Blogger Humiliates Town Councillors Into Resigning

Dr_Barnowl writes "In an occurrence first postulated in sci-fi and later lampooned by stick figures, it seems that a blogger has actually been responsible for the mass resignation of elected officials — a British town council — largely by calling them 'jack***es' and Nazis. What's next? The deposition of a president with 'your mom' smacktalk?"

Comments

Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[LatencyKills]

TFA is atrociously thin on what I'm certain is a long-ongoing feud between many townspeople and not the inflammatory comments of a single blogger. I think all rational people realize that when someone whips out the Nazi comparison that they're just behaving irrationally and will most likely be ignored, so the argument we're supposed to believe is that 12 counselors resigned over being called jackasses? Seems unlikely. For those of you hoping to start a grass roots revolution so easily, I'd be willing to bet that at least some level of phone calls to their homes at all hours and perhaps a few loud townhall meetings were involved (both of which, incidentally, you can't do at either the US House or Senate).

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[gowen]

To be fair, looking at his blog (see here) he's not exactly clear about his allegations. Having read his droolings, I firmly believe that people would quit working for a council to avoid having to deal with that paranoid mental case.

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Anonymous Coward]

The associated blog itself only hints at the underlying cause - it *appears* that a direct enquiry as to why the said council was not responding to requests under the Freedom of Information Act let to a mass "spontaneous" resignation. It all appeared to be quite an orchestrated circus, the mass walk-out that is, and so was probably foreseen by the said council members. Funny how they all had letters of resignation ready to submit.
Methinks they doth protest too much, and one anticipates exposure of earlier ill-deeds by some of the outgoing council, perhaps even legal actions.
Overall, kudos to the blogger for speaking truth to power - more evidence that the current "blogger's revolution" referenced recently here on slashdot will see our modern media overturned in short shrift.
And from the comments to the blog, it looks like it's riled up the peasants somewhat, and we'll see more citizen action in the near future. It's so heartening to see grass-roots action affecting real change.

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[BasilBrush]

paranoid mental case.

His concerns seem valid. There looks to be manipulation of the planning system for personal profit by a councillor who is also a property developer.

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[AmiMoJo]

You are correct, they resigned because of sustained pressure not just from this blogger but from local press and constituents (voters). They are just blaming the blogger to elect sympathy (no pun intended).

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Anonymous Coward]

to elect sympathy (no pun intended).

If you'd said 'elicit' there would've been no pun anyway...

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[NickFortune]

I agree entirely. There's this meme going around that holds that if newspapers die, investigative journalism will vanish from the face of the earth. I think this case could well serve as a counter example.

Incidentally, is it me or is there a a strong subtext of "don't try this at home, kids!" to many of the posts on this topic? You'd almost think some people were worried in case this sort of grass roots political activism should catch on....

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[twostix]

Civil servants in the mother country have developed a disturbing sense of over entitlement to their positions and status. So no it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that a single blogger has been enough of pain for a couple of them enough to throw a hissy fit. In "nu england" where 1 in 4 workers are employed by the government a new class of individual has arisen: the over entitled, all powerful, low level, vindictive, civil servant.

The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as they say, nobody does bureaucracy like the English - and they used to say that *before* the Nu Labour "revolution".

Off the top of my head from the last few months various councils have:

Sent men in black vans to rummage through individuals bins to make sure that they are sorting their rubbish properly (before sending to mass landfill anyway).

Started placing cameras *in* families homes - 20000 of them over the next few years.

Reduced bin collection to every *two weeks* AND reduced the size of bins.

Placed cameras in alleyways to ensure people are tying off their garbage bags properly.

Seized the pole from a barbers shop - that had been their for 30 years.

Impounded a mothers pram.

Arrested a man for leaving the lid of his bin open four inches greater than regulation allows.

Started using thermal imaging to send residents notices if they are allowing heat to escape from their homes.

Used anti-terror laws to conduct surveillance on people the council suspects of having un-approved structures...like a garden shed in the backyard.

