Lets talk about leaflets.
Conservatives are doing leaflets.
They are, you might have guessed,. expensive. There are a lot of pictures, and its bland.
No, its not bland.
Its irredeemiably dull, its toe curlingly, balls achingly, sick makingly, desperately uninteresting.
This really has to find a home within a collection of current artefacts setting out exactly how politics were conducted in Sutton Coldfield in the early 21st Century.
Someone,-the publishers name is Rhoda Gilbert,- someone has listed words best able to inspire the electorate then smashed them together, then spread them carefully and evenly through the text, then popped irrelevant pics at random intervals. Fonts are sometimes blue and sometimes black. And amazingly, they’ve mislaid City Boy’s snaps.
So we have “delighted, vital, warmly welcomes, pleased, great news, hugely successful, much needed, extremely pleased, particularly pleased, great news, great success, applauded.” And all at carefully calibrated intervals throughout the text.
This is happyland. It is an uninterrupted hymn to the joys of living under the loving protection of Conservative Councillors in Sumptuous Sutton.
Are they mad?
Who is this for?
Or is it me. Perhaps the sight of Councillor Pears in gardening trousers wrapping his tonsils round ‘This is great news for Trinity’ or a slightly pink Councillor Mrs Waddington aggressively positioned before a field, does it for the silent majority of Sutton Coldfield.
I’m afraid there are darker reasons. This demonstrates, encapsulates the awful truth of such politicians. This is not meant to be read. It’s not for the electorate. Its for themselves. It is the modern equivalent of whistling to keep the spirits up.
The fact that it means nothing is depressing enough. The ultimate choker is that this garbage is pumped out precisely at that point in Sutton Coldfield’s history when a lead, any lead is desperately needed to point the way forward.
The Town is dying on its feet. Its leaders are posing in the political equivalent of Zoo magazine.
You get in the boat, I’m looking for a lifejacket.
Nightwatchman
Friday 23 November 2007
Friday 16 November 2007
Does my bum............
Every so often, Nightwatchman becomes overwhelmed.
It all becomes too much; the distress is caused by the Good, Bad and the Heavy of Sutton Coldfield grimly reelecting another eager crop of mouth breathers determined to look after us for another term.
The Boy Andy is, of course, the epitome of such tendencies. Turns up as the regulation plump, white, middle class, expensively educated City Boy and is clasped to the substantial bosom of local party. For ever.
Which is fair enough. He did get in. Nightwatchman is a democrat to his very core. But I do think we should all play our part in making absolutely certain that Standards are Maintained.
Sad, then, sad to say that Nightwatchman has detected just those signs of inexorable decay.
Andy has made a point, since his beatification from depths of dodgy Nottingham, of shovelling material into the grateful maw of the Sutton Coldfield weekly papers. I doubt a week has gone by that Andy’s photo has not adorned the local pages.
There is a very considerable strain involved here. Persuading constituents up and down the town to face the camera cheek by jowl with amiable publicity freak. There is some evidence that when Andy comes to Town (is it once every month?), streets are emptying. Mothers grab their infants, fathers, grim faced have taken to patrolling possible photogenic sites.
And our MP is looking increasingly desperate. He is casting further afield for likely victims (subjects).
Last week, it all started to unravel.
Not only did Andy fetch up with Friends of the Earth – a very unlikely place for a Tory MP.
But horror of horrors, the man was practically undressed. Shirt hung limply over straining waistband. Trousers could have done with a press. Collar was distinctly not of this morning. Tie was nondescript.
Tell me he wasn’t aping the Cool Dude.
Nightwatchman
It all becomes too much; the distress is caused by the Good, Bad and the Heavy of Sutton Coldfield grimly reelecting another eager crop of mouth breathers determined to look after us for another term.
The Boy Andy is, of course, the epitome of such tendencies. Turns up as the regulation plump, white, middle class, expensively educated City Boy and is clasped to the substantial bosom of local party. For ever.
Which is fair enough. He did get in. Nightwatchman is a democrat to his very core. But I do think we should all play our part in making absolutely certain that Standards are Maintained.
Sad, then, sad to say that Nightwatchman has detected just those signs of inexorable decay.
Andy has made a point, since his beatification from depths of dodgy Nottingham, of shovelling material into the grateful maw of the Sutton Coldfield weekly papers. I doubt a week has gone by that Andy’s photo has not adorned the local pages.
