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Month: July 2015

On the Independent’s response to Clarkson, Hammond and May’s move to Amazon Video…

Published by neilmonnery on July 30, 2015

Oh the Independent, why do you have to be so foolish? The Indy is renowned for being a pretty good newspaper that doesn’t let personal opinions get in the way of a story. Well today after it was announced that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May would be taking their talents to Amazon Prime on a three-series contract, the aforementioned newspaper decided that the appropriate story to cover such an event was entitled, How to cancel Amazon Prime: after Top Gear hiring, how to leave premium service – the piece was penned (well typed) by their technology reporter Andrew Griffin.

Reading the piece and you get the sense that Mr. Griffin isn’t a fan of the boys and he of course is fully entitled to that opinion, heck many many people share his opinion. I know I think Jeremy is a bit of a douche but I also quite like Top Gear and think the three of them make a very good light entertainment show. I know I’ve written about it before that whilst I was disappointed in the BBC letting Clarkson go, I fully understood it and believed they didn’t really have much of a choice.

I wasn’t shocked that there was a clear market for the trios talents and whilst I am personally disappointed with their move (as I don’t have Amazon Prime) and had hoped they would emerge on netflix (as I have that) I certainly don’t think the lead story on the matter (and indeed several hours on) it would still be in a prime position on the Independent’s home page was about how you can cancel Amazon Prime.

If a newspaper really believes one of the top stories of the day is about how to unsubscribe from a TV streaming service then I think that newspaper needs to take a long hard look at itself in the mirror. The fact there are essentially no positive comments on the piece says a great deal.

Still you wonder why they posted this story, was the writer asked to do it or did he do so on his own volition? Well when the writer has written on the issue before stating, If anyone thinks Jeremy Clarkson is anything but a racist bully then that is a bad opinion and you are probably a bad person. (I know this is a late response but I didn’t realise that people — actual human beings — thought it was ok to punch a man because he didn’t bring you a cooked steak.) I think we ascertain what the writers thinks and he is using his position at a newspaper to write an Anti-Clarkson story. Man isn’t that the dream of all journalists to use their position to push their own personal opinions on the readers?

Look he may not like Clarkson, that is a pretty fair position to be in but honestly is one of the biggest stories in the world today really about how you can cancel from a service? For those who can’t be bothered to read the piece but want to know how to end a subscription to Amazon Prime well I can help, you just click on ‘End Membership’ on the ‘Manage Prime Membership’ screen. I know, shocking eh? It is that level of insight that makes the Independent one of the leading media outlets in this country…

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On Tom Brady, ‘deflategate’ and ESPN’s shall we say ‘biased’ reaction…

Published by neilmonnery on July 29, 2015

Ah it is nice to be writing about something that isn’t politics. I need to write more non-politics blog. Remind me of this people.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about by looking at the title then here is the simple version of the story. During the AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, the footballs that the Patriots were using (both teams play with different footballs when on offence – like that makes any sense) were seemingly not up to the required pressure. After an investigation it was determined that the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady probably knew that this was the case and it was in fact a deliberate ploy. The commissioner of the NFL banned him for four games. That same commissioner was also the appeals judge and in shock of all shocks, he rubber stamped his previous decision.

Now when you read that you might think that if Brady cheated then he deserves a ban but there is no actual proof that he knew of the under-inflated footballs. It was determined that it he is all probability knew but they had no evidence that he in fact did. Still the verdict that no evidence doesn’t matter was reached and Brady got slammed. Yesterday when the commissioner announced that Brady’s four-game ban would be upheld it wasn’t a huge shock (like the man would overturn his own verdict on appeal – hah) but I was genuinely appalled by the narrative that the so-called worldwide leader in sports set on the story.

They focused on the fact Tom Brady wouldn’t turn over his phone for investigation. Well I’m sorry people but the NFL doesn’t have power of subpoena and why should he turn over his phone? It is up to the NFL to prove that he cheated and not Tom Brady that he didn’t. That is the world we work in, well I thought we worked in anyway. That was essentially the only thing ESPN talked about, that by not handing over his phone and destroying it, it showed that he had something to hide and why the ban was rightly held up. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times speaking on the ESPN show Around the Horn went one stage further by saying the ban should’ve been doubled, it prompted me to tweet that he was becoming the biggest douchebag to ever appear on the show and when you considering TJ Simers and Jay Mariotti have been on that show – that says something.

