Sheep with no brain, no guts, no principles and no mandate, returns to fold….

After a dizzying Summer of freedom from Prescott’s North West Regional Assembly (or NWRA for short), Lancashire County Council have ceased gambolling about in the clover field of democracy and decided to rejoin the unelected, non representative and deeply unpopular, NWRA flock.

Apparently the Assembly has been revamped, sexed up and had a bit of a Tommy Walsh makeover. So much so, that the bright gleaming Assembly HQ or ‘Nearly Democracy Ivory Towers’ has presented an irresistible ‘come on’ to my dumb-arsed County Council.

The reason given is quite startling. In fact it’s bloody unbelievable. To be honest, I find the cold hand of Prezza and the threat of a big jar of mint sauce behind the Council’s decision to rejoin the quango.

Mutton dressed as lamb County Council Leader, Hazel Harding is clearly made up. She cited the reason for rejoining was because it followed significant changes to the Assembly which will make it more streamlined and accountable.

Accountable to who then? John Prescott, obviously.

Regional Assembly Chairman, John Joyce looked as pleased as a Welshman with a new pair of wellies as he welcomed the wayward lamb back into the NWRA flock.


The new ‘accountability’ branding of the NWRA means wholesale changes. Oh yes, we’re all drowning in a democratic overdose up here. A new, streamlined, 18 person Assembly Board has been created, including leading decision-makers from the public and private sector.

Their first meeting is on October 10th. I have a feeling; the first item on the agenda is to issue new dictionaries to everyone in the North West with a revised definition of the word ‘Accountable’.

‘Accountable’ adj 1Accountable to no one. 2Metamorphosis of sheep to pigs - in trough, pigs in clover, pigs in denial. Collective noun, An assembly of unelected pigs. See also Politbureau

Seeing their HQ is only a spit away from where I live, I might just try and gate crash the party. Does anyone know if there is a public gallery in these dens of iniquity, or don’t I qualify?

I’ll be ringing all parties to question them about this shameful U-turn. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, the whole sorry story is here



>BBC ‘Question Time’ broadcasts without your truly…..

David Dimbleby chaired the programme of Auntie’s flagship Q&A output last night from Manchester. Yet again, the programme went out without me in the audience to ask the questions that no one wants to answer.

I’ve applied to be in the audience each time the show has been in the North West - by phone and email for years – and hey, guess what? Zilcho success. Maybe I don’t fit the right demographic? ’Middle aged white guy with crap pension and a mega chip on shoulders from Lancashire’ is hardly going to excite a sushi eating, Notting Hill liberal, BBC researcher. It’s well known that the BBC over-egg the audience mix on Question Time. Most broadcasts are shamefully weighted and shamefully over represented towards some groups and not others. Maybe, they know my politics – maybe they know I’m a bit gobby. Maybe they know I’m not from the right group of people that are habitually seen on the show?

However, on last night’s episode, there was a real gem of a moment. Pompous Scot and New Labour Minister for Europe, Douglas Alexander was called a "little twit" by brain of a planet historian, David Starkey. In fact, Starkey was the only panellist who said it like it was all night. Especially when the issue of that breast cancer drug that I can’t spell being freely available in Scotland, but not in England. And how it’s taken a cancer sufferer to appeal to the courts, in order to get ‘NICE’ to cough up…. And that was brought up by a member of the audience, for God’s sake

The no-nothing, instantly forgettable Scottish LibDem MP panellist (at 25 years old, the youngest in Westminster) and Duggie Alexander expressed almost comical surprise and panic-blathered a bit. They didn’t ’think’ it was freely available in Scotland….. No, they were almost sure it wasn’t. Starkey burst into sarcastic laughter and proclaimed that thanks to New Labour, Scotland was a totally separate country doing bloody well out of the status quo anyway – so they’ll definitely have it. He was about to educate the mushroom audience of specially selected fungii as to what the Barnett formula really meant.

Euro Minister, Duggie looked a bit panicky, the smoke and mirror strategy was looking a bit flaky. The sh1t was arcing it’s way towards the fan… Fortunately, before this dangerous mole from the audience, could do any more damage, ace master of flannel and avoider of all things too political, David Dimbleby jumped in to go onto another question….

Unfortunately, that next question was about Tory leadership candidate, Liam Wassisname and his Union Flag flying from every British school project. Sorry, Union Flag flying from every English school project, because the Welsh and the Scots have been specially dispensated to fly their own…..

The Editor of the London Evening News expressed distaste at the very thought of it – she reckoned it was a slippery slope to fascism. Francis Maude, chair of the Tory Party, said how proud it would make him feel for every school to fly the flag no matter where they came from. He qualified this statement by saying that everyone in this country comes from immigrant stock, he gave examples of the Jutes, Angles and Saxons coming over from Europe.

It’s funny, but ‘they’ always say that, don’t they? They always quote ‘Jutes, Angles and Saxons’ as examples of mass immigration – as if it happened yesterday. They never include ‘Picts’ or ‘Celts’ do they? For they too are immigrants – originally coming from the Middle East.