Totalitarian dictatorships are generally extremely tidy places. In Uzbekistan, even with major massacres, the streets are sluiced down within a few hours, bullet holes filled in, walls repainted, new flower beds instantly in bloom. There is never any litter, nothing out of place.
Democraries are by contrast messy. Members of the ultra-boring blogging tendency (Iain Dale, Norfolk Blogger) etc have been attacking my campaign for fly-posting. That conjures up unpleasant images of derelict buildings and bridges with scores of tatty mouldering posters pasted to them, for months.
We have been attaching posters, on hardboard, with cable ties, to lamp-posts and other street furniture in the constituency. We have been careful to avoid traffic lights and not to cause obstruction. We will remove all trace after the election. This is the common practice in elections over much of the UK.
The political parties, who don’t want people to be reminded of a wide range of democratic choice, are pretending to be outraged. The council have been going around scrupulously removing my posters. Interestingly, they have not been removing the numerous other posters on street furniture in Norwich, including scores for something called a “Bang Fest”. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds fun.
There are occasions where my poster and another poster are on the same lamp-post. They have only removed mine. The peculiar explanation they give is that mine are the only ones they have received complaints about.
Anyway, much better to keep the lamp-posts free from temporary posters, than have an outbreak of political expression outwith the political parties. Where might that end?
What on earth are you on about? This is mad paranoia. Are you seriously suggesting the complaints about your fly posting are equivalent to the Uzbek dictatorship?
Fly posting may be acceptable in Scotland, but not in most of England. We used to have it in Birmingham, then it got stupidly out of hand in the Hodge Hill election in 04, so now it isn’t allowed. You want a poster up, find people who’ll put them in their windows. Simple.
Parasite, Why are they removing his posters but not other ones right next to them?
Bog off parasite – we know what you’re up to.
Craig – keep putting the posters up, and you should also do some banner drops. They are really effective, especially in a blackout.
I know all these attacks are draining but keep going. We know what they’re doing and the main thing is not to get too stressed. They want you to be stressed.
Parasite
“Are you seriously suggesting the complaints about your fly posting are equivalent to the Uzbek dictatorship?”
No. I am suggesting there is a continuum. and an obsession with order and disinterest in democracy tend to run together.
“This is the common practice in elections over much of the UK.”
–Craig
(And Ireland, where your described method is actually the one laid down in the regulations!)
“The peculiar explanation they give is that mine are the only ones they have received complaints about.”
–Craig
Easy for your opponents to organise. They must be *very* worried about you.
Fly posting is illegal. All the other parties persuade ordinary voters to put posters up in their gardens or in their windows. Why don’t you? Ah, I see…
Get over yourself.
BTW, for my money, ‘Parasite’ is eddie.
He disappeared as the one and came back as the other.
Around Leeds, we are not supposed to put up posters on lamp posts & street furniture, although I gathered from the electoral commission that it is up to individual Councils back then. It is permissible in Leeds to affix specified signage on grass verges with certain constraints on where (i.e. not too close to junctions).
Private property is the normal approach- that and telegraph poles which belong to BT.
I sought permission from BT to use their telegraph poles for a Parish election. In the meantime, I put the signs up, got elected and had them taken down again before they even acknowledged the request and passed it on internally. I never did hear back from them!
An independent stood as an MP at the last General Election and ran into several bureaucratic brick walls along the way. His conclusion was that the system is stacked against the little guy.
Use a projector to display your poster at prominent sites. You could do it from the back of a van with a laptop and a power inverter..
Craig,
Why do you acknowledge this cretin with multiple identities and a singular trend of whine?
Let the parasitic troll whine, and hang in the air, having been paid for its cut and paste efforts, on a; per word basis.
So far as Ian Mouthpiece Dale is concerned, he apparently having exhausted his role as the Grammar Police, is now engaged in Hall Monitor and Poster Prefect mode.
PS. How can anyone be thinking conservative is beyond me? Those poor misguided souls ought to be afforded some measure of psychiatric care for this most common malady, which goes largely unnoticed, and unattended in these days of tight budgets, and shortages of funds.
Ian Just have a ride out to Drayton on the Drayton road. As you leave the junction with the outer ring road, immediately to your left is an entrance to an industrial estate and amongst all the ad sheets for the companies nestles a lib dem orange, mingling with commercial ads on a council verge.
Now go and take a photo of it and make a big splash in your blog, there’s a good boy.
Flyposting is happening all over, we only have to lok at the amount of conservative leafelts thrown away by disgusted voters during Cloe’s market walkabout on Sat., thronged by Blue bodyguards as if she caould not walk on her own for fear of being castigated.
Far from being friendly she stopped some ten yards short of my calling her a city slicker and stooge of a party, groomed to join the other careerists and self centred corrupt party politicians. Her reactions were that of a coward, just as in all the other hustings were she avoided a proper debate because she was never challenged on education, because the only expert on it was banned from the UCLu debate, she colluded with that exclusion, giving the public a false imp-ression of the debate, a phoney debate if there ever was one.
