Oh Lord!

The really surprising thing about the crooked lords story is that everyone appears to be surprised. For some reason there seems to be a meme which says that all those who get into the top house do it through hard work and sacrifice and for purely altruistic reasons.

Not shy of grabbing an opportunity to bash the opposing teams, Blair clone Nick Clegg demands that peers caught with their trousers around their ankles should be kicked out. Not to be outdone, Tory toff leader David Cameron wants the peers behaving badly expelled. The lords must be shitting themselves. These guys call themselves leaders for change?

If these bozos really want change then let's bin the House of Lords. Being based on favour and reeking with priviledge, the concept of the lords is corrupt. Democratise the seats in the upper house and force it's members to be selected through trial by election instead of seats passed on by papa or given for favours and cash.

What more fitting way to start introducing proportional representation than by removing the least representative body in Parliament?

Massaging the pain

And the figures. As part of their stormtrooper fest at the Kingsnorth power station demonstration, the police manipulated a pliant media to paint a picture of participants hell bent on violence and terrorism.

Lib Dem MP David Taylor unearthed a list of horrific injuries police received during the event, which tells a chilling story of ruthless hippy demonstrators and of real courage under fire by our brave boys in blue:

"stung on finger by possible wasp"

"officer injured sitting in car"

"officer succumbed to sun and heat"

"pain in lower back"

"toothache"

Absolute carnage.

The horror, the horror.

Not invited to the party

It seems that the Gazette enjoys a cosy relationship with the local 'old school' politicos in South Tyneside, if this weekend's stunt, grandly described as an 'election broadcast', is anything to go by.

The leaders of the Lib-Dems, Labour, Conservatives, Progressives, and the two flavours of Independent (despite the indies not being officially registered as political parties) were all offered the opportunity to produce a short video clip to be streamed from the Gazette's website, along with attendant publicity in Saturday's edition of the paper.

However, two parties were left out in the cold by the Gazette. The Green Party and the BNP.

The Gazette (the editor I presume) excused this arbitrary decision on the basis that the Greens and BNP don't currently have councillors. This justification doesn't stand up to scrutiny - unless of course you resort to the juvenile 'it's my ball' gambit.

The 'no councillors' argument falls victim to simple reasoning. Even the neurologically challenged of the BNP could manage to muster a couple of firing synapses and make a simple deduction - if you withhold publicity from selected parties, the relationship between publicity and voting means there's a reduced chance of those parties getting votes, or councillors. And presumably subsequently banned from getting publicity the next time round.

So, could there be any credible reasons why the Greens and the BNP have been left out of the Gazette's little on-line party?

Looking at the scumly BNP, I can understand why the Gazette would want to withhold a platform from them. However, the Gazette has not been averse to giving the BNP paper space in the past so this doesn't seem like a reasonable explanation. Besides, there is an argument that the BNP are their own worst enemy and giving them space to shoot themselves in both feet would serve democracy, rather than harm it.

If the Gazette wanted to avoid publishing outlandish and offensive beliefs then readers would have been spared the witless ramblings of Mike Hallowell long ago.

The Green Party has been fairly harmless and has managed to stay out of the personalised warfare being waged in council. The party has maintained consistent involvement in local waste issues and campaigning against incineration. So nothing extreme there.

Unless anyone can think of another conclusion, it looks like an uneven playing field is precisely what the Gazette's editor wants.

Holding the privilege of being the only local daily newspaper in South Tyneside, the Gazette has an ethical responsibility (although admittedly not an editorial one) at election times to promote the principles of democracy, especially when you consider that it's democracy which provides the mandate for free speech.

I don't expect objectivity and balance from the Gazette. That would be naive. Anyone looking at the publicity given to the Khan circus over the last year would have detected the whiff of bias.

The Gazette editor can only in good conscience extol the virtues of democracy while at the same time respecting it by extending a fair opportunity for all the parties to promote themselves. Otherwise, there is hypocrisy, a word I don't use lightly.

By allowing a chosen cadre to contribute to the on-line 'election broadcast', the Gazette has stained the concept of democracy and failed to recognise an absolute right to free speech.

I suppose there's also something to be said for the voracious ambition of all the 'parties' that took part in the broadcast, happy to do so whilst some of the competition was arbitrarily excluded.

So much for democracy.

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Update

Yesterday's Gazette election web page says:

"But will South Tyneside Council's ruling Labour group feel the force of voters' wrath against the Government? Or can they stave off the challenge locally from the Conservatives, Lib Dems and a raft of Independent candidates?"

No Green Party or BNP mentioned here, and now the Progressives seem to be dropped.

"And don't forget all the local political party leaders have recorded exclusive video messages on our website to tell you what they stand for and why they want your vote."

I have highlighted the 'all'. Untrue and presumably since the editorial knows they've excluded two parties, dishonest.

Yesterday's newpaper editorial, ironically headlined "Voice of South Tyneside", takes it further:

"You can also visit the Gazette's website and hear the pledges from the leaders of the political parties in our video broadcasts."

'All' has evolved into 'the' political parties. The page opposite the editorial also features mugshots of the six featured party leaders.

