Bernie’s “Back to the Future” team “gets things done”
Team Bernie wins Berlin GP 1937
Having successfully created Formula 1’s first “back to the future” open wheeled racer, Bernie Ecclestone entered a team into the Berlin Grand Prix in 1937 and promptly showed Hitler how to “get things done” by beating the streamlined Mercedes Benz W125 “silver arrows”. Team Bernie entered four cars (to match the Germans) driven by Scot David Coulthard, Finn Mikka Haakinen, Brazilian Ruebens Barrichello, and German Michael Schumacher, and after taking four of the first six places the team supremo stated:
“I’m delighted, that showed that we know how to get things done, and it’s great to have a little dictator at the helm of the team, so that my direct decisions can have ultimate influence on the sport”.
Race winner Schumacher said:
“Bernie, I can see my house from here”
German Script Association writer Gunther Pencilhoffen remarked:
“This team arrived from some place in the future, there is no doubt that the cars are good but let’s be honest these guys are all a bit barmy, just look at the suits they are wearing. Anyway, so far as we are able to learn, anyone who has tried to donate his fortune away to Britain’s Labour Party of the future, with it’s war mongering leader Blair, has to be as nutty as a fruitcake.”
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Parents barred from school sports day
To protect the kids from perverts?
How ridiculous, the best protective measure would be to allow the parents to line the sports field.
Yesterday my son’s school in South Shields held a sports day at Monkton Stadium Jarrow!
Six double decker buses were hired to transport the children, parents were not invited at all, and the children received notification the afternoon before - his school has sports fields of it’s own.
I think we are all going slightly barmy in this country.
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David Miliband in another gaffe or two
The Foreign Secretary
The “Frank Spencer” in Mr. Bean’s government.
First off the South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary flies to Dublin to meet his Irish counterpart and promptly forgot what he was wearing when he left the house that morning. He turned up wearing someone else’s jacket that he’d picked up on the plane (which thankfully wasn’t hired on our behalf), displaying all the sartorial dis-elegance of bumbling Frank Spencer.
Next he decides that India is not to receive any more foreign aid from Britain because it is now too rich and can afford a nuclear programme, then he promptly goes to Parliament to apologise and say that he got it wrong, India is actually still poor (lovely little scoop from Paul Waugh), the Speccie Coffee House blog picks up on the story and then goes on to chide some of Miliband’s supporters:
After the abortive coup of last summer, the banana and Heseltine moments, the embarrassing trip to India, his failure to follow James Purnell’s lead during the recent spate of ministerial resignations, and now this, you’d think that few people would take Miliband seriously any more. But I still find it remarkable how may Labour folk I speak to still regard him as leadership material.
I guess we won’t be seeing Miliband lining up in the carnival in South Shields this afternoon, he probably realises there are enough comedians in it already.
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Ashley auctions off the family silver
Shirts being given away at club shops, just turn up and ask.
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Patience folks, patience
I am away from my desktop for much of the day in Newcastle (at least before any rain arrives), any new posts today will be late afternoon or early evening.
Update
Horrendous drive into Newcastle today, an accident on the A1 at The Angel of the North seemed to force evreyone onto other roads and the tailback started at White Mare Pool, 2 hours later I reached Manors. A brisk walk through the rain along New Bridge Street and Blackett Street and into Old Eldon Square brought me to APM Camera Repairs at No. 6, where I deposited my Pentax for professional cleaning of the ccd sensor. I decided to leave it with them in the little workshop hidden away in the attic and spent the rest of the day in town before collecting the camera late afternoon.
Quite enjoyed rummaging about in some of the older parts around the Quayside and finding a bit of Newcastle’s history before going back to get my camera. I’ve been plagued with a huge rash of dust spots for some time which were proving almost impossible to remove with a blower brush, so it is now the right time to say a big thank you to Tim Richardson, Chief photographer at The Shields Gazette, for suggesting APM to me. All cleaned up for the princely sum of a tenner! (I was expecting to pay much more.)
Took a few shots before getting back to the car and even at f22 there are now only three very faint marks on the sensor, I can live with that.
Traffic on the return journey was light, until I reached The Robin Hood in Jarrow, couldn’t believe the queue, three breakdowns in the space of about 400 yards were to blame.
Oh well, decent day out and much more confident about getting some decent pictures of our councillors camping it up in South Shields tomorrow during the Cookson Parade.
