Brady the two Labour councillors for Whiteleas in South Shields (another that fell by the wayside after a lack of deference and political nous in the face of commenters’ attacks, or even a lack of time by the authors.)
At least I won’t miss Khan’s even handed comments on Sunderland or Newcastle’s football games.
However, those with an inquisitive mind might like to ponder why this site has had it’s title changed?
Update
It hasn’t taken long for Cllr. Khan to stop prying eyes from seeing what he is Twittering on about, now you have to request to be a follower. Open government, transparent democracy and all that.
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Mayor shows bottle with Boxing Day bathers.
Cancer charity connects in the chill – picture special.
Hundreds turned out at Littlehaven Beach, South Shields, this morning as the temperature gauge refused to rise above zero Celsius in what has now become an annual Boxing Day tradition, threatening to rival the other local “dip” in Sunderland. Having consumed far too much food yesterday I took a healthy walk down to the beach and back to record these scenes for you, and to allow our ex-pat Geordies abroad to appreciate the fact that Sanddancer hospitality and charitable good works continue on strongly.
As the crowds gathered in the “grassy” car park next to the Littlehaven Hotel, and having raised hundreds of pounds of sponsorship for the privilege of splashing around in the freezing cold North Sea, there were three surprises in store, (a) folks stripping off in cars and walking out into the chilly morning air, (b) the salt laden sands on the beach were frozen solid and iced over, and (c) the Mayor of South Tyneside Cllr. John Anglin was mingling with the crowds dressed in swimming shorts and a flimsy T-shirt – you cannot accuse him of being short of “bottle”.
Shields Gazette reporter Johnny Wilson was his usual zany self, trying the goods in any story before writing about it, he must be the joker in the pack at Chapter Row, and probably the first on their list when party invitations are handed out, although their “snapper” cannot have been pleased (after following Johnny about, the waves gave his canvass shoes a good wash!). I also bumped into fellow Curly’s Corner Shop Message Board members Mr. Angry, Party Girl, and Sless, along with his good wife Deborah who is Westoe’s cancer charity fund raising champion in her own right, then there was former Mayor’s Secretary Fay Cunningham and her partner along with folks from the Missions to Seamen doing their bit to help out after their recent salvation.
At 11:00 the chilled congregation raised the temperature by rushing past me in their bid to become the first to enter the sea, and Cancer Connections, the South Shields based support charity beamed a huge sigh as they neared the target amount needed to provide a respite care facility. Arms and legs and other body parts covered in fancy dress thrashed about in frenzied motions, some even went for the full body immersion and swim, but before long they were out to get quickly dried and changed into warmer clothing as cups of hot tea and coffee were offered along with warming lentil soup!
I tip my hat to the Mayor, I was not expecting him to plunge into the icy waters, and as somebody commented to me on Twitter, as an adopted outsider he certainly displays a lot of passion for this area! Wouldn’t it be great if a few more of our local politicians decided to join in next year and washed away their sins! I congratulate all those who turned out this morning to provide us with this spectacle and to raise money for such a worthwhile local cause.
Well done to all of them!
Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
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A perfect advert for open government.
Brown will not face Chilcott until after the next election
Gordon Brown will be spared the embarrassment of giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry until after the next election, it emerged today.
The Prime Minister, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Douglas Alexander, the Development Secretary, have all been excused because the inquiry wants to remain “firmly outside party politics”.
Commenting on the news Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said:
“Everyone will want to know whether this decision of the Inquiry was influenced by Ministers in any way. The public will rightly ask why it is that numerous officials have given evidence to the Inquiry about their role in carrying out the Government’s policy on Iraq, but not a single Minister has had to face questioning.
“It is becoming clearer and clearer why Gordon Brown delayed setting up the Inquiry for so long after it should have begun its work. His intention throughout has been to ensure that the Inquiry won’t report until after the coming General Election. Now we have the added effect of Ministers not having to give evidence at all before the election. Gordon Brown’s efforts to delay the inquiry have been the very opposite of open and accountable government.”
So, it looks as though they have managed to do a Basil Fawlty then, goose stepping around the stage screaming “don’t mention the war” – at least not before the election!
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How to stir up a hornet’s nest
Have Carswell and Hannan started to put “The Plan” into operation?
