Silly Season Strikes

The Herald’s ‘Fur flies over council jolly’ on August 6 represented the best reporting seen in the paper since someone cut and pasted whatever the Telegraph had printed about Michael Howard’s expenses.

It made a welcome change from the previous month’s front pages, which were between bizarre to banal. The first inklings that either news was drying up or hacks and editors were getting lazy was a headline story about 3 girls prosecuted for shoplifting, complete with pics looking suspiciously as if they had been lifted from Facebook. I wouldn’t want to condone any crime, but to splash 18 year old girls who have been caught doing something supremely idiotic across the front page seemed a little OTT.

One of the girls was the daughter of the head of Brockhill School, who had claimed to be cracking down on bad behaviour. The Press Code article 9(i) states: Relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime should not generally be identified without their consent, unless they are genuinely relevant to the story.

Unfortunately I didn’t get round to asking the editor if there is a genuine link between a head teacher insisting on discipline and a teenager being an idiot (even if they are related - the girls are 18), though looking through the cases on the PCC a ruling against the Herald seems unlikely. Stories of burglaries, fights, and drunkenness didn’t make the front page. Oddly the story cannot be found on the http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/ site, but an (alternative) opinion piece is here http://www.my-kent.com/index.php/Kent-News/heads-daughter-in-shoplifting-gang.html.

Following this, on July 23 a mother of a disabled child blasted the ‘piggish’ council for not providing a lift in her home for her disabled son, It was only in the last couple of paragraphs (tucked on the inside of page 3) that the council outlined the lengths it had gone to; “Patio doors have been installed and doors have been widened…The family have been offered a number of other properties which are already adapted…We’ve done everything we can an gone beyond the call of duty because of the relationship we have built up with the family”.

I am definitely not one to give the council undue credit, but here are concrete examples of the good the council has tried to do, rather than the usual evasive and woolly answers that appear. Still, I suppose ‘Ungrateful mum blasts council’ is a difficult headline to carry.

Topping these examples was a July 30 master class in how to make a non-story front page news. Hilarious punning headline ‘Cops don’t give a hoot about me’ kicked off the story of Brian Maxted, a kindly 72 year-old who runs the Folkestone Owl Sanctuary. Brian returned from a brief holiday to find his laptop, £50 cash and stationery missing and was upset that a month after the event a CSI had not visited.

Again, anyone who managed to read the story to the end (turning over to the foot of page 3) would have noted the police response effectively killed off the story. There were no potential leads as “the owner allows many people into his property and has given them all keys”. Neither Brian or the police mentioned a forced entry, leading to the possibility that the nicest take on Brian’s laptop going missing would have been ‘Trusting man victim of theft’. At least that’s nicer than ‘Idiot gives out keys to home’.

I suppose the problem is what can papers do when news is thin on the ground? There are no big meetings or decisions to lead with. There are some summer events, but when one of your reporters is off in Nepal on ‘holiday’ (http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/090803chrisnepal.shtml) I guess news is harder to find.

The Kentish Express appears to lead with human interest type stuff, which is not to be confused with hard news but at least avoids the need to manufacture front page splashes out of total non-starters. Of course all press outlets are in competition with one another, and what better to drive sales than to scream about Pig Flu, Global warming and, err… trusting geriatrics? There may be pertinent issues contained within the stories, but the total lack of any decent investigation in to the issues leaves the locals with shallow sensationalist dross.

Howard Prepares Constituents for Outside Pay Information

In his column in the local rags published on July 2 2009 Michael Howard tackled the issue of his outside appointments. Outside interests have always had to be registered (see ‘Howard in Hot Water’, below).Due to changes in legislation MPs will have to record how many hours are spent on outside interests and how much money is earned.

Mr. Howard writes; “In preparation for the day when I step down, I have accepted a number of outside appointments,” which appears to give the false impression that these are a recent development. Looking back through the Register of Members’ Interests (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem.htm) Mr. Howard has held remunerated positions for years.

“..It is in the national interest for MPs not to be drawn exclusively from the class of professional politicians.” However, the idea that outside interests paying large amounts of money to elected representatives could present a conflict of interests is not covered as he prepares us that “The amounts I earn are significant – I hope you will agree that it is to your advantage to have someone who can command such significant sums from the private sector.”