ESPN personality after ESPN personality lined up to slam Brady and praise the NFL. Talk about defending the shield. Next you’ll be telling me that ESPN has the NFL’s back because they are business partners and the NFL are unhappy with how ESPN have been covering the sport and you might even start to think that Bill Simmons constant attacks on the NFL were a significant factor in why ESPN let go of their biggest non-rights asset. It was left to Dan LeBetard on HQ and the always excellent Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbonon on Pardon the Interruption to defend Brady and attack the NFL on this. My favourite line is one Kornheiser keeps saying that even if Brady did it, it is like watering the base-paths in baseball, it is a non-issue.

Look I’m not a Patriots fan so my point of view isn’t determined by my rooting interests. I’m a Jags fan and if Brady’s ban is held up then when the two teams face up in week three he would be banned. My other rooting interest is I want Peyton Manning to receive a second ring and that would be helped if the Patriots had a backup Quarterback for four games. Yet I also believe in fairness and if a player (even if he did it) deflated the balls, I don’t see how that can be worthy of the same suspension as a player who violently assaulted his ex-girlfriend then I have real issues with the. The optics are just flat out terrible. The NFL as tough on air pressure as they are on domestic violence. Go NFL!

Tom Brady released the following statement this morning and it sounds like this is going to federal court. I hope Brady goes in kicking and screaming, taking down the NFL on the way. I am firmly of the opinion that this case has little to do with the facts but more to do with other owners wanting the Patriots taken down a peg or two and I believe there are other considerations at play as well.

“I am very disappointed by the NFL’s decision to uphold the 4 game suspension against me. I did nothing wrong, and no one in the Patriots organization did either.

Despite submitting to hours of testimony over the past 6 months, it is disappointing that the Commissioner upheld my suspension based upon a standard that it was “probable” that I was “generally aware” of misconduct. The fact is that neither I, nor any equipment person, did anything of which we have been accused. He dismissed my hours of testimony and it is disappointing that he found it unreliable.

I also disagree with yesterdays narrative surrounding my cellphone. I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.

Most importantly, I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at anytime, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC Championship game in January. To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong.

To try and reconcile the record and fully cooperate with the investigation after I was disciplined in May, we turned over detailed pages of cell phone records and all of the emails that Mr. Wells requested. We even contacted the phone company to see if there was any possible way we could retrieve any/all of the actual text messages from my old phone. In short, we exhausted every possibility to give the NFL everything we could and offered to go thru the identity for every text and phone call during the relevant time. Regardless, the NFL knows that Mr. Wells already had ALL relevant communications with Patriots personnel that either Mr. Wells saw or that I was questioned about in my appeal hearing. There is no “smoking gun” and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing.

I authorized the NFLPA to make a settlement offer to the NFL so that we could avoid going to court and put this inconsequential issue behind us as we move forward into this season. The discipline was upheld without any counter offer. I respect the Commissioners authority, but he also has to respect the CBA and my rights as a private citizen. I will not allow my unfair discipline to become a precedent for other NFL players without a fight.

Lastly, I am overwhelmed and humbled by the support of family, friends and our fans who have supported me since the false accusations were made after the AFC Championship game. I look forward to the opportunity to resume playing with my teammates and winning more games for the New England Patriots”

Look, I have no idea if Tom Brady did know anything or indeed if he directed anyone to change the air pressures in the football but I know this, the NFL seemingly have no real proof either way and the NFL look like they are using ESPN as their mouthpiece to try and win the battle in terms of public opinion and that stinks. This now isn’t about deflated footballs but about a man’s legacy. Tom Brady is one of the greatest to have ever played the position and this tarnishes his reputation. I have even heard some media personalties say that he shouldn’t make the Hall of Fame because of this. Madness.

So Tom Brady v the NFL in Federal Court. This my friends could be fascinating and it might not shock you who I’m rooting for…

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On why sometimes being a Lib Dem makes me lose sleep…

Published by neilmonnery on July 29, 2015

Last night folks I was ticking. Not tickling, which would’ve probably been a lot of fun but ticking. I’ve been ticking on a certain subject for quite a while but last night it exploded and I was still awake at 3 and possibly even 4 this morning seething. What could be making me so mad? Well it is the air of arrogance that some members of the party have and how instead of engaging in debate, they prefer to make a pithy comment in an attempt to show their moral superiority. I’m sure all parties have these people but as a member of this one, I see these more and they are so cocksure of themselves that anyone even attempting to engage in debate needs to be swatted away in a dismissive style.

The story that brought it out last night was one from last year that people only noticed yesterday and the hand wringing was in full flow. The story was that Alison McInnes MSP wasn’t selected at number one in the North East Regional list for the Scottish Parliament. This showed that the Lib Dems were still anti-women, deep down sexist and morally wrong according to a number of people. I don’t know Alison nor Mike Rumbles, who got the top spot, but the issue wasn’t about them as candidates to some people, it was solely about gender and the fact the members who selected the candidates position on the lists got it wrong.

