Alternative York

Last night I saw a Labour councillor go behind the bar of The Three Cranes, a traditional working-class pub if ever there was one, and grab herself a packet of crisps. The councillor, Tracey Simpson-Laing, had no right to go behind the bar - she is not a member of staff- and I’m pretty sure there will be some obscure elf ‘n safety regulation she has broken as I am pretty sure there hasn’t been a risk assessment done for 8ft tall ginger gorgons working at The Cranes.

Anyway, the arrogance shown by the crisps self-service is not the issue. What I found interesting was the fact that it transpires that these York Labour folk usually pop in The Cranes every Monday night for a few jars and an impromptu meeting. I can’t help but wonder why? None of these councillors - or the few spotty “youth” activists it looked like were hanging around with them - fit in at a salt-of-the-earth type boozer like The Cranes.

Was it a PR exercise designed to show that the Labour Party are trying to get back to their working-class roots? Doubtful - however they did have a working-class tool with them last night (no not Cllr. Blanchard!). It was a laptop computer! If they had their wits about them they would have replaced the laptop with a shovel and drunk cask John Smith’s instead of wine.

The funny part of the night was at chucking out time when my other half, who had supped far too many shandies, decided to go and have a chat to the assembled councillors and hangers-on. From memory there was Sandy Fraser, Ruth Potter, a man with a beard who may have Brian Watson but I’m not 100% sure, Janet Looker and the geek with the laptop. Cllr. Simpson-Laing had gone home earlier, probably so she didn’t have to share her crisps.

I didn’t actually know that my missus was talking to them for a while as I thought she was in the toilet so when I went through to where they were sitting she was in discussion with the man with the beard who I clearly heard say that he didn’t agree with Labour policies these days but had always been Labour so stuck with them. What a glowing vote of confidence for the party! When I said that I thought that Blair’s Third Way politics had made Labour no different to the Conservatives in the ’80’s he accused me of trying to wind him up! That was when laptop geek spouted out the immortal phrase “Thatcher was to blame!”. Sensing that some fun was on the cards I announced that Thatcher was the greatest Prime Minister this country has had. The silence was deafening!

None of the councillors, apart from the man with a beard, said a word during the exchange which suggests to me that they don’t like discussing politics with their electorate, or that they have no confidence in their own party. The mini-chat was in no way nasty or rude so I thought some rapport could easily have been established. Instead they said nothing and went home.

A commentator on The Press website said that they should be allowed to have a drink in a pub without being approached by members of the public. What a load of bollocks. These people are in the public domain and were elected to represent the very same sort of folk you find in pubs, so if they set up an impromptu meeting in a spit and sawdust place like The Cranes then they should expect to be challenged by voters.

See you soon…

Let’s play a game - You are a judge in court passing sentence on two criminals who have committed acts of violence while drunk - you are going to give you two scenarios where you have to use your common-sense and logical thought ability to choose the correct course of action - OK, ready?

Scenario 1 - The Violent Thug

A 19-year-old thug was released from prison for affray just over two months ago after serving nine-months of his sentence. He then went into York city centre, got steaming drunk and attacked a complete stranger in a nightclub queue, causing actual bodily harm.

Which of the following sentences should you pass?

A) Send him back to prison for a minimum of three years; as it is clear his first spell inside hasn’t taught him a lesson?

B) Enlist him in the army, and have him immediately deployed on the front-line in Helmand Province, without basic training or equipment?

C) Give him a community order with two years’ supervision, an alcohol rehabilitation programme and 150 hours’ unpaid work and order him to pay £500 compensation to his innocent victim as well as £350 prosecution costs within 28 days because you fear that if you jailed him again, the teenager would probably be more angry and hit someone else after he was released.