Mr Howard ends with the news that not only did he refuse to accept pay and pension increases, he is “now … undertaking to make no claim on my Second Homes Allowance for this year,” which looks like an ‘apology-lite’ version of other MPs paying back wrongly claimed expenses while insisting they did nothing wrong. It’s refreshing to know he is earning enough money from outside appointments to not need to claim expenses. Sadly an explanation as to why he claimed these last year is not given.

If anyone is wondering why there are no links to the article, in what must be an unfortunate oversight Mr. Howard’s website has republished the previous week’s column. I have written an email to the site admin so hopefully will add the link soon.

Howard in Hot Water Update

The Right Honourable MP for Folkestone and Hythe gets more than a little miffed on The Daily Politics show...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3qrNAG-txQ. Feeling a bit left out that I wasn't one of the angry locals emailing him. I wonder if they got a similar response?

No Election Bliss for Conservatives

Conservative Councillor Robert Bliss (for he remains the leader of Shepway District Council) has lost his seat on Kent county council by 11 votes to Lib Dem Tim Prater. The Shepway Conservative website is bemoaning the influence of UKIP for splitting their vote (http://www.shepwayconservatives.org.uk/index.php?sectionid=3&pagenumber=400), and looking at the results on the Kent county council website and attempting to use my rudimentary and very rusty maths they seem to have a point.

While the Lib Dems are pleased with becoming the official opposition, they are a tiny minority in a sea of blue(http://www.kent.gov.uk/Kcc.eGov.Elections.Public.Site/CountyPage.aspx).

Across the county, Labour lost 19 of 21 seats. In Folkestone North the proportion of the conservative vote dropped by over 11% the Lib Dem share also dropped by over 6%. In Folkestone South the Tory share dropped by over 5% while the Lib Dem share also fell by over 3%.

In losing by 11 votes (less than 0.1% of the vote), perhaps Conservative HQ and councillor Bliss might reflect on the standard of their communications (see posts below). In addition to poorly written letters, the Lib Dems have been much more media savvy in comparison. Tim Prater and the Lib Dems have been seen to be more active over local issues such as pot holes, street lighting and the Leas Lift, while the Conservatives seem to do little except get exasperated at queries to their decisions.

The Leas Cliff lift saga has been something of a gift to opposition parties. The water powered lift is leased from the Radnor estate and although it is a loss making exercise, it is seen as something of a symbol and a selling point for the town. The terms of the lease place onerous financial obligations on the council. On March 18 the Conservative-dominated Cabinet of Shepway council voted (with press and public excluded due to sensitive commercial information being discussed) to terminate the lease with immediate effect.

This prompted a hastily organised protest (with, of course, the Lib Dems http://shepwaylibdems.org.uk/news/001485/this_is_shepway_report_folkestone_leas_lift_protest_draws_crowds.html). Petitions on the Lib Dem website followed, as did letters to the local rags chimed with vocal locals. The decision was ‘called in’ – sent back to the cabinet by the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee - who on April 15 decided to keep the lift running, but the damage had been done. It may be best to close the lift, but the way the conservatives on the council went about it gifted the Lib Dems photo calls, petitions and an opportunity for populist politics.

At the time of writing a final decision has not yet been reached on the future of the lift. I am not suggesting that the Conservatives are wrong or right on the lift issue – without transparency how will we know? I am suggesting that with some foresight, some empathy with local issues and an understanding that they need to connect with local voters 12 more people may have voted and councillor Bliss would still have his seat on Kent county council.

The Guardian of Moral Standards?

On June 2, after Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle’s spectacular slump (apologies!) to defeat in BGT, and subsequent frontpage based MELTDOWN, The Guardian showed its moral superiority to just about every media outlet on the planet. Informing us ‘ITV in the spotlight after ‘exhausted’ Susan Boyle checks into private clinic’ The Guardian was critical of the fact that Boyle had not been ‘psychologically tested’ by Talkback Thames, the production company.

On the same day in an article titled ‘Who’s to blame for Boyle’s distress?’, The Guardian pontificated (via Linda Blair) ‘it’s easy to pick on the media or the shows’ producers, but in my opinion a large part of the responsibility lies with us, the general public.’ Don’t shoot the messenger eh?

