Porn-mouth Councillor

(I've just finished posting critiques of my work on my website, which you need to go look at when you get the chance.)

I'm currently pursuing a story on Bournemouth Council Leader Cllr Stephen McLoughlin, who was found to have used his Council laptop to access "top shelf adult material". He has had a slap on the wrist from his friends at the Council and largely seems to have gotten away with little or no punishment, which is hugely hypocritical given that 20 Council staff were severely reprimanded for emailing an 'inappropriate' joke to one another.

According to the Taxpayer's Alliance, Cllr McLoughlin awarded himself a 34% pay increase last year whilst creating a £2.4 million over spend. With Councils due to be forced to publish their executive pay by the end of the year, it will certainly be interesting to see just how much Cllr McLoughlin can afford to spend on "top shelf adult material".

Last year he was mooted as a potential candidate for Bournemouth West. People in the Borough of Bournemouth are rightly angry at this flagrant display of abuse - not just of Council property and rules through the misuse of the laptop, but more importantly through the twisted justice that sees him avoid referral to the Standards Board Committee.

He conveniently seems to have gone off on holiday - apparently booked "months ago" according to Democratic Services at Bournemouth Borough Council. Well he was most certainly at home when we went round to see him at his house, and his wife informed us that they were leaving the next day.

Leads are still being pursued, and we intend to conduct interviews this week. If you have any information on this, or are just angry, then get in touch, as we'll be making a short documentary on this. If we scrutinise these politicians more closely now, then perhaps we might avoid letting them think they can get away with things like the expenses scandal.

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Public Healthcare

Having just watched the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy (don't mock me), the healthcare debate still prevalent in US politics once again raised it's head. Using the recession as a plot device is itself a little lazy - though relevant - and dubious as a fictional event, considering that at least one reason, conscious or otherwise for watching such television shows, at least as far as I am concerned, is escapism. Raising such a depressing reflection of reality merely serves to remind one of the reality they may well be trying to escape. Not that Grey's has ever endeavoured to avoid depressing melancholy (the first episode sees a main character die); in fact it is almost certainly a pivotal draw for much of its audience.

The real point of interest however remains rooted firmly in the real world of the current healthcare debate. The opening episodes take an instance of a mother being unable to afford a particularly expensive test which, after a few charitable decisions by doctors, turns out to reveal an obscure cause of the illness which may very well have caused serious long term problems with the patient's quality of life. The underlying implication that the quality and expense of the mother's insurance policy could have such dramatic ramifications is appalling. Certainly the writers will have been aware of this, and Shonda Rhimes could well be making a political point (though I imagine the typical demographic of Grey's viewers will not be those shouting down Democrats in town halls).

On the back of Gordon Brown's conference speech deriding the Tories for (amongst other things) their disdain for public services - a "60 year mistake" in the words of Conservative MP Daniel Hannan, such examples should serve to reinforce our view that the NHS is indeed a "60 year liberation."



After The Sun yesterday declared its support for a Conservative government, a colleague lamented that it was depressing how Rupert Murdoch could so heavily influence an election. Whilst it may seem inconsequential given that my readership is not quite (yet) that of The Sun, I would like to declare myself in favour of a Labour fifth term. Whilst the party has tremendous problems, and ironically attempted to sell off another great British institution in the Royal Mail, I remain certain that those two things closest to my heart as a British citizen - the NHS and the BBC - would be considerably worse for wear under a Tory premiership, and that I, as a student and young person attempting to crack the job market in such extraordinary times, would also suffer as Cameron's party reaffirmed its commitment to the rich.

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