So my dear American, best to not apply your own Occams razor - my own countries governance must be the same everywhere - fallacy on newly emerging post democratic totalitarian states.

What people can stay free, when one of them demands the other three pay him to regulate their lives?

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[WillDraven]

Just because something is common doesn't mean it's right.

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Troll - classic mix of truth and rampant hyperbole.

Local councils have been given way more power than they need allowing them to spend money on total nonsense - but;

• I've heard of no councils that have reduced bin collection to every 2 weeks - only certain 'luxury pickups' like garden waste (leaves, hedge trimmings etc.) and certain recycling pickups; so definite citation needed here
• The cameras in people's homes are a UK Gov plan that the councils have no choice but to follow - blame the cabinet for that cracking idea
• the barbers pole was removed as it was causing problems with drivers on the road next to it, the council was submitting to complaints that had been made. Say what you will about their decision, but at least admit there was a method to their madness
• The man wasn't arrested for leaving his bin open - he was fined, for over-filling his bin. It was a bit specific to the letter of the law, but its not outrageous to draw the line where they did
• the thermal cameras are already being used to detect drug factories being setup in residential homes, its not a stretch to make homeowners aware of ludicrously inefficient insulation in their homes for minimal extra costs - some would even consider it a public service (i know gasp).

I'm sure these were honest slips of the finger and that you of course had no agenda of your own to ply. But please try to remember that not everyone's definition of Freedom involves being left to fend for yourself while amoral corporations and modern day lords and barons in the forms of bankers and CEO's tie up the legal system for their own ends and prey upon those to small or poor to defend themselves. Also please remember that at least 75% of those civil servants (the 1 in 4 apparently :s) are low-level administrators who earn just above the min wage (current A-band salary in local and national Gov goes from approx £14,300 -16,500 - this band also covers cleaners, binmen, street cleaners, so called menial jobs etc.). Don't even pretend these are people you could do without, as the national outcry and massive disruptions caused by industrial action in just a few places pretty much proves their worth. The 1 in 4 also include teachers, nurses, GP's, doctors, police, paramedics, firemen, the civilian forces that help maintain the previous list, the armed forces in all its forms and the various arms of the MOD. These are the people that keep you alive and guard your freedoms, your children and your future. Yet well over 50% take home less than a supervisor at fucking McDonalds.

Keep your freedom to be fucked - I'd rather live in a country that recognises the need to protect certain freedoms by building an infrastructure - even if it does have to pruned once in a while (keeping in mind you prune from the top down :)).

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think all rational people realize that when someone whips out the Nazi comparison that they're just behaving irrationally

Normally you'd be right, but you know, when the council voted to invade Poland, someone had to dare to speak the truth!

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I've heard of no councils that have reduced bin collection to every 2 weeks - only certain 'luxury pickups' like garden waste (leaves, hedge trimmings etc.) and certain recycling pickups; so definite citation needed here

Credibility fail. Literally five seconds with Google would show you that this practice has become commonplace across the UK in recent years, usually against public opinion. The details of which recycling is collected vary by local council, but reducing general rubbish collections to biweekly is almost always involved.

This does make things somewhat unpleasant in terms of smells and pests at certain times of year. IME, the worse problem is that it means if a council miss your collection one week, you wind up with an entire month of rubbish to go in the (typically small) bin, which just doesn't fit. Then the council may refuse to collect excess waste (or you get fined via the legal system), and often there is no useful process of appeal: if the bin men say your bin wasn't out, that's it, even if it clearly was and they've made the same mistake several times already. I'm writing from personal experience, but I'm hardly the only one who's mentioned this problem on local forums around where I live.

The man wasn't arrested for leaving his bin open - he was fined, for over-filling his bin. It was a bit specific to the letter of the law, but its not outrageous to draw the line where they did

That rather depends on whether the council are doing a decent job otherwise, doesn't it? As I noted above, they frequently don't, but now instead of it being their problem, it has legally become yours.

