Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Blog pressure vindicated

This is good and welcome news indeed from South Tyneside Council, car parking is to be made cheaper and easier in South Shields, it’s a reasonable compromise and offers a better deal for short stay trips into the town centre for shoppers. I thank those on South Tyneside who have been responsible for responding to local concerns expressed both here and in the local press.

I’ve been posting my comments about attracting visitors and shoppers to South Shields for a long time here, here, here, here, and here for just a few examples from the many. It’s good know that these thoughts and ideas are being listened to and acted upon.

South Tyneside Council’s leader Iain Malcom said:

“We have listened to what local people and the local business community had to say about parking and I believe this will be a huge help to them.”

I hope we are not about to read some inane comments from certain Independent councillors in South Tyneside who plagiarised my words and jumped on this bandwagon recently.  I made the point in this post:

Devoid of policies I said, and with good reason, having already spouted about special parking schemes for South Shields shoppers, an idea first proposed here, today with recession biting hard, with job losses rising fast, with credit and loans for new schemes difficult to come by, with council budgets about to be formulated for the next year, with the council tax base being decided this week, with a council tax increase looking likely again, just what strategic and important issue do you think the Independent Alliance chose to attack the Labour Party about? Graveyards and cups of tea!  Local readers will note that the Alliance does not appear to have tripped over the headstone issue before, I wonder where they read about it? However tea and biscuits was much more up their street, even though my blog post of 5th. January was only meant to ask some questions comparing South Tyneside to other local councils, I guess Curly’s Corner Shop must be a favourite read for Alliance councillors. Please though dear reader, please be aware that I am not in any way the author of Independent Alliance policies in these parts, but they are more than willing to feed off the efforts of others.

Rather like Gordon Brown and his attempts to rekindle “Old Labour”, when short of a policy or two, it’s easier to steal ideas than think them up yourself.

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……if Brown is defeated on expenses votes?

Interesting comments from Alex Hilton at Labour Home this morning

A former Cabinet Minister is rumoured to be prepared to stand as a stalking horse candidate to trigger a leadership election if Brown loses the expenses vote tonight.

I have phoned this MP seeking confirmation of his position but he has not yet returned my call.

As we discussed earlier, the big question has to be whether or not it’s too late, or whether the British public could stomach another unelected Prime Minister  before we get a chance to decide who we want? Remember, the only people who have ever voted for Gordon Brown to be anything are a few thousand in Fife. He didn’t even face an election to become leader of the Labour Party!

Any phone calls yet Alex?

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Letter of apology and resignation

Bet that headline caused a few hearts to miss a beat in South Tyneside

Carlisle Lib Dem Steven Tweedie has apologised for running a website attacking local Labour MP Eric Martlew. Mr Tweedie has spoken to Mr Martlew and written a letter of unreserved apology for his “negative tactics and ungentlemanly behaviour”. The city councillor for Dalston has also quit as the party’s parliamentary candidate at the next General Election.

Found at Lib-Dem Voice

See, sometimes these attack sites come back to bite the wrong bum.

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The beginning of the end?

Gordon Brown’s authority as Prime Minister lies in tatters this morning after his government lost a Commons vote called by the Lib Dems yesterday on the issue of settlement rights for the Gurkhas. Despite standing whips at the doors of the voting lobby to hector and bully MPs into following the Prime Minister’s line to defeat Nick Clegg’s motion, 27 Labour MPs defied Gordon Brown and dozens more sat on their hands and abstained refusing to give their support to a man seen to be out of touch with public opinion. This is the first time that Brown’s administration has lost a vote on an Opposition Day Motion and the last time such an event happened was during the government of Jim Callaghan in the 1970s, it came as a surprise considering the size of Labour’s majority and illustrates the determination of backbenchers to do what is right rather than do the Prime Minister’s bidding.

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats deserve a lot of credit in moving the issue yesterday after Clegg humiliated Brown during Prime Minister’s Questions accusing him of being “evasive” and shameful in his replies to probes over the rights of retired Gurkhas to settle in the UK, David Cameron led his Conservatives into the lobby with the Lib Dems and and Labour rebels to give Brown thoroughly deserved defeat. Brown and Jacqui Smith then astoundingly sent Home Office Immigration Minister Phil Woolas back to the House to give a statement later in the evening, when MPs were rightly expecting the Home Secretary herself to explain the government’s position.