Nowhere in either article on Boyle’s breakdown is it mentioned that a search of ‘Susan Boyle’ on The Guardian website brings up 84 articles in the last 30 days, including:

· May 29, ‘Susan Boyle ‘under pressure’ before Britain’s Got Talent final’
· May 29, ‘Susan Boyle dreamed a dream, now TV stress has become her nightmare’
· June 1, ‘The Susan Boyle freakshow’
· June 1, ‘The media can’t diagnose Susan Boyle – and we shouldn’t try’
· June 3, ‘Britain’s Got Talent: fewer than 20 complaints over Susan Boyle’ (so that’s ok then)
· June 3, ‘Susan Boyle: press warned to back of Britain’s Got Talent star’

Continuing this theme, The Guardian showed its questionable moral fibre in its reporting the death of David Carradine. Intrusion into grief or shock (or the avoidance of) is part of the press code and surely the desire of any decent, human reporter, http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/day/code/codeindex.shtml




so how leaving it till line 5 before the how, where and when of his death was at best horribly insensitive – you can read the details easily yourselves. The story was posted at 15:14 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/04/david-carradine.

Not content with running the story next to a fun hangman game running on a loop (this is a constantly changing advert space, so keep refreshing), a comment section rapidly filled with shocking off colour remarks. On unmoderated forums, anything goes, but The Guardian?!? Some took over 30 mins to take down, or were requoted later in the threads. Despite the ever increasing number of awful comments, readers were told by moderators at 4:24pm that it was good to have some sort of tribute forum, presumably leaving the readers to wonder what forum the moderators were referring to. At 4:36 the moderators closed the comments.

At 18:58 the story was reposted here without a comments section, just a more respectful web address http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jun/04/david-carradine-kungfu-dead.

Update 1 - On June 4 Polly Toynbee, in writing about James Purnell's resignation, used the opening metaphor 'Another engine breaks away from Gordon Brown's fuselage, and the damage done looks set to bring him crashing out of the sky.'

Howard in Hot Water

As the expenses revelations continue I can’t have been the only one interested to if any dirt would be thrown up around our MP for Folkestone and Hythe the Right ‘Honourable’ Michael Howard. And on June 1 dirt was quite literally what we got with The Telegraph’s ‘Howard’s £17,000 Claims For Gardening’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5418996/MPs-expenses-Michael-Howards-17000-claims-for-gardening.html.

Mr. Howard has not commented at length or in detail on the expenses scandal, nor divulged any of his own claims, stating repeatedly in his columns in the local rags (http://www.michaelhowardmp.com/articles/120509.htm http://www.michaelhowardmp.com/articles/050509.htm) that he will wait for the results of the investigation being carried out by Sir Christopher Kelly, the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

If he was hoping to escape the Telegraph investigation, he has failed. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Howard justifies the gardening expenses as ‘within the [much debated] rules’ – for a refresher on the Green Book, see here http://www.parliament.uk/about_commons/hocallowances/hocallowances06.cfm (the link to the Green Book is at the bottom of the page in the text). Remember they must be "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties." (p.3)

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) he has long made clear his intention to step down at the next election so we won’t get the chance to cast him out of Parliament. Whilst batting away suggestions he should publish his claims and avoiding detailed comment on his own expenses, Mr. Howard has used his column to repeatedly state that “everything to do with the remuneration of MP’s – pay, pensions, allowances – should be decided independently. MPs should have no say in them”. Changing the rotten system is the focus, rather than MPs who claim for gardening and such like.

However, for all his support that MPs pay and allowances should be decided independently his recent voting shows that the Right ‘Honourable’ member for Folkestone and Hythe does not feel this should extend to employees of MPs. On April 30 Mr. Howard voted AGAINST a motion (http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2009-04-30&number=108&mpn=Michael_Howard&mpc=Folkestone_%26amp%3B_Hythe&house=commons) that

‘…would mean that instead of the MPs receiving an allowance with which they could employ assistants and staff, the employment contracts would be between the staff and Parliament directly, who would pay their wages directly and set standard terms and conditions.’

Perhaps Mr Howard wants to keep a close eye on his office staff. It might be worth mentioning that Mr. Howard employs his wife (a bestselling author and part-time model), although according to The Independent on a salary of less that £10,000 (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sixty-tories-claim-16340000-each-to-employ-relatives-869721.html). She may do a fair day’s work, but if the MPs themselves set the terms and conditions, can the voters be expected to trust what they are told or judge what is fair and reasonable?