For writing this blog post I’ve just gone back to the thread that really charcoaled my Chilean Sea Bass (does that work?) and it got a tonne worse after I ducked out. This is the comment that first got me rumbling:

I don’t believe anyone accused individual members as being sexist, but sexist outcomes are sexist outcomes.

So this member put the result down as a result of sexism. Now in isolation this is essentially saying that any time a man beats a women in a selection then it is a sexist result. Surely no-one can actually believe that? I mean if that is the case then they are saying that any woman is superior to any man because any woman would be a better candidate than any man in any scenario. That is what people are saying if they actually believe that.

At this point I have no doubt that people reading this will be thinking, ‘oh that is such bullshit, that isn’t what they are saying, they are saying that Alison is better than Mike and anyone who disagrees is sexist’ but that thought process alone suggests that selecting candidates is a black and white process and one selection is right and one is wrong. As I said earlier, I have no idea of the credentials of either candidates in this case but the members who do have more of a knowledge will have a better insight and maybe they are best placed to select who they think the best candidate is rather than someone 100s of miles away and only sees the sex of the candidates as a determining factor.

So I waded into the thread. I won’t c&p the full comment as you need to read the whole thread for full context but I essentially said that if members in that particular area weren’t mature enough to pick the right person then you’d expect that those members are just as mature as the rest of the membership ergo none of us are mature enough to make the right selection so who should make every selection? I suggested Tim Farron but then questioned what some people would say if he picked the wrong person according to some people, it didn’t need to be a majority of dissenters because as we’ve seen the majority can get things wrong as seen by Rumbles > McInnes in the regional lists.

The response I got:

The big irony about the comment above is the historically it is *women* who got dismissed for being hysterical.

Boom. Man talk about lowering the boom and not engaging in the actual point. This is the type of person that blows my mind. Instead of engaging in debate they instead have an opinion and anyone who points out the issues in their opinion or indeed has a different opinion needs to be dismissed as being inferior (or indeed in my case hysterical). Why would I take such a thought from the above, well later in the thread after I’d ducked out the same person speaking to someone else said:

I don’t think that everyone in North East Scotland is sexist but I am working on the fairly safe assumption that anyone who comments on this thread with “are you accusing x of being sexist?” is sexist. Or dim. Take your pick.

So no-one in NE Scotland is sexist but they got a sexist result (not sure how that can happen – smells rather oxymorony* to me) but then to call people dim if they disagree with your PoV is self-righteous to the max and is a problem I have come up against on many an occasion (although to be fair this is mostly online and rarely do you find this attitude with people you meet).

The person who got that comment responded thusly and sums up my thought process perfectly:

Blinkered self righteous people like you are part of the problem not the solution , bend the knee to your view or we are all sexist or dim….ever looked in a mirror?

Some people believe that they are right and that is quite simply that. Those that disagree are not smart enough to see the world like they see it. That air of superiority stinks and a disproportionate amount of Lib Dems have that. Now I can counter that with having met many Lib Dems and having debated issue where we disagree but there are been a debate and you understand each others views but still disagree and move on and that is great, that is exactly how it should be. We can’t and won’t always see eye to eye on the best way forward to fix issues, that is human nature but when someone says that they are right and anyone else who disagrees is dim, it frustrates the hell out of me that some people are just so dismissive of other views and other people.

You see the issue here (after over 1,000 words) isn’t about what the issue should be about. The issue should be about whether a woman should ever be deselected/moved down a list. That is the point that is up for debate on this. Instead it has turned into a debate about how the result was sexist and proves that the Lib Dems need more provisions in place to ensure a greater proportion of women are in place as candidates. That is a legitimate debate and one I might get into at some point but instead I am just mad at people who have decided that because they have an opinion and you might not share that opinion then they are better than you.

I’m not singling out this one person as I’ve seen in on many occasions by a group of people. It is times like these that make me less inclined to go to Conference and instead spend the money on a holiday to Barbados or somewhere (scarily the prices aren’t that much different) because it makes you question whether you belong amongst so many people who are clearly on a different plane of existence to my humble self that I might not even be intelligent enough to be worthy of a hello.