I think you best get over that, because flyposting is nothing compared with fraud and outright criminal behaviour by MP’s, many of them multi millionare conservatives like James Clappison, MP for Hertsmere, owner of 24 houses who claimed 100.000 on re decorations and gardening from the taxpayer, people without any integrity or shame.
Now go and blog about Aprils illegal flyposting why don’t you.
“In general, the consent of the local planning authority or of the Secretary of State must be obtained before
any advertisement may be displayed. However, an advertisement relating specifically to a pending
parliamentary, European parliamentary or local government election does not require either express
consent or deemed consent provided that the advertisement is removed within 14 days after the close of
the poll in the election to which it relates.” –
Halbury’s Laws of England, Volume 15(4) (2007 Reissue) Paras 344-907)/5. Procedure for Conducting Elections/(3) The Election Campaign/(vii) Publicity at Elections/338. Control of advertisements.
Also, see Class F of reg.3(2) of The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1992/Uksi_19920666_en_8.htm#IDAQ5O1
Incidentally, have you considered using a balloon (see Class A of reg. 3(2))? If you anchor it in your campaign HQ the council risk committing the tort of trespass if they enter your premises to remove it.
Zap!! Pow!!! Asbo-ed by God’s Own Blogger!
Telling the way Iain Dale cares more about ‘illegal’ flyposting but doesn’t much give a damn about illegal wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people and illegal torture methods.
Says it all about Tories and their fucked up robotic mentality. But they will never see it – we should probably pity these people and their disturbing lack of humanity.
Keep the lamp posts uncluttered please we’ll need plenty of space for the 646 bodies to swing !!
Ingo is Dreolin is Bella is Craig, and I claim my £5!
UK will be worse than Uzbekistan soon, you will see. I can see some signs of it.
I am not parasite and the fact that you think that anyone other than me can have similar opinions just shows how stupid and paranoid you all are. We are mainstream, you are in your own little troofer/paranoid world. Craig WILL NOT WIN. Get over it.
@dreoilin
Well said.
Re Irish Flyposting Regulations:
While the regulations are explicit and sensible the Government party seems to be immune from follow up.
http://www.photopol.com/elect2007/index.html
Did we inherit this from the British or did we make it up ourselves? As a nationalist, I think the latter.
“I am not parasite”
eddie you left out an indefinite article there. You and your ilk are all parasites. That is the very issue that brought about this by-election.
As for the idea of you being mainstream… Ha…! Instead, maybe adopt the image of being a little eddie-current, going round a vortex near the plug-hole.
Obviously it’s not the equivalent, but there is certainly, as Craig puts it, a continuum linking the mindset of an apparatchik of the Karimov regime and the UCU petty bureaucrats who excluded Craig from the education hustings.
It’s an instinctive desire to suck up to power, to impose orthodoxy and place an arbitrary limit on what is allowed to be said, and then enforce it with all the banal deadening bureaucratic machinery and stubborn bloodymindedness.
There is no question that the UCU leadership would be quite happy and loyal secret police were they Uzbeks. They disgrace the academic ideal, and they disgrace their union members.
‘There is no question that the UCU leadership would be quite happy and loyal secret police were they Uzbeks.’
Perhaps they’re not quite secret police but I suspect they are lackeys of the intelligence service ever willing to please, ever willing to stay on the ‘right side’ to ensure their status is maintained or furthered.
These kind of people, if you can call them people, are the greatest threat to our freedom.
eddie
If there was a general election tomorrow – how would you vote.
“I am not parasite and the fact that you think
that anyone other than me … etc etc”
–eddie
Who cares. Really.
You’re just a bit of craic.
“Did we inherit this from the British or did we make it up ourselves?”–Polo
No idea. But your pic of Bertie and Tayto is funny. 🙂
Posted by: HappyClappy at July 12, 2009 2:28 PM
Delightful post HappyClappy and I shall go to bed smiling.
I see you’ve got Mr Dale’s tie in a tight knot Craig. Not many can do that you know – well done! I never realise he could be so acerbic.
We permit posters on lamposts etc during elections here in Scotland, but then perhaps we’re a more tolerant lot.
Methinks your CD has kind of erm – annoyed some Craig. I’m pleased.
I would vote Labour of course. The alternative is a Tory government. Real politics is about schools and hospitals and public services, not all this shit.
eddie
Do you honestly think that labour has done anything for schools and hospitals?
All we have is layers of Bureaucracy and little men and women in suits, consultants (not the medical kind) and MRSA. And as for schools, we have got a bunch of brainwashed politicaly correct yes men like you eddie that cant see the truth if it kicks you in the ass.
You are a very “little man” eddie. If you cant see that schools, services etc are services that the state administers on our behalf. This blog and fighting for freedom and fairness is real politics. You just show how screwed up labour is when you play politics with sick people and children.
Stuart – you are an idiot who knows zilch about schools and hospitals. Get lost.