Yesterday’s vote is not binding on the government but they whave to come back to the Commons with proposals which will find support from all sides of the House, the Gurkhas and their supporters particularly Joanna Lumley (whose father was with the 6th Gurkha Rifles for thirty years) can be very proud of their campaign through the courts and the lobbying of Parliament securing another famour victory for the regiment. After the vote, the actress Joanna Lumley was outside Parliament flanked by cheering Gurkhas. “I can’t tell you the sense of elation, the sense of pride – pride in our country, pride in the democratic system and pride in our Parliament – we can change things,” she said.

The government could face further trouble today as a series of votes is held about Brown’s proposals to deal with MPs expenses, another issue where his ideas seem out of step with the House of Commons and the public mood, some Labour MPs are not in the mood to give Brown their full backing and neither are the Conservatives or the Lib Dems who see the prospect af an allowance just for turning up for work as “bring the Brussels gravy train to Westminster”. Labour MPs despaired of the Government’s handling of these issues, one said: “It’s an end-of-empire kind of event, the sort of thing that happens when a government is in decline.”

Should Brown’s authority be challenged again today and should the government lose any votes then perhaps we can say that the end of April marked the beginning of the end for the Blair/Brown era, as the government fails to win the support of it’s own backbenchers. There can be no doubt that Tyneside MP Nick Brown, the government Chief Whip, will be fully occupied today trying to enforce the will of his leader against recalcitrant rebels in Labour’s ranks. This has been a marathon term for Labour and we are now clearly in the final mile of a very long stretch, it looks as though it is starting to run out of legs with some of it’s supporters dropping by the wayside. Failure to keep it’s own supporters happy and invigorated will allow the others to come sprinting past.

This Prime Minister is now limping towards the finish line, it remains to be seen, with local county council elections and EU elections in June, whether Brown will actually make it.

Brown will not be enjoying some of this morning’s headlines:

• Stench of death reminiscent of John Major’s last days in office – Peter Riddel, The Times
• Brown suffers humiliating defeat in Gurkha vote as Labour MPs rebel – James Kirkup, The Daily Telegraph.
• Suspicions of panic of a Prime Minister who’s at his wits end - Quentin Letts, The Daily Mail
• Victory: brown’s bid to ban Gurkhas thrown out by angry MPs – Martyn Brown, The Daily Express
• ‘Ayo Gorkhali’ the Gurkhas are coming – George Pascoe Watson, The Sun.
• Gordon Brown’s waking nightmare – Simon Hoggart, The Guardian

Political commentator Iain Dale analyses the government’s position in this video

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED3L3L-9EZI&fmt=]

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Jarrow MP reverts to cinema classic tribal war

What a busy month Stephen Hepburn the MP for Jarrow has had, he started on April Fools Day by asking questions about how much money has been spent on sport in schools in Jarrow and South Tyneside, and a question about pleural plaques, on the 20th. April he is again asking about funding for sports in Jarrow and trying to find out exactly how many medium and small sized businesses there are in his constituency (yes, it does make you wonder how he does not know these things, has he tried South Tyneside Council’s Website?). Two days later he wants to know about clean coal (if such a thing exists) as he winds himself up to remind us all about the heroic miners and the 25th anniversary of the strike. Two days ago he asks when the national minimum wage is going to go up, despite the government and employers being strapped for cash and the private sector looking as though it will be trying to freeze wages as inflation falls through the floor, and then yesterday he comes up with this corker!

I read with interest at the weekend that certain celebrity millionaires, such as Sir Michael Caine, are considering leaving the country because of the Government’s tax moves. Could they be reminded that it is ordinary, hard-working people, who pay money to watch their films, who put them where they are? We should give those celebrities the message that if they cannot support services for those hard-working people, such as the national health service, when the country is going through a bit of a problem, good riddance to them, and we should say, “Don’t come back.”