Apparently this may sound hysterical to some people (I think that term is great, most people who know me accuse me of being too cold and emotionless but apparently I have so much emotion that I can be hysterical – beautiful) but some people really can make others feel inferior and that isn’t right. There needs to be a way to bring more equality to the elected representatives across sex, sexuality, ethnicity etc. but there are different opinions on how to do this but there is also the issue that many members see how others are treated and instead of standing up instead roll their neck in and don’t put themselves out there in case they have different opinions to the most vocal. That is just as much of an issue with encouraging people to step forward to stand as candidates.

To put your head above the parapet, man or woman, gay or straight, white or black takes a lot and if you see others being dismissive you really would naturally think twice. I know I would. The most unedifying part of politics is being dismissed out of hand as being wrong. I’m sure I’m wrong a lot, I’m human but if I am I want to know why and not just get the sense that others believe that I’m inferior. That is where I struggle and it is sad to say that a number of Lib Dems (again online mostly, haven’t really found that much locally or face to face when out and about) have made me feel this and that sucks and makes me lose sleep. Sad times.

*I know oxymorony isn’t a word but it just felt right

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On Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Tea Party’ issue for Labour…

Published by neilmonnery on July 22, 2015

Jeremy Corbyn. Wow. Seriously what a run this is. This is a bit like the time Michelle McManus came from a 50/1 outsider to storm through and win whatever Simon Cowell show she won, was it Pop Idol?

He got on the ballot in a blaze of MPs feeling guilty and wanting to have a proper debate about where the party were and where they were going. Now he is third favourite but coming in at a rapid pace on Betfair and indeed in the first poll (YouGov/The Times) it was predicted that he would actually win the Labour Labourship contest. Holy Shit.

Still, I still find it unlikely that he can actually win but lets play the game because the title of the post actually does have some merit and brings up a legitimately interesting question/point.

I think it is very hard to win an election in any modern democracy from the fringes unless you are in a time of deep recession or rise of national identity. People generally like parties and politicians who are somewhere around the centre. Whether they are centre-right or centre-left doesn’t really matter and the majority of voters can sway with the wind between these ideological viewpoints.

The word in the previous sentence that is key is the word ‘majority’ for you see you only win if the majority of people vote for you. Tony Blair’s three victories came from the centre-left ground and Ed Miliband decided to throw the blueprint of victory away and move the party further to the left. This of course solidified the core vote but it left the floating voters with a long way to travel to vote for him.

Jeremy Corbyn is coming in and lets be honest, saying a lot of things that people want to hear. The thing is many look at socialism and see it as a good thing but does socialism lead to people aspiring to do better and more importantly is it a position where the majority of floating voters will really gravitate towards? Modern political history says that it does not but it will once more solidify the core vote.

Labour’s recent political success all came when the party spoke to those who wanted to get further in life. Blair knew that people wanted a helping hand and not a hand out. Blair proved that you can not only win from the Centre-Left but you can win in a landslide. Now there is a surge of people within the Labour party who seemingly want to forget the good times and go back to the time when they stood for a small proportion of the electorate but really bloody stood for them. They didn’t win and therefore couldn’t help that section of the electorate but that didn’t matter.

I had a conversation with someone recently on this and they said they thought Jeremy Corbyn was principled and that is exactly what the country needs as no-one else was principled. I don’t know his voting past or his voting intention but he seemed enthused by Corbyn. He may be a swing voter but many of the newer Labour members do seem very enamoured by Corbyn’s words and don’t seem to look at how he can actually deliver what he wants.

The policy that anyone earning over £50k a year should have a 7% tax hike to pay for free education for students is not going to win over the people that you need to win over to win. 7% is quite the tax hike for a lot of people who don’t even consider themselves as that well off.

Nuclear disarmament sounds good and is something I would personally see as a good aspiration but is JC doing to dismantle all our nuclear weapons without getting the rest of the world to do the same? That leaves us kinda vulnerable, no…?

How much money is he going to borrow to renationalise all the utility and transport companies that he wants to? That seems to be something that would plunge the country back into a state of deep national debt and that doesn’t sound like a good thing.

He also wants to reunite Ireland and that is an interesting one. I don’t think that I’m going out on a limb here to say that might be rather hard to get over the line.

So he has lots of policies that’ll be extremely tough to actually make happen even if he wins the leadership contest and then a General Election. The issue is again look at these and how are the party going to win over the moderates that they need to actually win?

And this my friends is where the link to the Tea Party comes in. The Tea Party as we all know is the very vocal and furthest mainstream part of the Republican Party. They get a lot of air time and the Republicans keep moving further right to appease this section of the party but in doing so, all they are doing is making it even harder for the moderates to go out and vote for them. There are millions of American who believe in the small state that is at the heart of Republicanism but can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican Party that are drifting further to the right and away from the centre, instead choosing not to vote for voting for a moderate Democrat.

