Yesterday at the Petitions Committee Southside/Newington’s SNP Councillor, the obviously inexperienced, factually wrong and nervous Jim Orr, gave a council tax-paying petitioner a sharp rebuke for taking information from Edinburgh Sucks and presenting it to the committee. A recording of the committee can be found on C-Numpties TV at http://www.edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/101362 and Jim Orr’s factually wrong comments can be found on the timeline at 15:06 or 1:06:25 into the meeting. This one minute fifty-one second factually wrong contribution was his only one to the 2 hour 54 minute meeting.
Firstly his comment that speaking about Mortonhall saying that it was sub judice because there was an ongoing police investigation. Perhaps the Evening News, Scotsman and various other online news organisations have not managed to directly insert their stories into his council-funded iPad informing him that the police had in fact completed there investigation and found that there was no criminal charges to be brought. Typical councillor turning up at a meeting, knowing what was on the agenda for at least one week, and not having the information required to spout correctly.
He then went on to skelp our bottie. “To have a competent petition that would be welcomed by the petitioners (sic), I think that to have a competent petition that would be welcomed by the committee, you need to make sure you are affiliated to organisations structures and websites that really could be endorsed and I am not sure that is really the case with the website that you are affiliated to …. the website makes reference to females in pretty derogatory terms, for example, and I personally for that reason wouldn’t want to be associated with this petition.”
Really councillor! Well, we also speak in derogatory terms about men. In case you haven’t figured it out, the whole raison d’etre for the website is to be derogatory but we totally believe in equal opportunity and we will speak in derogatory terms about both you and your female colleagues. We will go on later to mention the organizations, structures and websites you are affiliated to but in the meantime, the website you are referring to is:
- the site which SINGLE-HANDEDLY called on MEPs to attend and monitor an election in the city. And it worked, they did. SNP MEP and Lawyer Alyn Smith and colleagues turned up from Brussels and said the election was all tickety boo. Unfortunately the Court of Session in Edinburgh disagreed and on Judicial Review struck down the election. With the Evening News, Scotsman, De Telegraaf, Radio 4, Radio Scotland, STV, Der Spiegel all taking information from the EdSucks site.
- the site which highlighted the massive £400,000 fraud committed by council officials where the auditor refused to sign off on the accounts, an employment tribunal slammed the council for their practices (which are still in place) and fined them £5,000 – not to mention the untold thousands of pounds the council ran up on legal expenses in a case where they were hammered. With the Evening News, The Herald, Scotsman, Times Educational Supplement taking information from from the website verbatim.
- the site that is publishing the Property Conservation whistleblower diary which is highlighting all the fraud that has been going on under your eyes and could eventually cost the city’s council tax-payers £30-40 million of our pounds.
- the website that your fellow SNP councillors are happy to share information with anonymously, just as long as it is not about the SNP.
- the site about which your SNP Justice Minister, whilst in opposition, once said “There’s two sites I look at everyday Tartan Army Message Boards and Edinburgh Sucks”
- the site that highlighted the fraud and bullying going on in the Waterfront – with the Evening News and Scotsman taking most of the stuff for free.
- the site that was not only nominated, also shortlisted and then became a finalist in the New Statesman New Media Awards in the Independent Information category just beaten by www.whatdotheyknow.com
- the site quoted or mentioned in Evening News, Scotsman, TES, Guardian, The Herald, Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, Talk 107, Radio Forth, The Guardian, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Herald, The Sun, The Daily Mail, De Telegraaf, Der Spiegel, New York Times, Channel 4 Dispatches, etcetera, etcetera …
All that, and so much more.
Now what do we know about your contribution to the city:
“Jim Orr, Scottish National Party, also standing for the first time. I felt he was the weakest speaker of the four, the one least experienced and most nervous: I also found when looking back through my notes that I’d taken fewer notes when he was talking because he tended not to hold my interest.” (Hat tip to http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/hyperlocal-hustings-southside/)
Of course there was something on our site which offended you. It is bloody supposed to. But then again, we are in the online company of some of your very own cyberNats – it appears in our opinion that we are a little too mild, but that is only our opinion. Pot/Kettle. Now, who are you affiliated to. If you look at the council’s press site (http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/699/news_centre/528/contacting_and_working_with_the_media_team/5) you will find that they only speak to or associate with ‘professional journalists’ which in their words are lackeys who are unlucky enough to have “Employment by a news organisation which subscribes to the Press Complaints Commission Code of Conduct or Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code.”
In February 2010 the Commission was described as “toothless” by the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. During a House of Commons emergency debate on 6 July 2011, MPs described the PCC as ‘well-meaning but a joke’, and as much use as ‘a chocolate teapot’. In July 2011 your very own First Minister, Fat Eck, was widely quoted in the papers in reference to the Press Complaints Commission saying that Westminster had “presided over a systematic failure to regulate the press.” And of course The Levison Inquiry ripped the Press Complaints Commission apart and has shown it for the sham it is. But this an example of organisations structures and websites to which you are affiliated.
Whilst we feel that this may have offended you slightly we think it is worthwhile. If you really believe that EdSucks doesn’t work with the mainstream media, your colleague councillors (sometimes closely) and officials, affiliated to all parties and persuasions, then you really are more naive than your pathetic one minute fifty-one second contribution at committee yesterday.
What the people of this city what you to do is represent them. Not your party, not yourself and your fake beliefs but the citizens of this city. The reason people leak stuff to sites like Edinburgh Sucks and ask for FOI requests through whatdotheyknow.com, etc, etc is because they don’t fucking trust you or your colleagues whether they be politicians or officials. Haven’t you got that yet? The picture is spot on…. knob cheese.
Of course Councillor, you have total right of reply. Just get it to us.
