Originally published @ 5:48 pm, Tue 14th Jun 2011
... is a pretty catchy title. I wonder if anyone has every used it?
Came to mind when I was reading the blog of one of Nottingham Labour's most withering critics. Suspicious of the big leap in postal voting in the city, he thought the Labour Party was up to something so put some figures together about the last 3 city elections that emphatically prove that ... er, there's not much to be said about it really, but he'll have a bit more of a think about it in case. http://ncclols.blogspot.com/2011/06/some-more-on-postal-votes.html
The reason for the growth in postal voting - convenience - is even conceded, but still - conspiracy! And it overlooks the big leap in [turnout] following the 2004 East Midlands experiment in the European elections of compulsory postal voting.
A similar attitude has overtaken a former Lib Dem Cllr who both decries councillors who are party hacks and exemplifies it by a speech he once made, which he now decries. http://www.alexfoster.me.uk/2011/05/11/advice-for-new-councillors/ Yep, Lib Dems seeing both sides of the argument again. This former councillor then goes on to blast a new and young Labour Councillor for her tweets apparently exemplifying party “hackness” - when she's managed about 10 in her first fortnight. Get in.
This former councillor tweets upon all aspects of his life and I guess I wish I could match it. Kinda. Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
I know Ryan Giggs doesn't have to try - the media do it for him. I didn't bother with the Daily Mirror yesterday because of its front page. http://www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/frontpages/archive/Daily_Mirror_13_6_2011.jpg Presumably it would have been a story if Giggs had not paid £500 for his sister-in-law's abortion. But don't we all deserve privacy in our family lives - even if we think it hasn't gone well?
But politicians - well they deserve scrutiny - don't they. Especially Sarah Palin. It is astonishing that we are able to see 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin's e-mails. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/sarah-palin-emails Guardian readers have joined in on a survey of them all and after 21,000 checked, it seems there's no smoking gun. The process of checking random pages is curiously addictive, up until about the 10th page of "not interesting" and "not significant". Some of that included 2 e-mails for people from elsewhere across the States congratulating her upon the birth of her child Trig. Sarah Palin's supporters are now saying she's been singled out.
Surely the issue is that decisions to use public resource has to be done with a proportionate level of supporting paperwork that allows some form of accountability; not whether a politician receives good will messages or not. Still work to do to get this right.
Meanwhile, the Tax Payer's Alliance have protested against ideas aimed at reducing the costs of public services. After the ConDem gov't have finally acknowledged that they can't require weekly collections of general waste, the Alliance are exposed for not always wanting to reduce costs.