I’m a Hillary guy and think she would make a superb President of the United States but her chances of winning against a moderate Republican aren’t as slam dunk as many of us outsiders are led to believe. In the electoral system in the US you really have to dominate the larger states in the Electoral College and in recent years the Republicans have struggled in many of these (Texas/Florida being the large states that seem solid in). If the Republicans find a moderate then they can be competitive in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and the like but they won’t vote for an extreme and this is what Corbyn followers have to look at.

Jeremy Corbyn might speak to you but will he speak to enough people to actually win an election? If the answer is no then surely you have to vote for someone else who can. If you think that politics is all about principles and standing up for what you believe in but not getting anywhere to actually act and help those you want to help then Corbyn is your guy. If you want to do some good for those people but not get everything you might want/believe in then you have to be more moderate.

Winners come from the moderate ground and to win you have to be there. Being idealistic but getting nowhere seems noble but also seems pointless. There is a reason the Tories and Lib Dems are cheering Corbyn on from afar and that isn’t because either of the parties think he’ll eat into their support. Putting significant ground between Labour and the centre ground will leave a lot of voters sitting on their hands or going somewhere else.

My last analogy (and if this doesn’t worry Labour voters I don’t know what will) but a Labour General Election victory is actually less likely than me having a successful date whilst wearing my new tie-dye fleece. Yes folks it is just that unlikely.

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On Tim Farron struggling to answer the homosexuality/sin question…

Published by neilmonnery on July 18, 2015

Who could ever have seen this coming? *rolls eyes*

This was always going to be Tim’s biggest problem, which is to be honest is crazy if you look at it from outside the political bubble. Tim’s fundamental Christian beliefs should not be the most posed question that he faces from the media but whoever said life was fair?

Everyone knew he’d face these questions and the fact he didn’t have a good answer for it is a big cross against the work from his inner-circle. The questions were going to come and they were going to come thick and fast and whilst it may be unfair, Tim put himself out there on the Christian ticket with two pieces in The Guardian within the past fortnight talking about it. If you are going to speak about it so openly then expect scrutiny. Don’t bleat about how other religions wouldn’t get scrutiny, that isn’t fair. I’m pretty sure plenty of politicians from around the religious fraternity have faced questions as to how their faith interacts with their politics.

Was his interview with Cathy Newman a car-crash? No. Was it uneasy? Oh yes, yes it was. In a piece entitled, On why I voted the way I did in the Lib Dem leadership election… I openly questioned whether Tim was prepared for the obvious questions that were coming on this subject. It seems as though he wasn’t. I actually took quite a lot of stick for even bringing it up and whether it was fair, my thought process was as a judge would say, ‘well counsel, you’ve opened the door…’ and if the door has been opened, prepare yourself for the onslaught.

The problem with religion is it doesn’t sound good in a sound bite. We are not a deeply religious nation and whilst in the good ol’ U S of A you have to be very public in your Christianity, over here all that will do is make people look at you with slightly narrowed eyes, rightly or wrongly.

So whilst it was a tough question to answer, he had to actually answer it and not in a wishy-washy way that he did. ‘Well all of us are sinners’ is not an acceptable response unless you want the electorate to believe that you think it is a sin. Here’s a good analogy, if someone asks you, ‘does my bum look big in this?’ and you respond, ‘well all bums look big in that dress’ then the person posing the question will infer that you think their bum looks big.

If Tim thinks that it is a sin then so be it. Part of liberty is the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression. Tim is fully entitled to believe that homosexuality is a sin. You and I may not agree with him but heck he’s entitled to that view (if indeed it is his view, which the evidence implies it probably is). The issue is whether his personal view will influence how he acts on such issues in his role as leader of a liberal political party. He has repeatedly stated that it wouldn’t and that should be the end of that in a perfect world. Still, we aren’t in a perfect world are we?

I have been disappointed by people who have said that this is a vendetta against Tim, the Lib Dems, Christianity when in fact it was a legitimate question and one that was always going to be posed. Plenty in the LGBT+ community are fully supportive of Tim whilst other do seem to have been concerned by his comments. I also think it is very fair to say that as a collective, had Nigel Farage for example made these comments then there would’ve been a more united assault on his character because of them. Some people are basing their reaction based on who said what instead of what was said and that I feel is not right.