A tricky choice between options A & B for those of us not from a legal background isn’t it? B is probably the most appealing but even with our limited knowledge of the law, it probably wouldn’t be allowed so let’s be sensible and choose A. If you did then well done - A is the right answer. However, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC - a professional vested with the responsibility for making sure justice is done for both the victim and society as a whole - appeared to be so confused by the options on offer that he unbelievably chose C and released the yob back onto the streets?

Scenario 2 - The thick bloke who had just been arguing with his girlfriend

A drunken plasterer, clearly wound up after an argument with his girlfriend, randomly shouted racial abuse at two Asian men outside York’s Theatre Royal before attacking them and leaving them with minor injuries. The assailant had one previous conviction for violence but had never before been sent to prison.

Put your wigs back on folks and let’s look at the options for crime number two!

A) Give him a community order where he must do 200 hours of unpaid work with ethnic minority groups and make him pay £500 compensation to each of the two men he assaulted?

B) Enlist him in the army, and have him immediately deployed on the front-line in Helmand Province, without basic training or equipment?

C) Send him to prison for 15 months purely because the victims were Asian and political correctness demands that “racial” assaults be deemed more important than ones against white people?

It’s an easy decision this time isn’t it? If sentencing is to be consistent then option A is the only choice, unless, of course, you are our old friend Judge Jonathan Hall QC who seems to think that the second attack is far more serious than the one in the nightclub queue. Maybe it was: who knows? What I do know is that this judge is utterly spineless and politically correct. Possibly both men should have gone to prison, but to have different sentencing policy based on the racial origin of the victim(s) is nothing short of scandalous.

We could have a separate game altogether now couldn’t we?

Is Judge Jonathan Hall QC…

A) A highly enlightened individual who, by giving tough sentences against those convicted of race-hate crimes, is addressing racial issues in our ever increasing multi-cultural society?

B) A lily-livered, PC-fearing wimp who shouldn’t be entrusted with passing sentences on any criminal, never mind a couple of drunken numbskulls with pork scratchings for brains?

Anyone who chooses option A can put on the dunces cap and go sit in the corner facing the wall.

See you soon…

I realised today the big mistake I made back in the year 2000 and, bizarrely, it’s all thanks to a woman!

After releasing two of my favourite ever albums, The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go, the Manic Street Preachers brought out a new album called Know Your Enemy, and it was crap! I bought it; listened to it a few times and then consigned it to my CD shelves where it has remained ever since. So what was my mistake you may ask? Well, after reading Press forum contributor “Clock_Watcher”s bizarre take on what she does when she reads something in the media that she doesn’t approve of, what I should have done was repeatedly telephone, email and write to BMG Sony Music Ltd, and demand that the Manics entire back catalogue be deleted and all trace of their music be removed from the public arena. After all, they had the nerve to write some songs that I didn’t approve of AND they then had the audacity to release the second-rate tunes, therefore offending my ears and giving me very strong grounds for complaint. Well actually I shouldn’t have done that; it would have been arrogant and given the impression that only music I like should be allowed to be heard.

If I may quote from “Clock_Watcher”s recent contribution to the subject of my old blog…

I have made several postings on Rusts blogs agreeing with what he said, and I have laughed out loud at some of his comments. I have also thought that some of his comments have gone too far - not all of them directed at me, I might add, and these I have reported - as is my right. I have never, repeat never, reported anyone else, as in general, I am a live and let live person who has to be completely outraged to go as far as to report someone. I do not pretend to be something I am not, and I repeat once again, I am proud of who I am. If you don’t like it tough!

What an appalling attitude to hold! Who on earth is she to decide what warrants being in the public domain? Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a society where everything was reportable to Big Brother? Does “Clock_Watcher” report her neighbours if they put cardboard in the green bin? Does she spend her life, other than when online, twitching her curtains to see if someone is committing some crime against her moral standards?

I like to think that when necessary I can construct an argument eloquently, and defend myself in a similar manner but on this occasion I feel compelled to tell “Clock_Watcher” in more industrial terms to

“Piss off on holiday to Bridgend!”

