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.

It's a funny old game (2)

It's been a long run in to the local council elections 2008, which started the day after the 2007 elections with recriminations over the rejected ballots. Over the past few weeks the BNP carpet-bombing of the letters page of the Gazette and the Independent Alliance stunts in the council chamber illustrated that things were heating up.

However, election season doesn't really start until we start seeing election leaflets hitting doormats. Well, I got my first one today, from the Labour candidate for the Harton Ward Neil Maxwell. It seems Maxwell is following Rob Dix's successful campaign tactic from last year: "slag off the Progressives".

The leaflet slams the Progressives as "lazy", and accuses them of refusing to support Rob Dix. Perhaps this is an example of the "Punch and Judy politics" that David Potts finds so distasteful.

I've some disagreements with Progressive Jim Capstick, but his work output hasn't been one of them.

I only hope that the Progressives don't stoop to Maxwell's level.

Burning ambitions

South Tyneside Council has launched it's consultation process covering the new Draft Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy which will take us to 2020. Among the commonsense "three R's" (reduce, reuse, recycle) proposals, the council is raising the subject of incineration.

South Tyneside Council has entered into a partnership agreement with Gateshead and Sunderland councils to establish the new waste strategy.

Incineration is proposed as one of the possible methods of disposal for the waste which we cannot (or we can't be bothered to) recover. Since the terms 'incineration' and 'burning' aren't easy to sell, the process comes under the wizzy euphemism of "Energy from Waste" (EfW) or "energy recovery".

If incineration is selected there's a rumour that the preferred site is on the site of the former incinerator at Wrekenton, on the border between Gateshead and Sunderland, although it should be noted there is no official documentation supporting this.

So soon after seeing off the industrial park on the green belt at Fellgate, and the rehabilitation of the Monkton cokeworks site it seems that residents in that part of South Tyneside may be faced with another dark environmental cloud. Not to mention the people in the Wrekenton area who thought they'd seen the last of local waste incineration.

Dioxins are a pretty nasty bunch

Incinerators release dioxins and heavy metals, which can cause cancer, birth defects and endometriosis.

The rise of endometriosis – a painful condition possibly afflicting as many as ten per cent of British women – is linked to emissions of dioxins. British mothers carry in their breast milk levels of dioxins which significantly exceed the World Health Organisation’s recommended “tolerable daily intake”, partly due to the widespread incineration of hazardous waste.

Studies have repeatedly linked dioxins to both breast and testicular cancers.

A study by the US Environmental Protection Agency suggested that as many as 7 per cent of all cancers are caused by dioxins, mostly from incinerators.

Progressives - the crazy bunch?

At the East Shields CAF meeting on the 5th July Progressive Councillor and Progressive Party leader Jim Capstick nailed his colours firmly to EfW (yes, that's incineration) as his party's preferred method of disposal for the waste designated as 'unrecoverable'. The Draft Waste Strategy concedes that incineration "will generate additional hazardous waste".

Quite why his party is called 'progressive' is odd. They have lent their support to a practice which will damage the environment and will precipitate a new crisis in public health. The victims will be among the poor and the young. In my understanding this is about as far from progress as you can get.

Capstick and Dix, slapstick tricks

The election season for the Harton ward has well and truly started now, with Councillor Jim Capstick in Friday 2nd February's Gazette pleading for independent candidates not to stand against the 'anti-Labour' candidates (read Progressives). He asserted that it's the "public wish" that anti-Labour voters are unified. I've got no particular beef against the Progressives and I think Coun Capstick is a worthy councillor, but I don't remember being asked about this anti-Labour unification. And isn't asking potential candidates not to stand for election in support of their principles just to allow the Progressives defeat Labour a wee bit cynical?

That's politics I suppose.

Labour's local publicity attack has also now got into gear, with former councillor Rob Dix's pamphlet hitting my mat today. The leaflet is a slick multi-colour glossy piece which spends plenty of space berating the Progressives for not communicating with local residents. He also manages some time for that old local election chestnut, the "strong voice".

The leaflet doesn't appear to be printed on recycled paper, which is further evidence that our borough's councillors still need to learn the meaning of 'sustainability'.

Under the witty title "Delivering for South Shields", postman Mr Dix allows the Labour council to claim credit for "The multistorey car park site will be demolished in February and should be completed in less than three months." Perhaps it was shortage of leaflet space that caused Mr Dix to fail to add how long said eyesore has been permitted to crumble?

In his leaflet, Mr Dix humbly informed us that at the last local elections "I came within 18 votes of regaining my Council seat" and also asked mischievously "when was the last time the Progressives...delivered an environmental improvement for your community?" I was somehow under the impression that this was a Labour dominated council, so surely the question should be pointed to his chums in the cabinet? No doubt the Progressives will respond to Rob Dix's claims.

With the likelihood that Progressive and Labour will be publicly pieing each other in the months to come, what have other prospective candidates got to lose by trying to slip through them with good old fashioned ideology and principles?

And, of course, a strong local voice.