This is a really small issue in the grand scheme of things for Tim and the Lib Dems but it is one that the media will peck at and peck at until they have a definitive answer. Tim (and his team, but in reality mainly Tim) needs to find a better answer to the question and once he does, the question will stop coming. I told him several weeks ago that he needed better answers to these questions and he chose to ignore me (which is fair enough, I know bugger all) but maybe now having seen the backlash not just within certain section of the party he now leads but also from potential voters, he’ll understand that he isn’t a backbencher any more and he will face a very different level of scrutiny (once more, rightly or wrongly on such an issue) but it comes with the territory.

Tim should be facing questions about how to rebuild the party, grow liberal values, make the party more gender balanced both in terms of councillors and MPs, what policies he wants to bring to the core of the party and the like. Instead the narrative is all about his Christianity, which is not good for neither himself personally nor the party.

So the answer is simple. Find the answer to the fecking question and then we can move on and start talking about the actual important shit.

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On ‘meeting’ and listening to Tim Farron but also thinking about leadership as a whole…

Published by neilmonnery on July 12, 2015

I put meeting in inverted commas because we didn’t actually meet or speak but I got to see him and listen to what he had to say. Tim did tweet me and say that it was lovely to meet me, which I laughed at on the train home when I saw it. I’ll put it down to the amount of people that he has had to meet and greet in the past few weeks but if he can tell me who I was then I’ll be impressed. I’ll give a hint at the end of this blog post.

So yesterday I had nothing on and I knew Tim was heading down to Guildford so I thought I’d pop on down to meet him (which I didn’t) and to listen to what he had to say (which I did). I had been informed by most people that had met him that he was an extremely impressive individual both face-to-face and in small groups. I have already written about how I think that he is more effective across the media than his leadership rival Norman Lamb so that wasn’t up for debate in my mind.

First things first, my gut reaction was that Tim was shattered after a long leadership contest where no doubt he has driven/been driven and leaned on the railways up and down the country for hustings and meet and greets with various local parties. I didn’t sense the energy that others had told me he had. I am happy to put this down to being at the end of this campaign though, I cannot imagine how I’d be after such a schedule and Guildford was his final stop on the road and I understand he had already had several stops on that Saturday.

The whole idea of energy being an important factor in politics in an interesting one. I don’t want an Ironman as leader. I want someone who is a leader, an effective communicator and someone who can reach out to beyond the current Liberal Democrat voter demographic. So this whole idea of needing bundles of energy I think is a newfangled thing that isn’t that important anyway.

More importantly I wanted to hear what he had to say. He walked in to rapturous applause and I glanced around to see a lot of excited faces. It reminded me of a rock star somewhat and not of a leader. When I met Nick Clegg and he walked into the room I didn’t sense he was a rock star, I sensed he was a leader. That was one distinct difference that I immediately felt.

On to what he had to say though and several things stood out that I certainly agreed with. This naval gazing bollocks that is going on (he didn’t use the term bollocks – I am) is not how you earn back the trust and the votes of the electorate. You start getting back the trust by speaking to people and telling them of what you stand for and what you’ll fight for – certainly at local level. If there are issues that effect people that councillors can help with then you need to work hard and tell people that you’ll help them. You don’t get votes without people knowing that you are out there fighting for them in this current climate.

Secondly about black holes or as he preferred to name them, Lib Dem deserts. He said that the best way to start fixing this is to ‘Pick a ward and win it’. All parties have areas where they aren’t natural territory for them but they can still win there. Locally we can see that on Rochford District Council where Cllr. Chris Black does an excellent job in his ward of Downhall & Rawreth where he is joined by Cllr. Ron Oatham. This isn’t what you’d call natural Lib Dem territory but the ward has been solidly Lib Dem for a while due to hard work by the local Lib Dem group there.

It isn’t exactly breaking any trade secrets to say that the Lib Dems in the east of Southend have issues but the PAWAWI strategy in one that needs to be and will be implemented. I’m not saying the party will win a ward out east in 2016 but you have to have a strategy to start making inroads and have a longer-term ambitions instead of just going from one election to the next.

He was asked about tuition fees and winning back the student vote, replying to this he stated that the fees weren’t the issue but the (perceived) loss of trust. The tuition fees fiasco as I like to call it was one we know Nick Clegg foresaw before the election as he wanted to scrub it from the manifesto knowing it would be hard to keep in any coalition negotiations. He knew it was something that could be hard to keep and would be something that could be used to flog him and the party going forward. Conference voted him down and the rest as the say is history.

Trust is a hard thing to regain in any form of life. Once someone betrays you then you are wary of them for a long time. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me so they say. The Lib Dems went into a coalition with the hated Tories and did an apparent public U-turn on a well publicised policy led to anger. The only way to gain that trust back is by working hard and delivering at local level.