At least Curly provided parties with an opportunity to publish a 'mini manifesto', and it's been pointed out to me that chances are that Curly gets more traffic than the Gazette website anyway. However, that doesn't get away from the fact that the Gazette's web initiative have been transferred to the newspaper.

Yellows going green?

So far, Labour's effort in reducing carbon emissions has been a failure, with CO2 emissions increasing since 1997 despite countless speeches on the dangers of climate change. In particular it's handling of renewables has been pathetic, the incompetent management of micro renewables grants a specific case in point.

The only plus I can think of was the introduction of the Climate Change Bill, but since that had cross party support, and Miliband's minions ripped the guts out of it, I won't include that as a Labour success unless it hits the books as a strong climate law.

The Conservatives, apparently recent converts to green politics, seem to be suffering from a split personality - one side wanting to continue with more flights and more roads, the other trying to grasp the green nettle. It looks like Redwood's carbon spewing proposals have the Cameron favour at the moment, possibly because they are not too far from Gordon Brown's "concrete it" attitude to the environment. Depending on which personality wins will confirm if the Tories are genuine on the environment or just copying Labour's greenwashing.

So it's refreshing to see at the Lib Dem conference Environment honcho Chris Huhne calling for the country to be 50 per cent carbon neutral, with energy from "clean, non-carbon-emitting sources" by 2020, rising to 100 per cent by 2050. It's a courageous idea (for a 'mainstream' party) and what's needed - a strong target with a clear objective.

What's telling is that we haven't so far heard a peep in response out of Hilary Benn. Labour are so keen to try and outstep the Conservatives that they've missed the Lib Dems, although I'm not sure if that really worries them.

Let's hope that Hebburn Lib Dem Councillor Joe Abbott pricks up his ears and thinks about how the Lib Dems' new proposals can be realised in local terms, especially considering his objection to the proposed wind turbine at the A&P yard in Hebburn. Cllr Abbott has also got into the unusual frames of reference for the measurement of objects, saying that the turbine would be "six Angels of the North on top of each other". Since that particular gem seems to have originated from a Northumberland "No to Wind Turbines" group it suggests what's really informing his thoughts, and it's not what's coming from Chris Huhne.

Realistically, if we want renewable energy, we need wind turbines. Of course wind won't be able to provide all of our energy, so solar, tidal power, wave energy and other renewables as part of a balanced mix also need to be developed urgently, along with initiatives to reduce energy use.

In terms of siting wind turbines, my personal sequential preference is for offshore, then industrial site, brownfield site, urban areas and finally rural areas. Also, land based sites should be as close to the point of use as possible to minimise transmission losses through our aged grid. There is a fly in my preference ointment though - on the land wind tends to be stronger and more consistent in upland rural areas, so I wouldn't rule out rural areas - they need electricity too.

The infrastructure isn't yet in place to support offshore, so until it is we've got to go with onshore for quick wind energy wins and personally I think industrial, brownfield and urban sites should be treated as the next best option.

This is where the A&P development fits in. It's a working industrial site and most of the energy produced will be used in the yard. I can understand the concerns about the noise and the size of the turbine. Bejaysus, at 80m high plus the blades (or two Concorde jet planes placed nose to tail) it's big. But we need to remember this is a river which once had a skyline dominated by cranes, so I think in terms of visual intrusion it's replacing one industrial structure with another. As for noise, it's an industrial site and if the level isn't worse than what is already produced then there's no net disadvantage. Being a previous resident of Hebburn Village I can attest to the audible volume of ship hull sandblasting, but accepted it as the price for purchasing a house in an industrial area.

It's disappointing though that the planned turbine (as with others erected locally) is going to be imported. As shipbuilding was winding down on the river an opportunity was lost to shift the massive resource of first class engineering skills from building ships to building renewable generation units for wind, wave and tidal power. In the past the Tyne was famous for exporting coal; in the future the Tyne could be exporting clean green energy. Even though I don't believe in Karma, if I did there would be a poetic green Karmic balance somewhere in there.

Hopefully in light of the Lib Dems' new aspirations for CO2 reductions Cllr Abbott will reconsider the plans more seriously than dismiss them with a knee jerk. However, given his (and Newcastle Lib Dems) support for the second Tyne road tunnel, I'll not be surprised if he continues his business as usual attitude.

Taking the high road

I've returned from a few glorious days in Edinburgh and what struck me while I was there (apart from the great food and drink) was the huge amount of public debate there is about the May 3rd elections. Not just on the telly, but in the pubs and cafés. Even the graffiti shows a spirit of engagement in the elections that we haven't got here in South Tyneside. I know the Scottish are voting in both Scottish Parliament and local council elections, but there's a real anticipation of change in Scotland, not just for the SNP, but also for the Scottish Green Party. Viewing the visit of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to Scotland from the Scottish perspective, it was clear that Labour are on the defence, with the Lib Dems and Conservatives definitely sidelined by the media.

Back in South Shields, I reviewed the past few days' papers and came crashing back to the reality of politics on planet South Tyneside. I found more of the same old bollocks we've become accustomed to here - councillor photo ops or election leaflets telling us how bad the other lot are. I know councillors need to tell us how great they are so folk know they're doing something sometimes, but how do we inject life back into politics (is it principle that's missing?) and get the Scottish electoral spirit here?