There are numerous other minor abuses going on, e.g., if you get home from work on collection day and find one of your recycling bins/boxes hasn't come back, you can get another one free, but some places charge a lot of money to replace the general waste bin under the same circumstances. Once again, containers not being put back outside your home after collection is a common problem—we've had four or five instances in the past couple of years—and to a household on a low income, the cost of replacement just so they can use the bin service they're already paying through the nose for via Council Tax, is a lot of money.

Defenders of such policies usually seem to mumble something about not having hypothecated taxation, so just because we have a dedicated Council Tax that goes to our local authorities and just because those local authorities are legally responsible for providing waste collection services, that doesn't mean you're entitled to actually get a working service or any minimum standards just because you pay them thousands of pounds a year in tax. Seriously, I've been told this many times, and it seems to be the best they've got. What happened to no taxation without representation? Why aren't our representatives up in arms over this sort of failure to provide essential basic services?

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[estarriol]

The cameras in people's homes are a UK Gov plan that the councils have no choice but to follow - blame the cabinet for that cracking idea

There is always an alternative choice, though it may not be the most pleasant of things to think about. Us American's kicked your government to the curb over a few tax disputes (and a few other issues). Placing cameras in private citizens' homes seem to me like a much bigger issue.

You guys could at least throw a few riots or something. And no, angry postings on slashdot do not count. By excusing this sort of behaviour all you are doing is shifting blame from your government to yourself.

Three big flaws in your argument here even at a casual glance:-

1) The proto-Americans had the advantage of an ocean between them and the people they were rebelling against, and the advantage of being on home territory against an enemy who had generally never even been to the rebels' continent. The situation would have been radically different if the American rebels were living in Clapham.

2) It's not "Us Americans" who rebelled at all - you personally had nothing at all to do with it - so it's rather precious of you to advocate that others risk their lives to do something that I suspect you have never done yourself.

3) The modern USA is exactly the sort of imperialist superpower that England was back then.

Overall, the pretense that modern Americans are some kind of ninja rebel outfit who would overthrow their government at the first sign of totalitarianism isn't helping anyone, especially when you sit in your comfy chair behind your (no doubt very rebellious) warrior keyboard and advocate that others risk their lives.

Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I've not spent 5 seconds with Google

Perhaps you should. In the time it took you to write those words, you could instead have typed "bi-weekly bin collection UK", clicked the search button, and found numerous articles immediately, from all over the country, showing the current situation. (I'd find you some summary statistics, but strangely, neither local councils nor the central government people promoting this arrangement are going out of their way to acknowledge how widespread it has become and the level of dissatisfaction it has caused.)

I have spent almost 30 years living in the UK. I have friends in virtually every region of the country and can tell you that I know no-one who has bi-weekly general waste collection

You have friends within virtually every local council area in the country? Is that like having 600 Facebook "friends" or something?

Or are you trying to generalise from one person's limited experience—your own—and assuming that just because you haven't experienced this at all, no-one else has either?

I wouldn't call 4 or 5 instances a common problem in, at least, over 100 collections.

You might if each of those occasions meant that for the corresponding type of waste you had no collection for a month, and possibly for another 2–4 weeks more depending on how long it took for a replacement to be delivered since the collection people won't accept any non-standard containers for "health and safety" reasons. Put another way, someone with that failure rate has sub-standard waste collection for approximately 50% of the year.

Also, please give evidence of low income families being required to pay for a replacement for a bin that the council lost.

In my city, as far as I've been told by the council, everyone has to pay to get their black (general waste) bin replaced if it goes missing for any reason. The low income part is only relevant because if you've got around £50 to spare it's an irritation while if you've got around £50 to buy food this week it's a bit more than that.

However, if any of the various kinds of recycling bin or box used in our area go missing, the council replaces them free of charge, albeit often with a delay before the new one is delivered.

Council Tax (really, more than £2,000 a year? Where do you live?)