Again on April 30, Mr Howard voted AGAINST full and complete disclosure of directorships and other remunerated employment, (http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2009-04-30&number=106&mpn=Michael_Howard&mpc=Folkestone_%26amp%3B_Hythe&house=commons), which would have disclosed the following:

· the precise amount of each individual payment made in relation to any interest,
· the nature of the work carried out in return for that payment,
· the number of hours worked during the period to which the payment relates, and,
· the name and address of the person, organisation or company making the payment (except where disclosure of the information would be contrary to any legal or established professional duty of privacy or confidentiality) .

which seems a little suspicious given that on the Register of Members’ Interests (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/michael_howard/folkestone_and_hythe#register) Mr Howard has 5 remunerated directorships, several entries in the ‘remunerated employment, office, profession, etc’.

We are entitled to know this as apart from questions of transparency (which is one of the real issues with expenses), impartiality and possible conflicts of interests, MPs should be performing parliamentary duties. Mr. Howard has stated politics is not for the money, a statement that will be cheapened somewhat if we find out he has been somewhere else for the money rather than representing his constituents' interests. From May 14 2001, Mr Howard has attended around 44% of votes. I wonder if we will find out where he may have been and how much he was earning during his absences.

- update, 2nd June, Telegraph reports Mr Howard has diverted over £44,000 to the Folkestone and Hythe Conservative Association. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5425235/MPs-expenses-Michael-Howard-paid-44000-to-Conservatives.html)

Conservatives Kick Off Council and European Election Drive

As the next set of elections get closer (County and European), the political parties in the district are becoming much more visible. Activists and candidates are handing out various pamphlets and newsletters in the town and by the stations, the distinctive luminous-orange diamond-shaped placards of the Lib Dems are appearing in gardens and windows, Labour's almost non-existent presence seems limited to angry letters in the Herald and KE. The Conservatives have sent out letters (see right) which include a registrations form for postal voting. These forms should be returned to Conservative HQ, where the Conservatives will check the forms and submit them on your behalf.

Whilst the Conservative letter has irked the Lib Dems, with Lynne Beamont declaring it legal but not morally right, it may just be sour grapes that they missed a trick. Although it seems to be sailing close to the wind I can't come up with a watertight argument why they shouldn't do this. A non-too-in-depth search on the rules of what is permissible hasn't come up with anything either. The Conservatives aren't voting for you - they're merely registering you.

My problem with the letter (aside from the awful style and shabby presentation - where was the proof reading!?! What aboutfewer than than 4 colours for text?!? How about not trying to get every possible permutation of font / size / italics / bold text into one letter!?!) is that national politics are shamelessly exploited for local gain.

Whilst Gordon Brown is trapped in a very slow drawn-out and public car crash (although his own individual problems are perhaps lessened by the maelstrom that is engulfing Westminster as a whole) the many facets of which I do not need to detail here, surely candidates for Shepway and Kent elections should focus on local issues? Councillor Robert Bliss, Shepway District Council Leader and Kent County Councillor for Folkestone West waits till the sixth paragraph before mentioning the benefits he has brought to west Folkestone. The offer to help people with local matters amazingly gets in at P.P.S. level (after the option to help Cllr Bliss's campaign with your time and /or money). This is after an exhortation to

'send a very powerful message to Gordon Brown and Labour' (colours as original)

followed by some comments reminding us of the Lib Dems problems when in power, and a reminder that a General Election could be called with only 17 days' notice.

Precisely what influence County Councillors have on national governance (and therefore what voting Conservative at local level will acheive) is not stated, nor for that matter is Kent County Council's negligence/carelessness (http://kentonline.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=61229 ) in chucking money into Iceland's banks after other councils had already seen the writing on the wall. Shepway's position as the 388th most improved council over the last year out of ...err... 388, under the leadership of ...err... Robert Bliss is also unmentioned. The assertion in the letter (above) that Kent County Council is the best in the country is not referenced, and interestingly not mentioned on the Kent County Council website.

So what's the point of this blog? I suppose it's a post born out of exasperation. With trust between the electorate as a whole and elected representatives of all parties as low as I can remember, can't those politicians that can make local-level differences at concentrate on how to improve people's lives rather than flinging national-level shit at each other? Why isn't there a grass-roots rebirth of the elected representing those who elected them rather than concentrating on the filth and power play at the top? Where is the re-generation from below?

Why are national level politics infecting local level politics? Perhaps because the idea of party politics and the partisanship that comes with this has permeated power structures to the detriment of managing, governing and representing the electorate. And why am I apathetically sitting here, writing this rather than changing it myself? Perhaps because the strength of the idea of party politics and the partisanship that comes with this leads me to feel that I cannot change anything.