There, I feel better for that!

See you soon…

Today, instead of choking on delectable European delicacies while reading a letter in The Press I just simply laughed out loud at Angela Heaver’s rant against ‘mosquito’ devices, ironically named as they prevent far more harmful insects (children) from disrupting the rest of the world by dispersing them, as they can’t handle the frequency of the noise, which once again reeks of nicey-nicey lefty tolerance.

If I had a shop and my customers were constantly scared away by gangs of spotty Chantelle impregnators clad in Kappa, that were costing me money, then my first reaction wouldn’t be to turn on an electrical device and hope they went away; though if an electrical device were the only option, then head shaving and a wet sponge (unless my name was Percy!) would be my chosen method of removing these pubescent parasites. I mean… the concept of the ‘mosquito’ isn’t even a new thing; it’s just that someone recently had a brainwave and worked out that if you play something other than 50Cent outside your shop then the kids might bugger off elsewhere. If only shopkeepers had worked this out when I was a teenager in the early 1980’s. Simply playing George Michael records would have cleared a shop doorway far quicker than Giorgious could empty a public toilet full of diarrhoea ridden bricklayers today!

Angela Heaver went on to say that she had seen “obviously upset children outside shops with a mum who seemed equally perplexed by their child’s emotional state” What she neglected to say is that she lives in The Groves area, where it is quite normal for children to be ‘out of it’, which could explain her next observation that her 16-year-old nephew had been hearing strange noises that made him feel like his head was going to explode and he was having trouble sleeping. That isn’t the mosquito love, it’s called drugs! I started to giggle even more girlishly when she said her own 17-year-old son heard the same sounds when he went round to his cousins. Maybe you should stop them from hanging around together Angela? Either that or buy them some decent gear!

Mosquito devices are brilliant. For a start, who likes to see kids in shops? Absolutely no-one, and anything that keeps the little gits away from them is to be recommended.

At the end of the day kids, don’t complain about being under-25 and having irritating noises in your ear all the time. One day you too may shack up with a woman and then you’ll understand!

At least with the mosquito the battery might run out before you die!

See you soon…

I almost choked on my foie-gras and unethically produced coffee at breakfast this morning when I read Cllr. Blanchard’s latest letter in The Press.

Some of you may recall last Saturday’s story about Grace Fletcher-Hackwood (who used to be Fletcher-Hall so I assume she has entered into a civil partnership since failing to get elected for Labour in last year’s council elections) being forced to resign from her position as York University Students’ Union’s academic and welfare officer after striking a male student in the face during a drunken argument. Now let me think… student welfare officer attacks student? Er… yes resignation would seem in order, and the vote of no-confidence by other students tends to support this line of thinking.

Supporters of Miss (or should that be Ms?) Fletcher-Hackwood have criticised the innocent victim of the attack, Dan Taylor, a history and politics student, for allegedly using Facebook to rouse support for his campaign against her. This is where Cllr. Blanchard’s intervention is particularly thought provoking for those of us who like to jump on hypocrisy and double standards from our public servants. Blanchard is a, not particularly well-known, animal rights activist and self-publicist who likes to rouse support for his campaigns against restaurants legally going about their business using - yes you’ve guessed it folks! - Facebook!

In his letter he also states that, in his opinion, her resignation is “simply too excessive a punishment”. I can’t say I agree; a prison sentence might have been considered excessive but considering she could, and possibly should, have been arrested and charged with common assault I would say that she got off very lightly.

Cllr. Blanchard’s support for this violent misandronist hardly does anything to confirm the image of himself that he likes to portray as a caring and compassionate individual. All it says to me is that he thinks it’s acceptable for one of his sleazy Labour cronies to attack a man and have it laughed off as a “drunken incident” yet he gets on his high horse and starts preaching to all and sundry about humans being cruel to animals!

I have to question whether a man who regards the welfare of animals above that of humans is fit for public office.

See you soon…