There is a very considerable strain involved here. Persuading constituents up and down the town to face the camera cheek by jowl with amiable publicity freak. There is some evidence that when Andy comes to Town (is it once every month?), streets are emptying. Mothers grab their infants, fathers, grim faced have taken to patrolling possible photogenic sites.
And our MP is looking increasingly desperate. He is casting further afield for likely victims (subjects).
Last week, it all started to unravel.
Not only did Andy fetch up with Friends of the Earth – a very unlikely place for a Tory MP.
But horror of horrors, the man was practically undressed. Shirt hung limply over straining waistband. Trousers could have done with a press. Collar was distinctly not of this morning. Tie was nondescript.
Tell me he wasn’t aping the Cool Dude.
Nightwatchman
Thursday 8 November 2007
Flying
It is with a heavy heart that we return this week, reluctant as always, to the question of integrity.
Andy has been away. He’s been on his travels. And this wasn’t just a day trip. It was 65,000 miles around the globe.
Now, in itself, this is not a bad thing. Travel broadens the mind and Sutton Coldfield is of limited attraction in the gray half light of a West Midlands November. And Andy does have shadow responsibilities for Foreign Aid. So we look to be as sympathetic as we can be on the subject of travel.
But, sadly, we have seen an unseemly wrangle in the press over who actually is paying for Andy’s odyssey.
Actually, that’s not true. There has been no response at all from Young Lochinvar. No debate, no justification, zippo. The attitude is ‘Lets not go there!’ or at least ‘If we go there, lets not talk about it’.
The story, briefly, is that when Andy wants to get over to Rwanda, he calls up Tory benefactor Lord Ashcroft and says ‘Alright if I borrow the private jet?’. Ashcroft has a Falcon 900 and he is extremely generous with its use. No strings are attached to this, he just likes helping important people. And Andy.
There is, of course, no problem with the principle of using the thing. But Parliamentary Rules insist that you declare what you spend.
Nothing would please Nightwatchman more than to report that Andy has lodged every penny of the expense with the beak.
It wouldn’t be true. One can’t unbalance the totals with tens of thousands expended on private flights to Africa – better to declare flights at jumbo rate.
Once again, this is not a hanging offence – it’s a bit of a smoothy – its not what it seems.
But this is from the guy who received a Standing Ovation from the Tory Party Conference on the theme of ‘Openness and Accountability’. I kid you not.
Our MP wanted to know what is spent where in poor countries. Nightwatchman could sign on to that. Could we start with ‘How you got there?’
And that’s not all.
Andy grabbed the opportunity of photo op in the Sutton Observer last week.
The happy recipient of hearty handshake was the local representative of Friends of the Earth. Was he aware that the Private Jet carrying 3 passengers would generate a level of pollution 10x the quantity spent by any passenger in a jumbo.
I’m sure Andy was.
Nightwatchman
Andy has been away. He’s been on his travels. And this wasn’t just a day trip. It was 65,000 miles around the globe.
Now, in itself, this is not a bad thing. Travel broadens the mind and Sutton Coldfield is of limited attraction in the gray half light of a West Midlands November. And Andy does have shadow responsibilities for Foreign Aid. So we look to be as sympathetic as we can be on the subject of travel.
But, sadly, we have seen an unseemly wrangle in the press over who actually is paying for Andy’s odyssey.
Actually, that’s not true. There has been no response at all from Young Lochinvar. No debate, no justification, zippo. The attitude is ‘Lets not go there!’ or at least ‘If we go there, lets not talk about it’.
The story, briefly, is that when Andy wants to get over to Rwanda, he calls up Tory benefactor Lord Ashcroft and says ‘Alright if I borrow the private jet?’. Ashcroft has a Falcon 900 and he is extremely generous with its use. No strings are attached to this, he just likes helping important people. And Andy.
There is, of course, no problem with the principle of using the thing. But Parliamentary Rules insist that you declare what you spend.
Nothing would please Nightwatchman more than to report that Andy has lodged every penny of the expense with the beak.
It wouldn’t be true. One can’t unbalance the totals with tens of thousands expended on private flights to Africa – better to declare flights at jumbo rate.
Once again, this is not a hanging offence – it’s a bit of a smoothy – its not what it seems.
But this is from the guy who received a Standing Ovation from the Tory Party Conference on the theme of ‘Openness and Accountability’. I kid you not.
