Tuesday 28 February 2012

Councillors Ian Driver and Mike Harrison an internet war, humour political correctness splitting the Red Party ranks?

 I have to admit to not really understanding Facebook, I do have a Facebook website and I have it set up so that it automatically puts up the blog posts that I put up here.

I do get various notification asking me to be friends with people, often people who I don’t know, unless the person asking is obviously up to something dodgy or trying to sell something, then I usually ok these requests.

I guess eventually I will do what one does with ITC and that is to fight with Facebook until I understand it.

Anyway last night I had one of these Facebook requests that I don’t really understand and it said:

Ian Driver suggested you like Thanet Says Stand Down Harrison...  I think the link will open this facebook campaign page even if you don’t have a Facebook account http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thanet-Says-Stand-Down-Harrison/391888930837259

So here we have one local councillor mounting a campaign to remove another, which would change the political balance at Thanet District Council from Labour Leadership to Conservative.

This appears to be because one councillor used the phrase “frustrated, dried up bint” on his blog see http://newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/01/leeches.html

 Anyway what councillor Mike Harrison said that caused this was: “I see that some frustrated, dried up bint has complained about bus drivers, taxi drivers and tradesmen calling her ‘love’. Is that any worse than those people calling me ‘mate’ I ask. Well no its not.”

I suppose the calling of people you don’t know, love, mate, darlin, brov, and so on, is part of the way people communicate, the general, “I am alive and so are you” type of comment usually associated with humanity. In a way it’s very like Facebook and people who you don’t asking “be friends with me”

I was born in 1953 and when I was a teenager the word bint as a description of a female of the species was still in use, although I think getting a little dated. I think it had made its way into some British films, Carry On, Confessions Of and so on, it had mostly the same sort of meaning as, “bit of crumpet” I don’t recall it being particularly derogatory at the time.

I guess the thing about common parlance is that no one much really thinks to object to it at the time it is common parlance.

What does interest me in what Ian Driver’s motives are in attempting to get the Conservative group back into the position where they control the council. There is also the business of Mike Harrison taking a strong stance against what he takes as homophobic comments, see http://newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/01/normal-0-false-false-false.html while making what some perceive as outrageous comments about women.
 Would it, for instance be ok for another woman to refer to a dried up old bint, or a homosexual to refer limp queer, but not ok for a heterosexual man to do this?

Well apparently not as Ian was also offended by being called a tosser, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Councillor-quit-Labour-group-row/story-13298085-detail/story.html I guess it wasn’t Pancake Day.

When it comes to local councillors, just about the only way I have of finding out about them is via the internet, my impressions of them are formed there, particularly by what they write there themselves. Frankly councillors without an online presence I find suspicious, anyone who claims to represent local people and has no website, never emits a tweet, is either an techno illiterate, or being secretive and wouldn’t get my vote if I could avoid it. This would be the same for a councillor who didn’t have a telephone, never appeared in the local papers, or was conventionally illiterate.



I will ramble on here, the subject is a bit like a bit of food stuck in a hole in a tooth. 

21 comments:

  1. You have another example of what was once ok and now is not in you photo stamped 301.

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  2. Yep is says Kirby Nigger Minstrel on the back 3.46 and yes I have asked John Kirby, who said as his family doesn’t come from these parts it is unlikely to be relation

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  3. Never mind the arguments, thanks for posting the splendid bus photos

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  4. A storm in a teacup. As for calling someone "love" etc, most people can tell whenever it's appropriate or not. As a doorman at The Winter Gardens for example, I might have called a regular cheery female customer "love", but I wouldn't have said it to (say) Laura Sandys (lovely though she is). I felt slightly put out in a supermarket recently when a young male cashier (about 30 years my junior & who I'd never met before) referred to me as "mate"; "Sir" would've been far more appropriate in the circumstances I think, though having said that I certainly didn't feel the need to repramand or report the guy...

    I do hate all this political correctness though. The other day I somehow ended up watched a few minutes of an old Bernard Manning routine on YouTube, & while I'm not too keen on the overtly racist gags, I still laughed more in those 5 minutes than I did when I saw a 2 hour performance by modern "comedian" Michael McIntyre. Take away all that can possibly offend & then comedy is almost non-existent.

    Anyway, I'm off to watch an old video of The Dick Emery Show now.

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  5. John Worrow has kept very quite about this. Presumably he only "takes offence" when it's a Tory...

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  6. I think Harrison should stand down, but not because of any silly inconsequential remarks about women.

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. 10.21 I think you were being homophobic there so have deleted your comment.

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  10. This is costing the taxpayer ££££££££ if it goes to standards - Not so long ago Mike posted on his blog proof of a homophobic comment made by a conservative councillor, not only did the Tories defend their colleague they attacked the victim.

    FACT 1, Homophobic/Racist remarks are a crime.

    FACT 2, Calling someone a Bint or a Bird is not a crime.

    FACT 3, John Kirby thinks like Roger Latchford

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  11. AND I DOUBT IF THAT IS JOHN WORROW AS ITS NOT HIS ACCOUNT

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  12. All rather reminds me of the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland!

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  13. I have removed the comment that said it was left by John Worrow, as I have had an email from John saying that it wasn’t left by him but was made by someone pretending to be him.

    Please don’t abuse the open comments here, as I am sure no one wants me to put comment moderation on.

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  14. I did think that the comment was a bit too well-reasoned to be by John. Maybe he will tell us his true opinion?

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  15. What a load of nonsense. Half our language has been adopted by the LGBT community and the other half seemingly gives offence to someone or other.

    Whatever happened to good old Brit sense of humour. Frankly if we do not wake up soon and kick this PC monster into tounch we are all going to finsh up as speechless dried up old prunes, or is prune also an offensive word?

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  16. See the troll has come out of hiding again at 11:49. Why not go to the old bill with your proof and get some collars felt. Indeed, why haven't they acted independently to deal with this horrible crime! Get a life, mate!

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  17. February 28, 2012 5:04 PM Here Here More bus photos Michael me old mate, and dont you worry about those bints buying books on feminism or those councilors changing sides.

    to quote Mr Churchill It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Sir Winston Churchill

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  18. Sorry about the delay in responding to comments here I have been busy.

    Simon when viewed from without the whole council appears to have an Alice in Wonderland quality.

    I notice the page that lists the shadow cabinet members is still missing from the council website, is this because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front.

    In a general sense I think the difficulty here is allowing the conventional English working classes to become councillors in the first place, their turn of phrase, use of innuendo and general sense of humour don’t really fit with a modern council. I am hoping that soon we will have a council of such diversity that none of the members will understand what the other members are saying and hence solve the problem.

    Don thanks for reminding me put the On The Busses clip in,

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  19. If the lady finds being called "love" insulting, she should get out more.Bint is nothing these days, in fact its much nicer than a lot of things she could be called.
    Ian Driver is a bit two faced. How happy would he be if his latest e-mail to what he calls colleagues was to be made public?
    I say no more, he knows what I mean.

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  20. Come on, let's have a peek!

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.