If you have any problems with your digital cameras, or even old film cameras, give APM a call on 0191 2212340, I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out.
South Tyneside Independent Alliance continue to peddle lies
More dishonesty on leaflets distributed in South Shields today
Leaflets published by Cllr. Jane Branley the leader of the Independent Alliance group of councillors on South Tyneside Council are today being distributed around the town by a distribution company. This will not be a cheap exercise!
Their propaganda department must have been hard at work creating the legend/story surrounding Mr. Allen Branley’s expulsion from the council after failing to attend any meetings for the past six months. They continue to lie and spin the line that he has resigned, a line repeated in an interview given to South Tyneside Central TV, the Indy’s preferred choice of media outlet. Branley was THROWN OFF the council, it is NOT possible to resign a seat which you no longer hold, his letter/s of resignation were an afterthought after discovering that six months had gone by since he last attempted to represent the people of Westoe ward in South Shields.
TELL THE TRUTH!
Let us have a look at the first page of this leaflet:
So first off, the wealthy socialist dentist and property developer from Westoe Village wants to be the town’s MP, watch out Mr. Miliband, and his candidature is likely to give other candidates plenty of ammunition to fire with. Next Jane repeats on Allen’s behalf, the same allegations printed on the newsletter delivered in the Westoe ward, if they had any firm foundations they would have given the evidence to the police – so far, they have failed to do the responsible thing, preferring instead the spread of rumour and innuendo.
The leaflet then spends a paragraph complaining about the poor behaviour at council meetings and the undignified manner in which South Tyneside is becoming portrayed to the wider world, it lays the blame at the feet of everyone else without realising that when we point the finger, three other fingers point back at us. WAKE UP FOLKS, the people who have not read or understood the council’s Constitution and Standing Orders are the very people who have written this leaflet. Don’t expect to get a fair hearing when you shout everyone else down or make it plain (as Jane Branley did in an interview with ST Central) that you are going to ignore the rules. This is another lie to suggest that the rules and “tactics” are being used to stifle the voice of the Independents, nothing could be further from the truth, and if they took the time to study the council’s own rules then perhaps they might learn to use them to their own advantage.
The leaflet then states that a female Independent councillor was assaulted by a male Labour councillor and that another Independent councillor was the subject of racist abuse. These are more lies. There are only allegations and accusations at present no charges, no court cases, and no accused found to be guilty, just ask a policeman!
Let’s look at page two:
Mr. Branley, realising that his failure to attend meetings has caused a very costly by election, offers to pay the costs of holding it. Talk about bribing the electorate! I’m not awfully sure about the law here but it sounds highly irregular and I doubt whether the Returning Officer would view such financial interference with the electoral process with much favour, I think I should ask him.
Allegations of fraud, theft, financial irregularities etc. should be taken to the police, that would be the responsible reaction of most people Mr. Branley, but why do you keep repeating them? Plainly because mud tends to stick and someone has decided that it’s time to play dirty.
Then there is another thinly veiled attack on The Shields Gazette, the UK’s oldest provincial nightly newspaper, just what is the “special relationship” between the Indys and JAG Productions?
I am plainly a supporter of Conservative principles and policies and until recently I had no axe to grind with this diminishing faction of the opposition in South Tyneside, I hate to be put in a position of supporting political opponents but I believe that fairness and truth deserve a hearing. We are not getting that from the Independent Alliance, they are spinning a web of lies, half truths, and dishonest information to cling on to a seat which is plainly undeserved.
Mr. Branley now has an appalling track record of being thrown off the council for failure to attend not once, but twice, the publisher of this leaflet, his wife Jane, has also suffered the same consequence in the past, people who have failed their electors do not deserve to be given the chance to represent them again in the future and this message needs to spread as widely as possible in this borough.
If you live in Westoe ward please give this some serious thought, you deserve a councillor who is going to turn up and speak on your behalf at meetings, not someone who peddles lies to keep their seat.
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More on Labour’s cuts
Some honesty from Gordon Brown would not come amiss
Video recording from Jeff Randall’s show on Sky News
The poster of the video had this to say:
The ticker says that Gordon Brown did not mean to say 0% growth, this is a New Labour lie. If I can get hold of that interview with Gordon explaining himself, you can see he’s spinning yet another lie to cover what he said in PMQs earlier today (01 July 09).
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Gordon gaffes again
Mr. 0%
OK so I’ve meandered away from local issues for a moment. I missed PMQs yesterday but thankfully Crown Blogspot has this video up on YouTube, do give it a watch.