Yes, it’s back to the days of tribalism and class warfare for Hepburn, never mind the fact that if hundreds of high earners, who are about to be punished for enjoying the Prime Minister’s ‘light touch’ regulation on the banks which greatly led to the start of this recession, leave the UK then the prospects for a recovery will be greatly diminished. It is their enterprise, and the huge risks that they take (in offering their houses to banks as security on funding) that leads to investment and the growth of the small to medium businesses that he is at pains to learn a little about. It is mainly their hard work, effort, long hours and constant worry that creates jobs for people in his constituency, however let’s just tax them until they reach the point of leaving shall we?

Mr. Stephen Hepburn has done little or nothing to entertain us in the way of offering viable ways of regenerating the north-east other than to applaud and honour Brown and Darling as they’ve nationalised everything in sight and spent our tomorrows as well as our yesterdays, he has shown little sympathy for the little people who will be paying the most in taxes and reduced services for the next three decades to pay for Labour’s mountainous mortgage on the UK, just remind us Mr. Hepburn (in an entertaining way) just how much it cost us tax payers to look after you if you please, oh yes, a little over £142000. Not very entertaining after all.

Having learned now that he has some businesses in Jarrow that will struggle to get past this Brown induced recession, he finds the best way to help them out is to revert to chucking a spear at Michael Caine for daring to suggest that Labour is punitive, has he listened to those in the Labour Party who are already warning that throwbacks to 1970s politics are a sure path to a heavier defeat than they already deserve?

I first watched Michael Caine in Zulu at the Regent Cinema, Westoe, South Shields way back in 1964, I think it was his first decent role in the industry and he has continued to entertain us ever since. The best entertainment we can expect from Mr. Hepburn is his appearances for the Commons football team! Keep watching and find out how Caine deals with spear chuckers.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1csr0dxalpI&fmt=]

A word to Sir Michael Caine, if you ever bump into the MP for Jarrow, just try and think on, ‘you’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’.

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Thousands?

Thousands queued to get in?

I was there at mid morning in the marquee erected in South Shields Market Place, I saw nobody recording or counting numbers coming or going. How did they calculate that 3500 people visited?

Should I show some pictures of the thousands that I plainly and imaginatively saw?

Should I show you the bored stall holders sitting glumly behind their tables?

Were you there, were you one of the thousands who bought “distinctive goods made by talented artists and craftspeople from around the region”?

I am now awaiting the announcement that last weekend’s Continental Market was a massive success, when clearly it was not.

Is this news management and spin of the worst type?

Update

take a look for yourselves, click thumbnails to enlarge

Update Thursday 30th. April

Just spoke to lady who had a stall in this marquee, said she saw a council employee with hand held ‘clicker counter’, she reckons the decimal place must have been accidentally moved, she doubts whether she saw 350 visitors all day!

Can someone tell us the truth, was this market a massive success or not?

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Labour Home in turmoil

This post on the Labour grass roots blog is worth reading, it is full of angst and anguish. One of the major strands which comes through in the comments is that Gordon Brown lacks any real people skills or charisma, quite apart from the economic malaise or the loss of some of his tribal bullies and enforcers, the writer opines that Brown should go and be replaced by a second unelected Prime Minister during this Parliament. He considers in the comments that a more popular labour Party leader could then call an election, still face defeat, but at least come out of the other side without totally destroying the Parliamentary Labour Party, they really think they are staring a wipeout in the face.

I guess the point being made is that although the country is facing an economic disaster partly created by 12 years of Brown’s stewardship, a Prime Minister with some sort of charisma, charm, and likeability might just limit the damage! A comparison is made with John Major, who presided over a government running out of steam and fresh ideas in the 1990s yet he still managed to poll the highest number of votes for the Conservative Party EVER.

Here’s a selection from the comments:

by ACLB on Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 02:38:56 PM GMT

Hmmm, I don’t mean to sound like a bragard but I did think he would be a disaster. I actually heard him speak live in 2005 to a fairly small room, and was overwhelmed by how he was even worse in private(ish) than in public.

He had less charisma than John Major, a fact which blew me over at the time – how could someone so lacking in people skills climb so high? How had this been allowed to happen?

by DevonChap on Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 04:12:00 PM GMT

John Major won an election “barely”! He got the most votes EVER. Blair never got anywhere near the 14 million votes Major won. It is true that he got a small majoirty but that was down to hwo the votes fell (the electoral system was begining to show the anti-Tory bias we see today). Even in 1997 he was still an asset, more popular than the Tories as a whole.