In a detached house in East Anglia. Ours isn't quite that much (though it's not far off these days), but I think one or two bands further and you're past that mark, and last time I checked we were actually a little below the national average rates for each band.

I'm not saying bin collection is perfect, but you seem to have gone way over the top in your post.

I'm biased, but then again, I've also been repeatedly screwed. Our Council Tax has gone up while the level of service has gone down. We've had so many missed collections that formal complaints resulted in the collection people having to call a supervisor every time they wanted to mark one of our bins as not being put out. And while we personally have never lost the one bin you'd have to pay for, we've had the other one not come back on collection day twice, and as I write this we have neither of the two boxes we should have any more and the Council won't replace them because they're moving to a new system with a third bin instead in a few weeks, so basically for about two months we are missing half of our collections.

This sort of mess is precisely the kind of thing normal people with real lives and time-consuming jobs shouldn't have to worry about, yet here I am, so annoyed by it that I'm debating the subject with a stranger on Slashdot. I shudder to think how much time I've used chasing up the council each time something has gone wrong. This is the sort of stuff that should Just Work, and it's what local councils are for. If they're

Revealed as feeble...

[CaptainOfSpray]

And what prevented those councillors from telling their side of the story?

Clearly they had no real response to this blogger, and so just folded.

Leaves me wondering whether they were guilty or merely incompetent.

CounCILLors!

[earthloop]

They're councillors. As in, people on a council.

Counsellors are a different breed of people altogether, like Troi.

Re:CounCILLors!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feed the Trois!

On the other hand, it's Somerton

[Kupfernigk]

Disclaimer: I live in the Somerton and Frome constituency. The East side (where I live) is part of the 21st century, The politics is mainly Lib Dem (the only mainstream UK progressive party- and no, I am not a member.) The south-west side is deeply conservative and rural, and the local grandees have a huge sense of entitlement. They think that they have a right to run things and nobody should be allowed to criticise them. (They are also the area's Nimbys - they try to block industry or anything that will modernise the area and provide well-paid jobs for non-landowners.)

Now someone thinks they have the right to comment on Council decisions - and the toys get thrown out of the pram.

This is not about bloggers. It's about rural Conservatives finding their views called into question. It would be exactly the same if it was a campaigning newspaper, or if the people in subsidised housing started a resident's group and sent someone to see what happened in Council meetings.

Re:On the other hand, it's Somerton

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds right to me. How anyone (BBC included) can reduce the interests and actions of 100+ locals down to the words of one blogger is an odd bit of misinterpretation. At best M&B is a lightning rod, an articulation of sentiment that is apparently shared by a significant number of others. So any assignment of responsibility is about like blaming the messenger.

This blogger was lucky

[CdBee]

In the UK its fairly easy to get sued for making written statements about people unless you are scrupulously accurate, and having looked at the blog in question he's taken a fair few risks..

Probably the traditional British tolerance for ecentricity is the only thing preventing the targets of his jibes from crucifying him in a civil court...

Re:This blogger was lucky

[jabithew]

I refer you to the case of Simon Singh v. Assorted Lunatics. What he said was materially true, but he will most likely lose the court case.

Mr Justice Eady has a lot to answer for.

There's more details on the Singh case in the current Private Eye, for any Brits out there.

Re:This blogger was lucky

[BasilBrush]

I've provided evidence. You have not. IF you had a case, you be explicit about which "examples" and why.

Meanwhile here's more absolute proof that I'm right. A case summary by the Law Lords.

To an action for defamation truth is an absolute defence.

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:3u0QFtSeHFsJ:oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk/new/casebook/cases/Cases%2520Chapter%252026/Spring%2520v%2520Guardian%2520Assurance%2520plc%2520and%2520others.doc+england+truth+%22absolute+defence%22&cd=49&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari

It can't get much more clearly stated than that, or by anyone with more authority on what the law in England is. You have swallowed an internet meme that's a myth. You're wrong.

Re:You LIE!