Incredible, eh?
Just as we were beginning to get used to Gordon’s lies about Labour’s public spending cuts, someone coached him to come out with this belter!
Related posts around the blogosphere
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Disgraceful reporting
“News” website and blogger both mired in controversy
According to South Tyneside Central TV and the Mr. Monkey blog, South Tyneside veteran Labour councillor Bill Brady was arrested and charged with assault and battery yesterday, ST Central were trumpeting at viewers to watch for confirmation today. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth and both websites have since amended their content to show a statement released by Northumbria Police:
We can confirm that a 74-year-old man attended South Shields police station voluntarily yesterday, Wednesday, July 1, 2009, to assist officers with enquiries in relation to the alleged common assault at the Town Hall, Westoe Road, South Shields, on Thursday, June 25.
Enquiries into the incident are continuing.
There has been no arrests or charges at this stage.
Having set themselves up as a sort of journalistic outlet one might have hoped that ST Central would at least have had the good grace to offer an apology to Mr. Brady, as perhaps a newspaper might have done if it had committed the same error, we all know that mud sticks. I would not, of course expect Mr. Monkey to issue an apology, why change course now?
As we have seen before, and one might have hoped that the anonymous blogger might have realised, you cannot delete the internet, and few of us have any control over Google
I’m sure Cllr. Brady will not be amused. Nor would he be happy with this Google News Alert
As the Twitterjacks who wrote the spoof Miliband Twitter page remarked;
“It does highlight the importance of the verification of sources, which is clearly becoming more difficult in the web 2.0 era.”
Surely not that difficult, I’ve managed it with a couple of emails and a Google search!
In other “news” ST Central tells us that Allen Branley intended to resign from the Alliance group, and then from the council, and then they carry an embarrassing and nervous video interview with him where he describes the ridiculous “David Davies” moment that he had, and how intends to fight the Westoe by election as the anti-sleaze candidate. Once again he makes no references whatsoever to his failure to attend meetings and represent the people of Westoe, nor does he acknowledge any part of the shambolic behaviour of the Independent Alliance group or his wife at council meetings, he seems to blame the appalling behaviour of councillors entirely on others. It is also revealed that he intends to fight David Miliband at the next general – just to throw the Independent Alliance cat amongst the pigeons.
No wonder he sweated and huffed and puffed his way through that interview.
Local students of South Tyneside’s political theatre may notice a certain amount of correlation between the “news” brought to us by ST Central, and the posts displayed at the semi official “fanzine” of the Independents, recently ranging from the Allen Branley affair, the accusations of assault against Geraldine White, the Ahmed Khan/George Elsom accusations and the general chimps tea party atmosphere at last week’s full council, the two sites virtually share words at times. It makes you wonder if there are any ties between certain of our politicians, who openly cannot stand the Shields Gazette, and the “news” website, part of JAG Productions – just asking, that’s all.
Oh and a final point, how did they get this? I thought that photography within the council chamber was prohibited.
Update
JAG Productions reporter firmly embedded amongst the Independent Alliance supporters in the Town Hall this afternoon, was this just coincidental?
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A unified response is called for
Politicians in South Tyneside should firmly refute this insult and deceit
I am a little surprised that so far there have been no public pronouncements on the matter of the former South Tyneside Independent Alliance councillor Allen Branley. Mr. Branley who represented the Westoe ward in South Shields was thrown off South Tyneside Council for the second time in his political career for failing to turn up to any meetings, yet he has the sheer audacity to announce himself as a candidate in the ensuing by election and attempts an almighty deceit by telling the people of Westoe that he has resigned.
Let’s be perfectly clear, this is not the truth, Allen Branley was fired again! Mr. and Mrs. Branley have now been thrown off South Tyneside Council three times between them.
I think it would be rather appropriated for the Leader of the local Labour group of councillors Iain Malcolm, the leader of the Conservative group David Potts, and the leader of the Liberal Democratic group Joe Abbott, and any other interested councillor who wishes to participate, to produce a unified statement condemning the action of Mr. Branley and re-iterating the point that he has failed to uphold the standards required in the 1972 Local Government Act.
It needs to be made perfectly clear that this man is deliberately deceiving the people of South Shields, our politicians ought to take a lead in this.
Related Posts
- South Tyneside Independent Alliance dwindles further
- Branleys have “previous”
- I resign!
- Allen Branley to seek re-election
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