Go George go!

Gah! Punkscience and Bryan beat me to it!

This response by George Monbiot to Hazel Blears is probably the finest and most articulately angry piece of political writing I've read this year, and reminds me why the Guardian, for all its weaknesses, is still the best newspaper in the UK.

I follow our local MPs Stephen Hepburn and David Miliband's Parliamentary action on theyWorkForYou.com. George's comments could equally be applied to our lot here in South Tyneside for their continuing ability to put party before principle and ethics.

And if that wasn't enough, in the same day George reminds us why micro wind turbines are useless on the urban home, and how the Tories tried to sex up their green credentials by putting so much store in them.

Tesco Vile

Tyne Crossings Alliance honcho Paul Winch has another target in his sights, and it's the supermarket that helps itself to more than a little: Tesco. He has a new site Hebburn:TescoVille?, to chronicle Tesco's bid to add Hebburn to its list of retail fiefdoms and the campaign to stop Hebburn from becoming another carbon copy town where local business makes way for giant retail sheds.

Key in the list of charges is that a developer and retailer were chosen before South Tyneside Council put it to public consultation.

And this is the council that praises itself for consultations?

A borough near Newcastle

I've come to the conclusion that our borough has a really crappy name. South Tyneside. A boring mid Seventies bureaucratic name born out of a post socialist miasma designating more of a geographical position than an identity. Just saying it, South Tyneside, and you're stifling a yawn. I can see why our folk in the council have a hard time selling the area. The name is little more than a soulless pin on a map instead of an icon to fire the imagination. South Tyneside doesn't say 'winner', it says 'well, whatever'.

It's so boring it often gets downgraded to an abbreviation. ST - even that conjures up a soporific image of a settee.

So perhaps here in South Tyneside we need a new name. Something that encompasses the three main towns of South Shields, Jarrow and Hebburn. A proper name that sticks in people's minds. A name you'd be comfortable saying, 'I come from xxx', without having to add on the end almost apologetically, 'near Newcastle'.

I haven't thought of something that doesn't sound like a wanky car name, so a referendum is probably the way to go, but avoiding the likes of the ironic 'Spirit of the Tyne', where a black joke became the name of the Tyne ferry which was built in Portsmouth.

Better not tell the council though. If they get in on the game they'll be signing cheques to branding consultants before you can say 'Comedia'.