Sadly due to time constraints at the end of the meet and greet many people didn’t get to speak to meet him. As I said earlier about the rock star line, everyone wanted to see, speak and have their picture taken with him and even though it was tried to have him split his time equally between the two tables of Lib Dem members who had rocked up to meet him, the first table wouldn’t let him go and Tim had a train to catch to breathe and see his family, which is fair enough.

I wrote last week about how I was voting for Tim, not because he really spoke to me individually but because I felt he was the right person to speak to the nation as a whole on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. I suspect Norman would be a better voice of British liberalism but people shouldn’t be surprised that I would say such a thing. I’m clearly and unashamedly a Cleggite. I am a Nick Clegg guy and watching him on Sunday Politics this morning there wasn’t one occasion where I winced or drew in breathe at something that he said. He is my guy and he speaks to me.

Yet as Harriet Harman put it so well on Sunday Politics this morning, she urged Labour members not to vote for the person they felt more comfortable with but the person who’ll be able to best deliver the message and lead to electoral success. That seemed to be a veiled (or not so veiled) shot at the rise of Jeremy Corbyn but when it comes to the Lib Dems, this is why Tim Farron is the right man for the gig.

I looked around the group of people who were enthused (to say the least) about meeting Tim and listening to what he had to say. He brought out excitement and people were eager to listen. Yes it was an audience you’d expect to listen but his effective in terms of communication and I suspect the fact he’ll drag the party slightly to the left of centre whereas Norman will stick right in the centre-ground, is something that will appeal to potential Liberal Democrat voters going forward.

I would have liked to hear more about his thoughts on being the radical party of the centre-ground but he didn’t get that opportunity and I could tell time was an issue so I didn’t bring it up. I have long believed that is part of what the Lib Dems should stand for. Sometimes you have to inch closer to where you want to be but sometimes you have to blow things up and start again as it were.

I’d like to know what areas he believes would be better served by starting from scratch and starting again to try and change the culture of an area of government. Personally I have written on multiple occasions about the education system and how I believe it doesn’t best serve the young people of this country to best prepare them for the future. I’m not expecting Tim to say that (although trust me Tim – should you agree with my education PoV then I’m your man) but he must have some gut check areas in life where he believes things would be better served by radical change.

Still overall it was a worthwhile day. I don’t think he was on tip-top form but he said enough (and got the reaction) to make me think he was the right guy for the party going forward. I shall go and post my ballot now (well I say now, I’m sitting in my boxers, I’ll do it after I’ve gotten dressed because no-one wants to see that) and I hope he wins on Thursday. The future of a liberal voice in this country is vital in this age of nationalism that is spreading not only just across this country but also across Europe. His views on the importance of the Welfare State are good and whilst he’s not Nick Clegg, not many people are.

Lastly just to solve the riddle if Tim has indeed read this, has he worked out who I was yet? Have a guess…

Backwards baseball cap, sunglasses and the most ‘outrageous’ (as a date once termed them) sunset orange/yellow Nike Air Max 95 trainers.

We’ll probably meet one day. Until then I shall continue to blog from afar…

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Please leave any comments or contact me directly via the E-Mail Me link on the Right Hand Nav. You can stay in touch with the blog following me on Twitter or by liking the blog on Facebook. Please share this content via the Social Media links below if you think anyone else would enjoy reading.

On my experience with the Tesco Neighbourhood Food Collection…

Published by neilmonnery on July 3, 2015

So from Thursday through to Saturday the Tesco Neighbourhood Food Collection is taking place, in association with the Trussell Trust and Fareshare UK. These events are taking place in Tesco stores up and down the country and I put myself forward to volunteer for two stints, in two different stores, one for the Trussell Trust and one for Fairshare UK and I had two very different experiences.

We’ll start with the bad. On Thursday I was down to volunteer for Fareshare and I went to that store. First things first, when I turned up they had pretty much got nothing sorted and this was deep into the afternoon. All they had was a table, a trolley, the shopping lists to hand out and the tabards to wear so people knew what you were there for. I went to the customer service desk to sign in as instructed and the lady there told me that a guy was also volunteering, went up and spoke to him and he said he was leaving and that all I had to do was hand out the shopping lists, simple enough really.

The problem was that there was no-one else there to help so people walking in would generally see you and go the other way. You can’t cover the whole of the entrance alone and quite quickly I became dispirited. With no staff to help or any other volunteers it was also quite lonely and to be honest pretty boring. I know that some good was happening as some food was being donated and that would go to needy people but it certainly what I would call an enjoyable afternoon. I have done plenty of charity/voluntary work in the past and this was certainly the least enjoyable situation that I’d been in.