Douglas Carswell the Conservative MP has already published a Bill calling for a referendum on continued membership of the EU, and in this post Conservative MEP Dan Hannan sets out ten reasons for leaving the EU, not to be outdone Liberal Conspiracy attempts a rebuttal.
The real fun is in the comments.
Looks like “The Plan” is getting a pre Christmas trial run!
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Photoshop of the week.
Auschwitz sign found
Big up to David Forward at Tractor Stats
(Yes, I know, updates have been light of late, the kids are off school and we are all fighting to get some time on this desktop PC, things should improve after Christmas when the new wi-fi network is up and running.)
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The crackpots are cracking up
BNP on verge of another massive split
Via Harry’s Place
I am grateful to Edmund Standing writing in Harry’s Place about the disbandment of the BNP’s “Reform Group” who are now breaking away and encouraging as many of the 9000 other crackpot BNP members to join them in a reformed National Front. The basis for this schism is the apparent changes to the BNP’s constitution forced upon the white supremacists by the courts, opening up membership to all and sundry.
They are also narked that their leader Nick Griffin MEP is seen to be too dictatorial and in an all too powerful position which the new constitution does little to curtail, they are also less than pleased that Griffin holds the purse strings of the party and that no accounts have been published by the Trafalgar Club which raises cash to directly support the leader.
Well, well,……. oh how they praise democracy when a tiny percentage of the vote propels two of them into the European Parliament, but take a different view on how to run their own organisation.
Edmund pokes some very ironic fun by ending his piece as follows:
A neo-fascist party being led by a ‘dictator’ whose removal is ‘virtually impossible’. Surely not!
I’ve never chuckled so much since Santa got stuck up the chimney! Yes, I know I often call for more tolerance and diversity, but everyone has their limits,
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No need to rage against the machine or stumble over Joe’s climb.
Joe McElderry fails to get No.1 Christmas spot.
So South Shileds’ lad Joe McElderry has failed in his bid to become the No. 1 selling artist in the Christmas singles chart, and Rage against the Machine have won the battle after thousands of their fans seemed to turn the mantra on it’s head (F*** You, I won’t do what you tell me), they consequently did by following the strictures of the Facebook campaign.
But we should shed no tears, either for McElderry, nor cheer to the rafters for the anti Christmas hype campaign of Killing in the Name, there is of course one big winner who will be laughing all the way to the bank, Simon Cowell and his company Syco have a large financial interest in the label (Epic a subsidiary of Sony) which promotes both singles, and he also has Susan Boyle’s album sitting comfortably at the head of the album charts. Which makes one wonder if there were any outside influences in the origins of the Facebook campaign which literally did get people to do what they are told, so successful was the campaign that Jon and Tracy Morter have been offered jobs by Cowell who has a strong appreciation for mass marketing techniques.
Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello were probably not wholly surprised that one of the first congratulatory phone calls they took yesterday was from Simon Cowell, as they prepare for a free UK gig for their fans and the handing over of a nice fat cheque to the UK charity Shelter.
Cowell will lose no sleep as his earnings rise exponentially over the Christmas period, so well is he doing, that while South Shields fans of McElderry dab away their tears they can be cheered by the news that the fledgling plaything of Cowell pop star will whisked away with his entire extended family on a £20000 skiing holiday of a lifetime in a millionaire’s chalet in the Austrian Alps, all financed by Simon Cowell. They will be flying out immediately after Christmas. After that Joe will be off to the States where Cowell appears to have engineered a very lucrative deal for the South Shields lad to try and break into the US teen film market, The Daily Mirror reports:
He is now on the books of Creative Artists Agency, whose A-list super-clients include Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey.
Bosses are convinced clean-cut Joe has the looks and charm needed to crack the huge US teen market.
And they are already in talks with casting bosses at Disney to find a movie role for Joe – tipped to be the next pin-up like High School Musical’s Zac Efron. A source said: “CAA think Joe can be massive in America.”
I bet Cowell cannot wait for the scripts to come in!
It’s wonderful of course to enjoy the fact Joe McElderry’s singing talents were nurtured here in South Shields and that the lad who played a lead role in Harton Technology College’s production of “Grease” may one day be a Disney star, the singing can speak for itself, but the rest is in the hands of Cowell.