[Zarf]

In all seriousness... from the scant details in the real article (which barely provides any information) it seems the blog functioned as a newspaper would. Other than the fact that this was a blog I don't see how this is different from ... say "The Colonist's Advocate" used by Benjamin Franklin... or their modern analogs such as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" or their "Covert Report" ... or (on the right) the "comedians" such as Rush Limbaugh or the comedy players on Fox News. There's a fine tradition of comedians helping to shape politics dating back at least as far as Shakespeare.

Re:A link to the blog please..

[MichaelSmith]

from the article

Read the blog itself

[Mathinker]

Just reading a few of the last entries of the blog:

• Town Council would have approved the building of a recycling center, itself a business opportunity for one of the council members, except that 100+ residents actually showed up at the Town Council meeting to protest.
• A post ridiculing a plan to build a new cheap aluminum doorway in a historic building.
• Critique of the Town Council buying land for some kind of project, the project being canceled, and various interests connected with the Town Council profiting from the sale of the rezoned land, whereas there didn't seem to be much problem with actually managing to get this project finished rather than canceled (and that would have been more transparent and equally beneficial to the community).
• The blogger's car was torched and his house vandalized.

So no, I don't think it's exactly a newspaper. It's more focused and more dangerous, like being an opposition leader in an only semi-democratic country.

Re:Read the blog itself

[nurb432]

The blogger's car was torched and his house vandalized.

Another good example of why the net should be as anonymous as possible

Re:Read the blog itself

[FlyingBishop]

I think you need to read up on the historical role of newspapers. Pedro Chamorro Cardenal was the editor of La Prensa in Nicaragua, and he was a powerful opposition leader in his own right. His murder effectively started the Sandinista revolution.

You've just become accustomed to "newspaper" meaning "establishment drivel."

Re: Thats so not what its about

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, I live in Somerton, and its not a backwards place like Kupfernigk is trying to make out.
We are just a normal town, and from the sounds of things Kupfernigk has probably hardly ever been to Somerton and thinks the have the right to criticise what they no NOTHING about!!

This isnt about blogging. A lot of people here think that some members of the council were out to make money, and there are strong rumours that local people were trying to get them kicked off the council, so they ran instead.

Re:So?

[rohan972]

It is a bad thing - an extremely bad thing. There are processes for removing councilors who are doing a bad job, acting illegally or who lose the trust of the people who voted for them.

According to the blog they resigned to "rapturous applause" from the citizens. It was one man blogging, apparently leading to lots of face to face discussions. If they could refute the things being said about them I'm sure they could have done so instead of resigning.

So it would seem that they didn't resign because of one man, they resigned because of what many people found out from one man. It was the many that caused them to resign.

Re:So?

[smoker2]

You are wrong on so many levels. Firstly, they are not volunteers. They get paid for every meeting they attend and they get expenses paid for any work they undertake as a council member. Secondly, are you suggesting that democracy means you cannot exercise free speech ? Thirdly, are you suggesting that elected officials, who presumably had to canvas support in order to get elected, are so unsure of their position that a single person can force them to resign without so much as a struggle ? And lastly, if you as a member of the electorate exposed a scandal involving the council and publicised it, are you then guilty of something or are you doing the electorate a favour ?

Seriously, if they resigned over one persons so called ravings, then they didn't have much authority to start with, not to mention cahones. I know that if I found financial irregularities in a councils spending and could reliably document it, it would be my duty to inform the electorate. I have no interest in being a councillor, but that doesn't mean they can get away with it. Why should I invest time and money in making myself electable merely to point out the illegal activities of others ?

I repeat, if the whole council resigns over 1 persons unsubstantiated rant, then either they have got skeletons to hide or they are worthless as politicians. Politicians argue all the time, that's what they do. But one non elected person can force their resignation ? Please .... Are they going to take their toys and go home ?

Re:XKCD SUCKS!

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad truth is, it sucks a lot. It being any of the following: Xkcd, Enders game, your favorite band, your favorite operating system, your mom. But ironically, no one really cares what you or I just wrote.