The Bristol Blogger

Looks like Kerry McCarthy is having something of an Alan Partridge moment over on her blog …

A few offhand comments on Dutch coffee houses, cannabis and the smoking ban seem to have attracted the attention of those sane and rational folk at FOREST. So far today she’s had 61 comments and still counting.

Aaaah the joy of the internet!

Meanwhile the vegan MP is also reporting she’s turned down an invite to the National Pig Association’s parliamentary launch of “a report highlighting public sector procurement patterns of pork and bacon”. It’ll be interesting to see how they take the news …

“Bristol City Council still plans to introduce “pay-as-you-throw” rubbish collections - and residents could end up having to buy bags for their waste,” thunders today’s Evening Cancer.

Who’d've thunk it?

Er, anyone who read The Bristol Blogger nine months ago for starters!

In recognition of this, The Bristol Blogger - in a little recycling initiative of our own - will spend the time between now and next February reprinting all its own stories all over again and call it news.

The Blogger wrote a letter recently to Venue in response to an article on local bloggers, which featured this blog. Of course I can’t link to the actual article because they still don’t put their editorial on the internet …

They featured a fairly random selection of blogs although, oddly, the article was fronted by two Tory blogs - James Barlow and Charlotte Leslie - while they found no space for Labour’s Kerry McCarthy, one of the few blogging MPs in the country.

Of The Blogger, they said because it’s written anonymously it wasn’t accountable, which elicited this response:

Thanks for the free plug in the blog article last week.

I was a bit bemused, however, by your claim that the Bristol Blogger “is anonymous and therefore unaccountable…”.

How does that work then? The last time I looked bloggers are subject to exactly the same laws - slander, contempt, copyright etc. - as any other publication such as yourselves.

And let’s be honest, even the dim and overpaid Oxbridge tossers at Carter Fuck and Partners or any other set of fancy city libel lawyers could find out who I am in the space of two phone calls if they needed to.

As for public accountability; while it ain’t perfect, I’m directly accountable to the public through the operation of an open and unmoderated comments system on my blog, which - as far as I can tell - is vastly more accessible and directly accountable to the public than anything offered by yourselves.

However much you ostentatiously publish your bylines and talk about accountability, the truth is that you - like any corporate-owned media - aren’t accountable to the public in the slightest. You’re actually accountable to a group of wealthy and anonymous Northcliffe shareholders aren’t you?

Oh, and when are you going to put your magazine on the internet?

Regards,

The Bristol Blogger

So guess what happened? The self-styled experts on media ethics didn’t print it! So much for their accountability and my right of reply then.

As one door closes another one opens …

The Bristol Blogger is pleased to announce that the ink is now dry on a deal signed earlier today with Bristol United Press, owners of the Evening Post, Western Daily Press and Venue, and the Blogger is now installed as their new and groundbreaking Transport, Regulatory Issues and Political Editor.

The deal, which could be worth up to £300k over the next five years, will find the Blogger writing political leaders and providing in-depth, local political commentary across all BUP titles as well as producing a weekly politics section for the Bristol Evening Post that will include an outspoken opinion column.

BUP Group Editor Mike Norton said: “This is a fantastic appointment for the group. It continues our commitment to bring the very best journalism and writing to Bristol and the West Country and will help to beef up our newspapers’ political coverage.”

The Bristol Blogger said, “This is great news. It’s always been my dream to work for the Bristol Evening Cancer.”

Look out for the Blogger’s first column EXCLUSIVELY in the Bristol Evening Post tomorrow, Tuesday 1 April.

From Lib Dem, Councillor Emma Bagley’s blog - translations welcome:

What became apparent towards the end of this topic was that was going to be no stretch target (aka a performance indicator) under the new local area agreement. No stretch target, the incentive to do things becomes seemingly diluted when it comes to funding bids. This would obviously be a bit bad given the nature of the subject.

I understand that 100% of the referals to the family intervention unit include D[omestic] V[iolence] in some way or form. We would be cutting off our nose despite our face.

No doubt she tows the line as well …

Looks like the city’s digital quango, Connecting Bristol, have called in the professionals to show us how this blogging lark should be done.

“Announcing the Connecting Bristol Bloggers,” trumpets the website.

“A series of Special Guest Bloggers will be contributing their views, thoughts and experiences of technology, innovation, digital inclusion and life, here on the Connecting Bristol Blog,” we’re breathlessly informed.

So over the next couple of months we’re going to be treated to no less than seven Connecting Bristol Bloggers. Although - and this sums up the powers-that-be’s attitude to this city and its people rather nicely - only one of them, as far as we can tell, actually lives or works in Bristol.

