Tag Archives: Padstow

Diary Blog, 16 January 2021

Morning music

Tweets seen

Very true. Recently, in the evening, I drove out of the nearby Waitrose store, about a mile or two from my humble home, and a woman crossed the road from the far pavement, riding a pushbike, and almost right in front of me. Dark clothing, and not a light showing on her bicycle; and no reflective strips on bicycle or clothing. When I overtook her and looked in the rear view mirror, she and her bicycle were almost invisible even at that short distance, despite some street lighting. Had I hit her, no doubt I would have been exonerated, but only after the nuisance and inconvenience of having to explain myself to the police.

The problem that literate, erudite System journalists such as Peter Hitchens have is that they think that this is a “debate”, and not a war…

There is an international conspiracy in existence. The Great Reset. The Great Replacement. White Genocide. NWO. ZOG. The censorship which is now pervasive and gathering pace is just part of that conspiracy.

Writing letters to corrupt MPs, tweeting, blogging too, while certainly necessary, will change little.

More music

Alison Chabloz

Her latest (and not —very— political…) song: https://alisonchabloz.com/2021/01/16/caught-covid-from-the-cat/

More tweets seen

All part of the White Genocide recipe book: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2018/12/10/tv-ads-and-soaps-are-the-propaganda-preferred-by-the-system-in-the-uk/

Ha ha! I was featured in 2017 or 2018. Not since, as far as I know. The enemy must consider me and my blog relatively harmless! Still, who knows? Butterfly-wing effect?

The USA, “land of freedom”… If Trump had any sense or much courage, he would now PARDON all social-national and allied prisoners being held in Federal prisons, PARDON Snowden, PARDON Assange and others. Stick it to his enemies in the week or so left. Just do it!

Not sure how true the above is, in that one could cite regimes in Africa or elsewhere, but the mere fact that we now start to ask “is the UK Govt. worse or less competent than those of African states?” rather makes the point…

It is true, though, that the British people now have no competent government and also no competent opposition parties.

Hungary, I think (looking at the flag).

Yay! About time Priti Useless did something right. The penalties proposed are far too light, however.

“Jack” Monroe may not be on the same ideological page as me in several respects, but her activity around food poverty, low-income survival and child poverty is generally quite useful.

Image

Disappointing“? Ha ha…that’s the best that Rentoul has done for a long time, as far as I can recall. As for me, though I usually beat Rentoul, I too only managed 6/10. The questions I could not answer were questions 2, 3, 7 and 9. I would have got 7/10 right had I been able to remember that that little pro-Israel puppet, Sajid Javid, actually rose as high as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Question 3).

More tweets

The enemies of civilization will not be content until the world lies in multi-ethnic ruins. The woman shown below, Corinne Fowler, is yet another termite in the UK academic world, another instant “professor” (in her case, “Professor of Post-Colonial Literature”, or possibly “Associate Professor”, at the University of Leicester). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9153499/Academic-says-GARDENING-roots-racial-injustice.html

Corinne Fowler (@corinne_fowler) | Twitter

Evil.

Should we be surprised? Perhaps not. The book’s title, Green Unpleasant Land, gives us an indication of Professor Fowler’s (pictured) thoughts on the countryside.
[“Professor” Corinne Fowler]

Apparently, one of her collaborators is an Indian called Raj Pal. Another is a Dr. Marian Gwynne.

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dr-corinne-fowler-008b751a;

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/raj-pal-65898924;

https://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=130029&headline=Community%20News:%20Tywyn&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2019

Sir John Hayes, leader of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs, which has been highly critical of the Trust, told the Mail: ‘The National Trust’s charitable purpose is being stretched to its breaking point. The fact is the National Trust is losing large amounts of money at the moment, and sacking staff while spending time, money and energy on this nonsense.’”

Sir Roy Strong, the architectural historian and former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery agreed, saying the National Trust has gone ‘completely bonkers . . .” [Daily Mail]

Meanwhile, the National Lottery Fund has given the above nonsense £160,000…Taxation without representation…

More tweets

I rarely agree with anything said by the Israel-lobby or its collaborators, but…

Britain is now a massive version of the Augean Stables. It must be cleansed.