Our MP wanted to know what is spent where in poor countries. Nightwatchman could sign on to that. Could we start with ‘How you got there?’
And that’s not all.
Andy grabbed the opportunity of photo op in the Sutton Observer last week.
The happy recipient of hearty handshake was the local representative of Friends of the Earth. Was he aware that the Private Jet carrying 3 passengers would generate a level of pollution 10x the quantity spent by any passenger in a jumbo.
I’m sure Andy was.
Nightwatchman
Thursday 1 November 2007
Its a Learning Process
“The elected members of Trinity Ward have never received any
Representations from members of the public regarding this issue and I strongly disagree….”
Nobody does pompous like your Sutton Coldfield Councillor. And Councillor Parkin threatens to rewrite the genre.
He needed but one opportunity to forge ahead of an impressive field, ahead of better known contemporaries – experienced players such as Councillor Howard and the frighteningly consistent Councillor Roy. He is now going to be difficult indeed to dislodge from pole position.
Pomposity does not grow on trees. The condition needs to be nurtured, to be tended carefully in the darkest reaches of the soul. So the impact, when your Councillor reaches for the levers, puts the pompous bone into gear and lets rip, is likely to be impressive indeed.
We have, however, a tiny caveat; a small thing really. It’s to do with the target. Pompous needs to find exactly the right combination of victim and cause. It is essential that pompous at very least aspires to come in on the brighter side of moral rectitude. And the victim is really really important. Very necessary to identify weaker prey prior to majoring on overbearing windy rhetoric.
Councillor Parkin’s performance has exhibited some weaknesses here. His chosen ground was a formal application to change some of the voting arrangements in Trinity Ward. This is, of course, an apolitical process necessary to tidy up anomalies in representation.
So when Parky chooses this subject to unload all those years of ‘little guy angst’ his aim was true.
It was just the wrong target.
I think we would have to award him an 8 for delivery. But subject matter? Oh Dear!. If Parky is to maintain his early promise, someone needs quickly to take him aside and explain (slowly) the workings of the ward boundaries unit.
And when the receptor of windy rhetoric is seen visibly not to have crumbled, has not in fact burst into tears, gives no impression of pressing the panic button, another advisory session looms. Parky has come a long way in a short time but he needs a refresher on Phase Two.
Parky needs urgently to know how to retract. With our without leaving dignity intact. To know how gracefully to manoeuvre the U turn without, as it were, breaking stride.
Andrew Mitchell could help him here.
Nightwatchman
Representations from members of the public regarding this issue and I strongly disagree….”
Nobody does pompous like your Sutton Coldfield Councillor. And Councillor Parkin threatens to rewrite the genre.
He needed but one opportunity to forge ahead of an impressive field, ahead of better known contemporaries – experienced players such as Councillor Howard and the frighteningly consistent Councillor Roy. He is now going to be difficult indeed to dislodge from pole position.
Pomposity does not grow on trees. The condition needs to be nurtured, to be tended carefully in the darkest reaches of the soul. So the impact, when your Councillor reaches for the levers, puts the pompous bone into gear and lets rip, is likely to be impressive indeed.
We have, however, a tiny caveat; a small thing really. It’s to do with the target. Pompous needs to find exactly the right combination of victim and cause. It is essential that pompous at very least aspires to come in on the brighter side of moral rectitude. And the victim is really really important. Very necessary to identify weaker prey prior to majoring on overbearing windy rhetoric.
Councillor Parkin’s performance has exhibited some weaknesses here. His chosen ground was a formal application to change some of the voting arrangements in Trinity Ward. This is, of course, an apolitical process necessary to tidy up anomalies in representation.
So when Parky chooses this subject to unload all those years of ‘little guy angst’ his aim was true.
It was just the wrong target.
I think we would have to award him an 8 for delivery. But subject matter? Oh Dear!. If Parky is to maintain his early promise, someone needs quickly to take him aside and explain (slowly) the workings of the ward boundaries unit.
And when the receptor of windy rhetoric is seen visibly not to have crumbled, has not in fact burst into tears, gives no impression of pressing the panic button, another advisory session looms. Parky has come a long way in a short time but he needs a refresher on Phase Two.
Parky needs urgently to know how to retract. With our without leaving dignity intact. To know how gracefully to manoeuvre the U turn without, as it were, breaking stride.
Andrew Mitchell could help him here.
Nightwatchman
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