But then you can’t go around willy-nilly spending your budget helping and supporting actual real Bristolians can you? They could come out with anything.

Instead we’re being treated to various random Nathan Barley characters - all CONsultants, natch - from London and an academic from Leeds who can, er … Come out with anything they feel like!

But first out of the blocks is regional quangocrat Julie Harris, who describes herself as “Regional ICT Champion for the third sector here in the South West”.

Has she won some competition then? Not sure - as “the mission to explain” doesn’t seem to figure high on Ms Harris’s agenda and instead we’re left to guess what her curious jargon actually means.

We do learn however - not really surprising this, for someone on the public payroll - that Ms Harris has just organised and attended the Rural ICT Conference.

Alas we’re not told what that’s all about either, but Julie assures us “it really was a great event,” which is good news.

And today Julie’s doing some research ahead of another - no doubt great - event, “which is bringing together people from public, private and third sector organisations to look at the development of local ICT ‘hubs.” Because, apparently, sticking computers in village halls in Devon is going to save the planet.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Julie assures us. Certainly is if the government pays you sit around coming out with this half-arsed nonsense.

A blog combining Bristol University, the Conservative Party and wealthy students you say. For real?

It appears so. And one of the first items on the new BUCA (Bristol University Conservative Association) Blog finds our new student idealist friends getting straight down to serious business and arranging their invitations to Tory Party front bencher, the appalling Caroline Spelman’s bucks fizz reception happening next week.

This could easily be the work of some new and as yet unknown comic genius in the city. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, the entirely unremarkable Ashley Fox, Tory Councillor for Westbury-on-Trym has somehow managed to get himself a gig as a Tory Euro candidate at the next EU election in 2009.

To support his efforts, the militant europhobe’s set up a blog - Fox 4 Europe. All decked out in the Union Flag, it’s actually a fascinating insight into how reactionary and unsophisticated the Tory Party still is at the grassroots.

Not at all what “Ordinary” Dave Cameron and his Notting Hill public relations lackeys would have us believe that’s for sure.

Bristle KRS was rather taken with a headline in Thursday’s Evening Cancer:

ACKER BILK BAULKS AT SILAGE BAG EYESORE

Which is pretty good stuff. But it’s generally been a good week for Cancer headlines. Here at the Blogger we were quite impressed with Tuesday’s:

‘COLOMBIAN SOLD FISH NOT DRUGS’

And also:

VICAR TERRIFIED BY LAWNMOWER ATTACK ON HOME

On that note, we’re off to see our good friend Carlos to get some pure, uncut haddock - line caught, natch.

A couple of nuggets added to Charlie Bolton’s blog today …

First we learn Bristol City Council is spending £43,000 a year on bottled water. Perfectly reasonable really. How can we possibly expect council officers to drink water out of a tap any more than we can expect them to pay to park their cars when they go to work like anyone else; do anything resembling what is generally understood as productive work or follow simple instructions laid down by their bosses?

Then we learn that Labour transport boss Mark Bradshaw, the architect of plans to concrete over the railway path, has expressed formal interest in turning Bristol into a “Cycle City”.

Apparently Bradshaw is saying, “Bristol City Council is committed to supporting an increase in cycling in our City … Our aim is to enhance and expand smarter choices, including cycling, and not to undermine this progress.”

Welcome. You have now arrived in a place beyond parody.

Looks like New Labour’s TOP SECRET Robotics Division have been working overtime in their TOP SECRET lab deep in the bowels of the Houses of Parliament.

And we can report that the K3RR4 model that’s been so badly malfunctioning over the last few months is once again fully operational and back in service.

Yes, Labour’s Bristol East MP, K3RR4 McCarthy’s blog is back! After two long months of silence, systems manager, Dougie Alexander has allowed the K3RR4 three computations in just 24 hours.

However, despite the apparent rebuild and recalibration, the K3RR4 model still contains that annoying repetitive default mode that has to report to you all the time how hard it’s working; still has a tendency towards uttering the nonsensical - Barack Obama? Really resonates? - and it still comes with that unsightly and distinctive brown nose function as standard. Yesterday’s Spectator Coffee House blog reports:

Labour’s Kerry McCarthy asked a planted question [at PM's questions]: youth unemployment is down 55% in her constituency. Really? A brief check suggests those on benefits simply shifted into other categories. There were 10,610 on benefits in Bristol East in August 1999 (the earliest figures available) and 11,970 in May 2007 (the latest available). This is what she should be worried about.