Tweeter “@harrisglenys1” is all too typical in contemporary Britain. Yet look at “@rob_marchant”: goes along with the “she” stuff. Eddie Izzard is not “she” (though he is a pain in the neck!)…

This whole nonsense has just gone too far.

More tweets etc

…and the USA is in a better place to do that as compared to the UK because, when the American railways were closed (those that were, and that was the overwhelming majority) Federal law ensured that the railbed and the tracks (meaning the rails) were left. Bridges were mostly left too.

In Britain, both before and after the disastrous Beeching/Marples “reforms” of the 1960s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts], rails were taken up, sleepers removed, and —in many cases— bridges destroyed. The land was then ploughed, or built upon, with a few favoured tracks being eventually repurposed as leisure trails for walkers and cyclists, as with the Camel Trail to Padstow [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_Trail].

Camel Trail, Cornwall, Oct 1987 (5454543438).jpg
[“Approaching Padstow, the Camel Trail crosses Petherick Creek on this bridge which formerly carried the North Cornwall Railway“– Wikipedia]

[“Part of the former Chippenham and Calne line, now a cycleway” –Wikipedia]

Late music

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Scott Mann Story

A Few Preliminary Words

I have blogged in the past about a few MPs in the present House of Commons who stand out even in that —at best— mediocre ensemble for their stupidity, deadheadedness and general uselessness. My most recent targets have been Kate Osamor MP and Fiona Onasanya MP. I move now to examine Scott Mann, Conservative Party MP for North Cornwall.

Scott Mann has made so little impact in Parliament since he was elected in 2015 that I was entirely unaware of his existence until today, despite the fact that, in the years 2002-2004, I myself lived in the North Cornwall constituency and had a lease of one of the largest country houses there [seen below in a 1940s photograph]

Polapit-Tamar-in-the-1940s.-768x467

The North Cornwall Constituency

The constituency is largely rural, though it contains some fairly small towns (Launceston, Bude, Wadebridge, Padstow); it has a significant, mostly coastal, tourist industry. It was held by the Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2015. The national collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote in 2015, which continued in 2017, was reflected in North Cornwall. The Conservative, Mann, increased his vote share from 45% in 2015 to 50.7% in 2017. It can now be considered a safe Conservative seat.

Scott Mann

I am not someone who is biased against those who drop out of school or education; after all, I myself did! (and then had to do it all myself later). There are several possible reasons (apart from sheer lack of ability) why someone gets a university degree late or (as in Mann’s case) not at all (and in any case the “degree” label is so devalued these days anyway), but Mann’s background, like those of so many MPs now, does not inspire confidence.

Mann was educated locally before becoming a postman, working out of the sorting office in Wadebridge (Cornwall), the town in which he had been both born and brought up.

In 2007, Mann was elected as a county councillor. In 2016, he resigned after having been criticized for poor attendance. He remained a postman until he became an MP.

Mann employs his girlfriend as “part-time secretary” via Parliamentary expenses (she gets about £30,000 a year for a part-time job). Apparently, they do not live together. He also claims, or has done, for other personal items, such as Amazon Prime [see Notes, below], and for his London accommodation. Well, after all, he lived for years on a modest Royal Mail pay-packet, and the opportunities to make hay, as a county councillor, are far more limited than those open to an MP.

Now Mann has come to public attention as the idiot who says that all knives should be fitted with GPS (!) and that anyone carrying one should be severely punished unless hunting, fishing or shooting! P.G. Wodehouse meets Common Purpose? I have some sympathy with the tweeters who asked “how are you even an MP?”

