Leicester Mercury political correspondent
Archive for July, 2010
Advice to newly-elected MPs – be more like Rees-Mogg
Jul 11th
Leicestershire has three ‘fresher’ MPs in this Parliament, and the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts has some sound advice to all newly-elected Parliamentarians.
Discussing “throwback” Jacob Rees-Mogg he wrote:
Jacob has put in plenty of hours in the Commons. He has sat at the far end, watching, learning.
He has not asked patsy questions. He has not been a blowhard.
He has kept his distance from ministers and is a lesson to Westminster’s stooges and government grovellers and soundbite-spouting careerists.
All power to his angular elbow.
It’s worth reading the full article here.
Kerching
Jul 7th
Amongst Leicestershire County Council’s job listings for care assistants (£11,000 pa), learning assistants (£13,000 pa), and a maths technician (£14,000 pa) is an ad for a new communications director.
Expect plenty of applicants because the salary if hefty – between £65,697 – £74,910.
Public sector spending restraint in action…
The Soothsayer
Jul 2nd
On Sunday Lord Mayor Colin Hall used his Twitter account to warn the Mercury to expect a “fiery week”.
If I was Coun Hall, I’d put a lottery ticket on this weekend, because he clearly has the power to see into the future:
- On Monday his attack post against me and the newspaper was pulled by council bosses.
- On Tuesday his trousers fell down in front of a library full of schoolchildren.
- On Wednesday the story made international headlines.
- On Thursday the leader of the opposition said he had undermined the historic office.
A ‘fiery week’ indeed. Have a good weekend everyone, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
“Eric Pickles is big and fat”
Jul 1st
It’s rare that I blog about my old patch up-north, but I couldn’t resist this.
Frank Sidebottom-lookalike cabinet member Ed Malcolm was secretly recorded at a public meeting calling communities secretary Eric Pickles “big” and “fat”.
At first glance it’s simply childish, but when you consider that Ed is lead member for finance at South Tyneside Council, and Pickles is the man holding the purse-strings on local government, you realise it’s rank stupidity. Things go wrong when he isn’t reading from a pre-prepared statement.
Ed, a man who prefers to toot words out of the corner of his mouth rather than pronounce them, was suspiciously lost for words following the incident. Presumably he’ll be more careful when doling out his pearls of wisdom in future.
People of Houghton and Sunderland South, you have had a lucky escape.
Belt-gate: 24 hours later, a ten word statement
Jul 1st
One of my contacts tipped me off yesterday about a development in the pants-down controversy of Lord Mayor Colin Hall.
A brief text said simply: “The Lord Mayor ignored advice from civic staff to wear belt. They had even bought him one.”
I approached the city council’s press office with the claim at 3pm yesterday. They responded just before 3pm today with the following response:
“We have no further comment to make on this matter.”
That’s a ten word statement which took 24 hours to prepare.
In other news, the council’s desperate hunt for inefficient non-frontline services to cut continues…
Biggest blog week ever
Jul 1st
-
Twice as many visitors this week than any other week
-
Hits from the Houses of Parliament soar
-
More hits yesterday than the three previous busiest days combined