The battle between Joe McElderry and Rage against the machine has also captivated my old friend His Grace Archbishop Cranmer who has declared:
One wonders why the people can be so organised about something as trivial as the Christmas No1, but not quite so passionately strategic in their politics.
Perhaps the reason lies in the concealed reality behind this chart battle. For the supreme irony is that both Joe McElderry and Rage Against the Machine are signed to Epic Records, which is part of Sony BMG.
As far as the recording colossus is concerned, they win either way.
So if your motive in downloading Rage Against The Machine was to humble the Sony behemoth, you have failed.
And seeking to wipe the smile off Simon Cowell’s face or deprive Joe McElderry of an instant Number One is indeed a little spiteful.
Perhaps this is why the people cannot be bothered to protest, rise up, and democratise their politics. Sony is a metaphor for the European Union: its tentacles are everywhere, its fingers are in every pie and all roads lead to Rome.
Or should that be Mr. Cowell’s bank account Your Grace?
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Let’s have a vote on the EU
Douglas Carswell MP looks for a vote on continued EU membership
This may either strengthen or wreck his career as a politician, Douglas Carswell MP has tabled a Bill in The House of Commons, The European Union Membership (Referendum) Bill. Following the failure of all of the major parties to fulfill their commitments to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty he has decided that after decades of ignoring the views of the public it is time now to involve us in a decision about our future with the EU.
Naturally, given how government controls Parliament (as opposed to the other way around), my Private Members Bill faces an uphill struggle to become law. But it puts down a marker. It breaks the Westminster taboo. What has been unsaid for too long is now in print on the Order Paper.
If it is too late to have a vote on the Lisbon Treaty – and I think it is – then we need to have a vote on Rome.
I like his sentiments but somehow cannot see this government or the next to acceding to his wishes, but it would be interesting to have the debate and see what arguments are offered for continued membership and what the counter proposals would be for life outside of the EU.
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Thoughts before Christmas
These anti bullying campaigns are getting out of hand.
What sort of warped society are we becoming when a Christian can be sacked for doing what Christians do (i.e. praying for sthe sick) on the ridiculous basis that they have become a bully?
Mrs Jones was then called in by her managers who, she says, told her that sharing her faith with a child could be deemed to be bullying and informed her that her services were no longer required.
Not withstanding the actions of the education authority, it raises questions about the non believing parents who deemed it necessary to make an official complaint. One has to question whether either would raise any similar objections if Mrs. Jones had been an adherent of any other religion?
Peace and goodwill to all men!
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Predating Al Gore on AGW
Margaret Thatcher was in the vanguard
Sorry if this upsets the broader green/left campaigners, but for those who hold an unshakeable belief in anthropogenic global warming and mankind’s blame in climate change, I am grateful to Ellee Seymour for pointing out that former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attempted to get world leaders to agree a common purpose at the 2nd. World Climate Conference in Geneva 19 years ago.
Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order. It’s because we know that, that we are here today.
Just as Gordon Brown jets out to Copenhagen to bash heads together and somehow contrive a deal out of the mess and chaos created by the imbalance of wealth between nations and the political inability to find agreement;
“I know that for many people the Copenhagen conference seems like a grand talking shop with abstract arguments about issues of little relevance to their daily lives. But decisions we take in the next few days have the potential to be the most momentous for the world in more than half a century”
We find after nineteen years that little has changed at all!
Margaret Thatcher, in her speech went on to say:
The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.
Of course, much more research is needed. We don’t yet know all the answers. Some major uncertainties and doubts remain. No-one can yet say with certainty that it is human activities which have caused the apparent increase in global average temperatures. The IPCC report is very careful on this point. For instance, the total amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere each year from natural sources is some 600 billion tonnes, while the figure resulting from human activities is only 26 billion tonnes. In relative terms that is not very significant. Equally we know that the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere date from the start of the industrial revolution. And we know that those concentrations will continue to rise if we fail to act.
Nor do we know with any precision the extent of the likely warming in the next century, nor what the regional effects will be, and we can’t be sure of the role of the clouds.
Always one to speak her mind- plus ca change. (However, it is a speech worth reading, calling for carbon emissions reduction targets long before Al Gore even spoke of the matter, after all she was a scientist before she became a politician.)
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