After an hour or so I was really thinking about how long I could stick it out. The public weren’t taking the shopping lists and it just wasn’t a good experience. About an hour or so later I’m presuming a manager of some sort came up to me and said they would put over some announcements on the tannoy to announce what was going on to help and then said words that would resonate in my brain, ‘it is always nice to have an extra pair of hands to help’ and all I could think was that no-one at that store was helping that food collection in any way at all. It felt like that had no desire to be involved at all. That really annoyed me that they welcomed an extra pair of hands but did nothing to help at all. About 45 minutes later and still no tannoy announcements and I decided enough was enough. I knew there were no other volunteers for the rest of that day to hand over to and I had planned to stick it out until the end of the day but I just couldn’t do it.

So I felt pretty down that despite having done some good and a trolley brimmed full of donated produce, I had not felt either a) wanted or b) respected by my experience. I know volunteer work isn’t really about what you get out of it but when you feel that badly about your experience, it doesn’t really make you feel good.

On to today and a much better experience, the local Food Bank here is overseen with the help of six local churches and they had divided the shifts into two hour slots. One of the guys picked me up and there were three of us so we could cover the the whole entrance area and indeed there were people to talk to and bounce off of each other. This time there was a whole display that had been set up and a whole area devoted to the event. The people I was with said that it wasn’t as good as last time as that Tesco store had put on an excellent display in previous collections.

Again no Tesco staff were actually on hand to help although this time with the food bank having organised the volunteers etc. – there wasn’t as much of a need but looking on twitter and you can see in many of these collections, Tesco staff seemed to mingle and help out with the volunteers, that didn’t happen at either store where I volunteered. This was disappointing. More so yesterday than today.

Today was more enjoyable and more productive. It certainly felt good to see people you’d spoken to as they had walked in donate and we took away probably 10-14 crates of food to the food bank warehouse after our two hour shift.

Two things of note. The 12:00 minute silence for the Tunisia victims was observed but I certainly had no idea of it until it actually happened. The store stopped and went silent and people were walking in and were completely confused by what was going on. That was surreal.

Secondly we had one person take umbrage with what we were doing and claimed that food banks were ruining this country because food banks stopped people from getting jobs. He walked up to me going on about how people would line up if people were handing out ten pound notes and whilst some would, many people wouldn’t but he kept going on and on about it and one of the food bank regulars took over and spoke to him but he was going on for a good 15 minutes, it was madness. I know there is a lot of misinformation about food banks out there but the fact of the matter is the vast majority, the vast majority, are in real need of a meal. I don’t know the ins and outs but poverty is a real issue and poverty is not a choice, no matter what anyone thinks.

So my two stints volunteering were wildly different. I felt down after one and the other I felt some real good was done (a lot more food was donated today). As I said earlier, doing voluntary work isn’t about what you can get out of it but more what you can do to help others but when you feel as though no-one wants you there then it is really tough.

One thing I did notice though was who donated more, who took the shopping lists more and who went out of their way to ignore you and not make eye contact. Step forward the women of the world for being the far more polite sex on this front. Also age ranges, the best sections were clearly women who were mothers, women who were grandmothers were amongst the worst, the retired generation as a whole didn’t could away well from my unscientific survey of my memory. Most men who declined though would at least make eye contact and say no thank you whereas the majority of women who didn’t take one would avoid you or look at you like you were beneath them. It was quite eye-opening.

I’m not sure I’m recommend it to anyone else, if I could guarantee they had a similar reception to what I got today then I would but yesterday was so bad. I think I’d tell anyone planning on doing it to ensure they weren’t doing it alone and to rope in a friend or colleague to go with them. I think I was just really unlucky yesterday but it did really make me feel like shit. The food banks do such great work and those of us who are lucky not to have ever dealt with them are indeed just that, lucky and there but for the grace of God as they say.

Food banks need all the support they can get and I think Tesco do a great job getting involved centrally but at a store by store level the experiences seem to be so different. I’m not sure if that is a management issue at stores locally but looking at photos on twitter you can see the differences between the stores that really go out and promote the event and those who bury it in the background.

If you are in Tesco at any time between now and Saturday then please don’t be rude to any volunteers and donate what you can. The Tesco Neighbourhood Food Collection will no doubt happen again in November/December and there are always plenty of ways to donate to your local Food Bank, whatever you donate goes straight to people in need and knowing that is part of the reason why I think volunteering for such an event was a good one to do. This isn’t money going to pay whatever overheads but this food goes straight to those who need it, what could be better?

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