HALLOWEEN HORRORS

TWITTER YE NOT

David Palethorpe's "twittered" resignation as Leader of Northampton Borough Council was a shock, after all it is only six months since his crowning after the Tories election win. But those of us who were in the know as to to the way the votes stacked up in the Tory Group at the time for deputy leader knew very well that trouble may well be ahead.

It seems the group has splits plural rather than a split singular and its difficult to ascertain just who is in whose camp? Whats is also troubling is that any new leader will now have three ex leaders breathing down their neck telling them just where they are going wrong. As to some of David's reasons for leaving as expressed on his blog i.e. too many of his group not up for a fight with their County Colleagues over at County Hall and his fear that Jim Harker's crew are arrogant and plotting a takeover of NBC?

Well some of us did see this coming and it is one fight in which I will be happy to stand in David Palethorpe's corner, and any NBC Tory Councillor who thinks differently should give up their Borough seat now and show us all their true colours. The very thought of any NBC Councillors holding a view that Northampton would be better served by a unitary County rather than a Unitary Northampton authority should be enough for them to consider their position

CORONATION OR CONTEST?

Meanwhile tonight's big leadership battle will take part between it seems just two candidates? Cllrs David Mackintosh and Chris Malpas! I wonder if they asked the rest of their group before deciding to declare nominations closed and inform the press of the final big brother vote being a two horse race?

There will certainly be egg on someones face if another candidate comes out of left field and takes the crown. The Mack will start as odds on favourite of course simply because whilst Chris Malpas is a thoroughly nice geezer none of his group will see him as a serious leadership contender.

Its a bit like having a stalking horse with no one waiting in the wings for the second round of voting? So Mack it will be? If so the other fear I have is that David Mackintosh whilst very able has been built up far beyond any sensible level as the new messiah and leader either of NBC or NCC for some time both by his supporters and the local press. But will he be able to make the jump from contender to champion?

My view? "He is not the Messiah he is just a very naughty boy"

JUST THE TICKET

Still no sign of a letter or email from NCC following my victory over Residents Parking back in August. see http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2011/09/traffic-wardens-become-lawbreakers.html but much merriment over them digging themselves into an ever deeper hole. You will remember the tribunal saying that the ruling was "final and binding on both parties" well it seems that the legislation does allow an appeal under exceptional circumstances within 14 days of written receipt of the ruling the tribunal state that

"The grounds for review are narrow. A party might consider making an application for review if, for example, they believe that:

• the Adjudicator made a mistake about the law; or
• new evidence has come to light, the existence of which could not have been anticipated at the time of the original decision"

 So on the 29th of September (exactly 14 days after receipt) they wrote to the tribunal stating that

"NCC is not seeking a review"

Well that's that then surely? not quite you see they wrote again to the tribunal on the 17th October this time asking if their letter of the 29th of September when they said they were not seeking a review could now be considered and "submitted as a review application"

I have now discovered that despite initially dishing out tickets to people illegally after they knew the scheme was not enforceable (15th September) that they have now ceased to enforce the areas (from the 27th September) So can anyone ticketed in between get their money back with an apology? And if they are now not enforcing the residents parking schemes then why are they still selling permits to residents on the pretence that they are? I will keep you updated as to progress and eventually I guess at some point the Council might even make contact with me?

BLOGTASTIC

Regular readers of my missives may be interested to know that as the world's population reaches the 7 Billion mark the number of all time individual readers* of this blog is fast approaching the 30,000 mark * = (separate isp computer log ins since May 2009)

Not surprisingly 21,000 of those readers are UK based but we have had a healthy readership of 2806 from the USA, 567 from France and 553 from Germany. Amongst the "others" for some unknown reason we have had 287 separate log ins from tiny Luxembourg and a regular readership of 69 from Iran.

As to stories I always try to keep the blogs a mix of the local and national but the number one read blog of all time was a fairly recent one (numbers have risen as the readership broadens)

"WHATS A GREEK URN IN BLACK SWANS"June 2011   http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-many-black-swans-does-greek-urn.html

Local and London based readers pushed "CLYDE LOAKES DIRECT NO WIN NO FEE" from March 2009 into second place http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2009/03/clyde-loakes-direct-no-fee-no-win-100.html and

"MORE TOPICAL SHORTS" from November 2010 takes the bronze medal http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-topical-shorts.html

I look forward to the next 30,000 new visitors!