The Heart of England

A pleasant day out to Birmingham today, albeit with some hiccups on the journey home.

The public Squares in the city centre were thronged with protestors demanding the Government Re-nationalise Rover & give them all their jobs back. Whilst I can empathise with anyone who loses their job, did they not realise that they were an anachronism and we don't actually make anything any more in Britain?

Still, there is likely to be an upsurge in Public Sector opportunities in the Brum South area as they are bound to need more stress counsellors, outreach co-ordinators, diversity facilitators etc. Indeed an astute Government could invent a new tax or benefit & then set up a large department based somewhere like Rubery to manage the scheme. The jobs might just be short term until they get the IT systems right, say about fifteen years...

I've had two sets of election correspondence so far, the first from Cllr Robert Finnigan (Independent), the second (addressed personally) from Colin Challen MP (Labour). Strictly speaking, he isn't an MP at the moment. I recalled a fracas at the last election about Anne Widdicombe's "Widdiweb" which apparently should have been taken downduring the canvassing period, so out of curiousity I Googled across to our Col's site at www.colinchallen.org.uk.

There, I was treated to a Java popup alert box which said:

This website was established when I was a Member of Parliament. As Parliament has been dissolved, there are no Members of Parliament until after the election on 5th May 2005. This site is made available during the election period as an historic record of my activities whilst an MP prior to the Dissolution of Parliament, and is prompted by D Langham on my behalf, both at 2 Commercial Street, Morley, Leeds, LS27 8HY and hosted by Politico\'s Design Limited, 610 The Chandlery, 50 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7QY.

Prompted? What a strange phrase, indeed the grammar for the whole paragraph is rather odd. D Langham runs his constituency office, I believe.

I shall deconstruct PPC leaflets I receive as the whimsy takes me. I don't imagine I am likely to get phone polls from party leaders as Morley is considered a safe seat. However, it might be a lot more marginal on May 5th, only time will tell...