Archive for May, 2007

Glasnost Gordon?

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

Despite Tony Blair’s generous endorsment, it only took a few hours for Gordon Brown to start making veiled attack’s on Tony Blair’s style of Government.

For the past ten years Gordon has had ample opportunity to have run the Treasury as a model for openess, with respect for Parliament. Yet he hasn’t. His own respect for Parliament has been to appear at debates and committees and blitzkrieg with a barrage of unfathomable statistics, often irrelevant to the question asked.

Where will Gordon draw inspiration for his new found glasnost?

Posted in Labour Leadership | No Comments »

Why bother with a ringside seat?

Saturday, May 5th, 2007

Have you ever been to a sporting event or concert only to find that you didn’t really see much of the action and that you would have had a better view watching in on the box? Although I will always try to scrape together enough euros to attend a Formula One race I do miss the comforts of home – TV coverage -ITV plus RTL, Radio Five Live and a live timing screen on the laptop.

The same can be said for elections. As a candidate at the count, you have little idea how the election is unfolding outside. Sat up in bed at home in Pontrieux I was watching “Tory Boy” Robinson et al backpeddling from their pre-election predictions of a Labour catastrophe (a 1% increase in Labour’s vote wasn’t in the script). I was also keeping an eye on South Gloucestershire Council’s website, which for the first time was giving a results service.

Having noted that my good friend Matthew Riddle had successfuly defended his seat with a whopping Alan B’stard majority,  a congratulatory phone call was in order. I caught Matthew watching the count for the Thornbury seats. After pleasantries I spent the next ten minutes reading out results from the South Glos website, with Matthew relaying this information to others at the count. “I’ve got Gary Pepworth on the phone calling from France giving me the results”, does have a certain surrealism about it.

Alas, lest we marvel too much at the wonders of technology, the call dropped and soon after, to use a technical explanation, the South Glos elections website went tits up.

Posted in BBC, Democracy, Thornbury, UK Current Events | No Comments »

Sitting this one out

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Thoughts turn to Britain and in particular Thornbury today with the local elections. For the past two sets of local elections I was a Labour Party candidate for both South Gloucestershire and Thornbury Town Council. My key concern would have been whether I would beat my record from previous votes.

So far in each of the 5 seats I have contested I have come bottom, which has included the ignominy of being beaten by a joke candidate. My vote in 2003 was nearly halve that of 1999. I should make it clear that apart from 1950 when Tony Crosland was the MP, Thornbury is not Labour territory.

Even so this is not how I expected it to turn out. I had expected that some of the Pepworth magic that was successfully deployed in my student union election days would rub off. (For the purpose of vanity, I should point out that I was elected in each of the 6 elections I contested and topped the poll in 5. The last election being to become President of the students’ union.)

So tonight I will be spared having to conceal disappointment, listening to mutterings from the counting staff that “the Labour man isn’t doing well”, remonstrating with the returning officer that his staff aren’t counting the votes properly and at 3am Friday morning for a fleeting moment wondering that if I was really that desperate to be on the council perhaps I should grow a beard and/or don a floral print polyester dress and throw my lot in with the Lib Dems. I am not that desperate to be on the council.

Fraternal greetings to Bob Hall, Gillian Foxton, Colin Burgess and Alasdair Hall, your extremely talented and able Thornbury Labour candidates for South Gloucesterhire Council.

Posted in Democracy, Thornbury, UK Current Events | No Comments »

Invitations galore!

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

While most of the French locals are either ignorant or indifferent to my presence in Pontrieux, I am sufficiently visible on the radar to be invited to things. Mostly these are of an official nature, like the annual assembly of the tourist board, or a meeting chaired by the Mayor to discuss “access by professionals to the communal waste depot”. So far I haven’t attended any of these – usually the times clash with by business hours, also I fear that my desire to fade into the background will not be realised and I may be called upon to address the meeting in my Officer Crabtree French.

Other invites have been to drinks receptions at public exhibitions, or a personal note encouraging me to attend a public event. These are generally more my cup of tea and are good opportunities to meet people. I have noticed that I tend to be the only Brit who has been invited (or turned up), I always receive a very warm welcome and made to feel very relaxed. I definitely feel that I am gaining more from my French experience that those Brits who retreat to their English speaking communities and don’t interact much with the French around them. (Usually the same sort of people who moan about the same behaviour by foreign residents in the UK).

Today’s post brought an invitation by Laura a local artist, to a reception marking the reopening of her studio-boutique. I will report back later.

Posted in Pontrieux | No Comments »