It’s that time of year once again where we all go and spend more than we’ve got, drink more than we should and forget about the trials of our everyday working lives. A bit like what this Labour government has been doing for the last 12 years.
Credit crunch? Bah, who cares? It’s Christmas! But what of our beloved Blackpool?
“In 2009 the resort is enjoying a huge upsurge in popularity and is forecasting to show a 25 per cent increase in visitor numbers by the end of this year.” – Cllr Maxine Callow
This offsets a 26% drop in the previous year.
January-March
Starting the year with a dose of Celebrity Big Brother, the following weeks offered the revelations that Knott-end based peer Lord Taylor of Blackburn had been accused of accepting cash for influence in the House of Lords. After being found guilty in May he had been suspended from the House, marking the first time in three and a half centuries that a peer had been suspended in this way.
Pigeon fanciers were at the Winter Gardens on the third weekend in January for the British Homing World Show of the Year, attracting 25000 visitors.
Condemned promenade restaurant Burger King was celebrated in the Gasjet with 20 “fun facts”. We can add a 21st now, “It’s so good it’s now a Chinese”. Plans by Marston’s Brewery to bulldoze the “popular” Welcome Inn on Vicarage Lane and turn it into commercial units were earmarked for approval. It wouldn’t be the last pub to face extinction this year: the iconic Yates’ Wine Lodge in Talbot Square was burned down in an arson attack a few weeks later.
The beginning of March saw Blackpool confirmed as a host of the final of the Nocturne Series cycle race later in the year. It was hoped that this would become a regular fixture in the town’s calendar. We also saw Fylde Borough Council desperately trying to hike Council tax by more than the 4.9% that Government allows in order to offset their flawed spending policy.
Indeed the cash scramble by Fylde BC continued, with Conservative council leader Cllr John Coombes determined to push through the selling off of assets, no matter what.
“Even the well-experienced Saint Paul Hayhurst was tactically out-manoeuvred by the Commissar (Coombes) who stretched the rules of procedure and debate to their limit as he ducked and dived amongst constitutional procedures so labyrinthine that even Theseus would have been lost.” – Counterbalance.org.uk
March also saw the admission that the quango-tastic Learning Skills Council didn’t have any money for the Building Colleges for the Future programme with the result being quite the opposite. Many colleges had already started work for which they assumed the bill would be picked up by the taxpayer and are now left with demolished buildings and no hope of rebuilding them. Blackpool and Fylde College was one of them, except only largely derelict buildings at the Mecca site on Central Drive were flattened.
April -June
MPs secured a 2.33% pay rise on the 1st of April. Fools day indeed. The G20 summit began and Gordon Brown proceeded to save the world. The education system was put under scrutiny as it was revealed that headteachers don’t like Key Stage tests and feel that associated league tables are, “not worth the paper they’re written on”. Plans for a £2million revamp of Ashton Gardens in Lytham were unveiled, and Fylde Borough Council issued tax demands showing a fiddled 5.1% increase, prompting fury amongst ratepayers.
Historic pub Raikes Hall hit the wall due to rising costs as Blackpool’s “booze culture” was blamed for costing business £10.5million per year.
Artist’s impressions were abound as the mythical beast that is the £188million Rigby Road campus of the Blackpool and Fylde College reared its ugly head again. False promises were tossed around that it wasn’t scrapped. The LSC blamed the Government (John Denham MP) and the Government blamed the LSC. Sounds like they both need a little education, education, education.
Hysterics about swine flu were brewing going into May, with the World Health Organization telling us we’re all about to grow curly tails and snouts. Blackpool Council withdrew their £1million-per-year subsidy for the Winter Gardens to change to an event based subsidy agreement. Blackpool airport saw yet another international route bite the dust as Jet2.com pulled their Tuesday flight from Blackpool to Alicante, and locals across the Fylde gathered as action groups combined in a joint effort to resist the pressure from Kensington Developments to build on every scrap of spare land.
Blackpool airport was revealed to have suffered a 70% nosedive in passenger numbers, possibly in relation to it’s unpopular departure lounge tax. The airport suffered again as aircraft had to be diverted due to two of their three air traffic controllers phoning in sick.
Ricky Gervais announced plans to perform in the town and the Beaverbrooks 10k fun run saw over 3500 runners engulf the promenade. Even I went to watch it.
It was revealed that by the start of 2012 the Queen will have run out of money and Stanley Ward councillor Granville Heap sadly died at the age of 66.
More to come..
PS. Merry Christmas!
Sack this twat Judge!
Fuck British law!
Fuck this scum government!
What are you gonna do Joan Humble?????
http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Why-exlover-was-free-to.5937109.jp
Hope everyone has had a good Xmas
Fantastic article Phil, I eagerly await your next installment.
Dont worry it’s coming.. soon!
Bring it on!
Labour out 2010, Philtheone and TB for PM and deputy PM!
I’ll drink to that one Harold, which department would you like?
law and order? lol
Lol, Home Secretary it is then
First off sack that judge that let Alan Entwistle loose to kill that poor girl.
I would sack any incompetent judges, but we’d need a big recruitment drive if we did that!!! I would especially sack that judge who jailed Munir Hussain (on the self defence post the other day) and make him publicly apologise for his shameful actions. I would also reform some of the stupid laws in this country. For starters I would allow homeowners to defend themselves properly without fear of prosecution. I would close any loopholes the police use to escape prosecution for abusing the law. I read yesterday on a website that you can be done for drink driving just for touching your car (no joke). It told the story of a businessman who had a few too many and went to retrieve his briefcase from his boot to call a taxi and was banned for drink driving, what a fucking joke that is. What if your wife locked you out for getting pissed and you slept in the car, is that drink driving?
Little secret for you – judges cannot be sacked by anyone other than the Queen, else they could be shown to be under pressure from the powers that be.
Judges can be mavericks but it’s not in their interest because in most if not all cases they’d end up appealed or would not be looked at favourably for promotions.
It’s their job to interpret and apply the law and nothing more so that’s why you get decisions like this one. The judge may have even wanted to let Munir walk away but the law prevents him from making that decision.
They say judges are out of touch and live up ivory towers and so on but I don’t think that’s strictly true: they’re just handcuffed by old laws that haven’t been refreshed for modern day society.
You’ll be pleased to know that in a couple of years a lot of the older judges are retiring and there will be a recruitment drive for more full-time judges.
The law is the problem in cases like this. What would constitute reasonable force in the Hussain case, given the circumstances?
Thanks for that interesting bit of information Phil. I do agree sometimes red tape prevents them from using their own judgement or morals but sometimes I feel they are just idiots like when you have a career criminal who has had 25 convictions for shoplifting, breached his ASBO 4 times and then they hold a post office at gunpoint and the judge says ‘One more chance’ instead of locking them up, that is just ridiculous.
Yes Phil, thanks for that, its time they were made accountable, judges should be sacked just like you or I would be, for incompetence.
I hope Hussain appeals and wins, sounds like another Tony Martin, to me.
I see that theres no commenting on the stories on The Gasjet site.
Maybe because their “Administrator” is off on his Xmas jollies!
I have reason the believe that the deleter is an administrator.