“Scott Mann admitted his idea was “s—“, but added: “ultimately we do have a problem, and no one’s coming up with any solutions, we need to sort it out.”” [Daily Telegraph]

I fear that the answer to the above question (as to how this idiot ever became an MP) is the same as applies to all other “deadhead” MPs (and they are many) in the Westminster monkeyhouse: they get through a selection procedure which is often a joke, or rigged, then get “elected” in circumstances where only one candidate (sometimes two, very occasionally three) has a realistic chance, because of FPTP voting, dominated by 2 or 3 System parties.

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Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Mann_(politician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cornwall_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/150608/mann_scott.htm

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25383/scott_mann/north_cornwall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/11/nine-mps-used-parliamentary-expenses-fund-amazon-prime-subscriptions/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-47572133

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mp-ridiculed-after-saying-all-knives-sold-in-uk-should-be-fitted-with-gps-trackers-a4091791.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/14/mp-mocked-suggesting-knives-should-fitted-gps-trackers/

The tweet that exposed Scott Mann MP as a deadhead…

The twitterati respond…

Update, 4 December 2019

Unusually, especially for a Cornishman (I would suppose anyway), Mann cannot swim. He nearly drowned in 2016 and had to be saved by fellow-MP Johnny Mercer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mercer_(politician)#Personal_life

Update, 26 February 2020

The General Election 2019 confirmed Mann as MP for North Cornwall. In fact, Mann received the votes of no less than 59.4% of those who bothered to vote, the largest winning percentage in the history of the constituency if one leaves out the unopposed victories of Liberals in 1918 and 1923.

In 2019, Mann managed to more than double his 2017 majority to 14,752; he also doubled his majority in percentage terms. Interestingly, the LibDem candidate’s percentage share (30.8%) fell not only compared to 2017 (36.6%) but even as compared to 2015 (31.2%). Another sign that the LibDems are on the way out even in former strongholds.

Update, 2 March 2020

In February 2020, Mann was appointed PPS to Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education (formerly —and risibly— Secretary of State for Defence), who himself has featured in these pages as a “Deadhead MP”: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-gavin-williamson-story/.

Update, 21 June 2024

Well, less than 2 weeks separate us from Election Day 2024. The Guardian has done a piece on North Cornwall at election time: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/19/field-fork-disillusioned-voters-feeling-pinch-north-cornwall.

Seems that deadhead MP Scott Mann is now odds-on to lose his seat to the LibDems. Five years ago, and in fact until quite recently, I thought that “LibDemmery” was dead, but it has revived as a result of the total incompetence of the present Conservative Party and its ministers and MPs, and may be set to actually get 40, 50, maybe even 60 or 70 seats at the 2024 General Election. Who would have thought it? Unmerited, of course, but unmerited benefit is, after all, so UK 2024…

As for Scott Mann himself…well, my opinion is that, for someone with his very underwhelming academic and work background, he has been very lucky to have had a pretty well-paid near-sinecure as MP for 9 years.

Indeed, in 2022, he was even appointed to a minor ministerial position (as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, or PUS) by Liz Truss. That was after he was “shifted” says his Wikipedia entry (probably edited by Mann himself) in 2021 after a few months being a Government Whip (paid) to being an Assistant Whip (unpaid). Translation: he’s useless.

Mann will now have to forgo the MP salary (now over £90,000 p.a., plus pretty decent expenses), and that also means that the London flat will go, as will (at least as paid “part-time secretary”) his girlfriend.

In fact, MP salaries are not paid while Parliament is not sitting by reason of a General Election, so he may already be feeling the pinch.

Mann could, I suppose, go back to being a postman, a far more socially-useful job than being an MP, at least one of the type Mann has been. Otherwise, unless his friends can find a job for him, he may soon start to learn from personal experience how hard life can be in contemporary Britain for the unemployed, especially at his age (46).

That should not come as too much of a shock to him, though. After all, he himself voted for all of the anti-“welfare” nonsense put through from 2015-2024, and approved of most if not all of the Dunce Duncan Smith nonsense of 2010-2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Mann_(politician)#3rd_term_as_MP_(2019-).

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25383/scott_mann/north_cornwall#profile

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/scott-mann/4496

Update, 5 July 2024

Mann came a very poor second at GE 2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cornwall_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s