Comparing Brown to Major is a huge injustice to Sir John.

by ACLB on Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 03:32:13 PM GMT

He is Nixon, he is Richard Milhous Nixon born again.

by DevonChap on Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 04:45:55 PM GMT

The defence of Brown strikes me as being like the Black Knight in Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail. Wikipedia descibe him as “Although supremely skilled in swordplay, he suffers from unchecked overconfidence and a staunch refusal ever to give up”. As we all know King Arthur fights him, cutting limb after limb off, though he refuses to surrender saying “’tis but a scratch,” “I’ve had worse”, “it’s just a flesh wound!” until he is totally limbless and King Arthur rides past him truimphant.

At what point do you admit Brown has lost all his limbs and his fighting on is just an embarrassment?

by NB on Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 06:03:16 PM GMT

Precisely. It is completely unfair to compare him to Major – Major had very good people skills and won an election that was universally considered lost.

I genuinely don’t think the Electorate will forgive the Labour Party if they are forced to endure the most incompetent and unpopular PM since polling began for another 14 months. The credible “worst case” scenario, that Labour will be made bankrupt and collapse as a political force, will become highly likely.

The best hope that I can see of getting rid of him before then is signing that petition. If it reached well over 2M signatures he’d have to go.

by Floating voter on Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 10:27:22 AM GMT

You do realise that those on the right thank the Lord for Brown each night when they say their prayers? They view him as the political equivalent of swine flu and a huge electoral asset for the Tories.

But really, if they had to replace him now, then who is the one with the personal touch and the charisma to limit the size of the feared defeat? Harman/Harperson? Miliband, the elder or the younger? Balls? Johnson? Straw? Purnell?

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Poster series

I’ve been toying around with some “Call me Dave” graphics which I’m thinking of donating to Tim Montgomery at Conservative Home, it’s just a question (while we wait for some solid economic policy announcements on public spending, and tax rates) of finding the right “change” sort of campaign message. What do you think?

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge – you may use them on your own site if you wish with a suitable link back.

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Mandarins put to work censoring cleaning up site

The 10 Drowning Street website has been a busy old place this last couple of days with the petition asking the Prime Minister to resign almost reaching the top five petitions by size, this morning there are almost 26000 signatures on it – go sign it now. Conversely there is also a petition asking the Prime Minister to stay, yes you do wonder at the motivation of some people don’t you? This morning this petition had 30 signatures (see picture below) and has been causing a whole heap of problems for the No. 10 civil servants charged with looking after the project, at one stage yesterday evening there were over 100 signatures on it, the majority from people just making the point that Gordon should still go by using invented names to lampoon or abuse the poor Scot, who we must remember has never been elected to the august position, (Iain Dale had fuller details yesterday). So the IT staff in the Brown Bunker set to work cleaning off a whole host of names, over a hundred were removed, and as Guido pointed out the site went offline while they made excuses.

I guess if they started removing signatures from the petition then we would only be left with those who genuinely feel that Gordon Brown should stay, but if the current position is true (and the petition jammers have started again) then I can only see six that might be genuine!

Six, that’s all!

You do wonder about the value of the site when this sort of behaviour is allowed, although I suppose you could argue that at least they are starting to get the message.

Time to break out in song I think

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH21LEmfbQ&fmt=]

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Conservative campaigning making use of  t’internet

I like this, I really do.

First off a little video from a clever party chairman, Eric Pickles, introducing us to the Conservative’s election “war room” and explaining how we can get involved in the broadband battle to oust the Labour Party.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg8DpA3o1X0&fmt=]

Then if your appetite is whetted you can click here to go to the “Campaign Together” map, here you can zoom in and follow the map pins to find the nearest Conservative Campaign that you might like to help out with, and if your association (say South Shields for instance – just a little hint) wants to organise something and attract a few local volunteers to help out, then all they need to do is drop a little email to

campaigntogether@conservatives.com

This is just the start of innovative electioneering using the internet as political parties begin to get more ‘engaged’ with a younger generation of voters who are more IT literate, expect to see targeted email campaigns, polls, questionnaires, and adverts in your favourite blogs, not to mention the requests for your cash!

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