Archive for November, 2009

‘QUAINT TORY QUOTE’ NUMBER ONE

“We will not allow libraries to close, nor swimming baths, …..” 

Perhaps somebody reading those words, recently penned by the political defector Denis Knowles, might think them plausible.  But Cllr Knowles conveniently refrains from mentioning that he not only voted for the closure of Guinea Gap Baths and Seacombe Library but he publicly declared their closures would be

“… for the greater good …”.  

Later he voted against the funding proposed by Labour to keep them open.  

Go to ‘Libraries’ on our Cloud Tag for more information about this topic.

 ’QUAINT TORY QUOTE’ NUMBER TWO

Anybody wishing to keep Sure Start, or the National Health Service, would be well advised to remember that these were Labour creations.  It is far better to trust the Labour Party that created them than Tory band-waggoners who see a little popularity in jumping on rather late in the day.

With that in mind let’s look at the latest bit of crass Tory misinformation.  Wallasey Tories have just declared: 

“SECRET PLANS by Wirral’s Labour-led Council to slash the help for young mums and dads have been uncovered.    Less than seven days after Angela Eagle MP promised to defend Sure Start, her Labour-led Council announced cuts of £300,000.”  It rambles on:  “The money for Sure Start is being raided by the Council …..”

The truth, as the Tories know very well, is entirely different. 

• No Sure Start service has been cut. 
• The £300k is funding not required for Sure Start in this financial year.
• It has been allocated to other services for children aged 0-5.  

But to print that would spoil their outrageous propaganda wouldn’t it?

Sure Start is an initiative introduced by the Labour Government.  The Tories are clearly trying to save face following national media reports that a majority of them are ill disposed towards Sure Start.  But here in Wirral the Tories have finally grasped the fact that Labour’s Sure Start policy is extremely popular with young mums.   Does that explain why they are so desperate to climb onto and share Sure Start’s increasing popularity?   But there is no guarantee that were the Tories ever to form a national or local administration Sure Start would remain safe.

 Arguing a political case on policy differences is perfectly legitimate.  But when the Tories feel they have to descend to this sort of distortion aren’t they demonstrating contempt for the public they feed it to?

Crude Tory Party plans to politicise the British police seem to be moving a step closer – or would be in the disastrous event that they should ever again form a government.  This latest Tory shift ever further to the right wing of politics is a dramatic departure from the long established British consensus that our Police Forces should not be tainted by Party-political direction.   The links below illustrate just what many of the UK’s most senior police chiefs think of it.   

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8369536.stm 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/12/police-chiefs-row-with-tories

Ever since we pointed to some utter Tory confusion (Click on Tory confusion in our Tag Cloud.) it seems that Cllr Blakeley has been looking feverishly for something to come back on.  Perhaps it is in pursuance of bruised pride that he has lately set himself up as a grammarian, thus to condemn a word from a Labour website article on the grounds that (he thought) it was a spelling mistake! 

A sensible reaction is that the subject matter under consideration is rather more important than typos or spelling mistakes as long as the meaning is clear.   But should Cllr Blakeley control his hair-trigger a little more? 

His professed concern was that the writer of the phrase in question used ‘aweful’ instead of ‘awful’.  Had Cllr Blakeley checked a little further than his computer’s ‘Atlantic spellcheck’, he might have discovered that both spellings occur in the ‘Universal English Dictionary’ and in the eight volume ‘English Encylopaedic Dictionary’. 

But until Cllr Blakeley learns how to correctly formulate his very own address should he in any case set himself up as the custodian of correct English for others?    We wonder how long it is since he took a peek at his clumsily erroneous construction of ’Seaview’ Road in his very own publications.  But if he really wants to indulge his fanciful notion of establishing himself as a teacher of grammar, he need search no further than the published words of his newest Tory Group chum.  There’s often some spelling or syntax there that could be a teacher’s case-study for eleven-year olds.  (We hasten to add that but for Cllr Blakeley’s ’yah boo’ outburst we would not have drawn attention to it.)

However, we are sure our regular readers will want no more of this sort of thing.  We were willing to be drawn into it only because it demonstrates such a juvenile Tory pre-occupation with trivia; it is perhaps rivalled only by their fetish for misrepresentation.  (See ‘Quaint quotes’ below and inTag Cloud.)