12 May (Part 3) - Danny and me. In and out of trouble
It was in 1969 or 70 that I was featured on the front page of The Daily Mail. A GPO Spokesman said…
I’d been called in by the Public Relations Manager as the supposed expert on
telephone directories after The Daily Mail had got its knickers in a twist about
the plan to computerise their production.
The Daily Mail reporter summarised what I had said and my reply is etched into
my mind. “You know I didn’t say that!” “I know but it is what I am going to print anyway.”
I came into the office next day and someone flung a copy of that nasty little
rag on to my desk. I responded “what a load of bollocks” and the bad language
landed me in a lot of trouble with all the old men in the office, most of whom
didn’t like the idea of me dabbling with those new fangled computers.
I’d have probably got into a lot more serious trouble if the Press Officer
didn’t know exactly what I had said.
In the space of fifty years bollocks and crap and similar words have become much
more commonly used in every day speech but newspapers still habitually asterisk
them and OFCOM won’t let them be used in news programmes.
But
it is OK for the Lib Dems to adopt Bollocks to Brexit for their Euro campaign
slogan? Vince Cable, his Deputy and the Lib Dums themselves really are a load of c**p aren’t they?
I am ashamed to say I voted Liberal (not Lib Dem) once, a friend stood for election to
Aldershot Council and I felt obliged to support him. That’s something I will never do again.
I voted for Danny Hackett (when he was Labour) and now that he has gone
Independent I’d probably vote for him again.
I don’t know what is going through his mind these days; he is a hard man to get
information from. Personally I wish he’d just get on with it and join the
Conservatives. Trouble with that of course is that they are now - with any luck
- on the verge of extinction. I’d be quite worried about that except that they
are not Conservatives any more so who will miss them? (I except the major
personalities on Bexley Council, most of them are proper Conservatives, Alex Sawyer, Blogger Craske, John Davey,
Andy Dourmoush and Philip Read - most of the time. There are more, Teflon Teresa O’Neill too.)
So what is Danny up to? I get the impression he knows he is in a bit of trouble.
Before he took his leap into the unknown he was on LBC Radio bemoaning the state of the Labour Party.
Thamesmead East Councillor Danny Hackett on LBC Radio.
For his brief chat with Eddie Mair too many of his friends and former colleagues
ganged up on him. Vile stuff some of it. One of the worst warranted a response
from Danny, he said they were talking “Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks”.
No one took much notice at the time in fact no one took any notice even after Danny
left the Labour Party but some time later Danny’s mood changed.
Let me speculate.
I would not discount the possibility that someone reported Danny to the Code of
Conduct Committee for the B word just as Councillor Dourmoush said they would. If so it will be great fun to see him defend himself.
But maybe the crass behaviour of the silly old fool (he is even older than I am!) known as Vince Cable will
scupper my chances of reporting on a juicy Bexley Council scandal. It’s been a
very long time since we had one of those.
The reference to porn on a laptop and dodgy house selling is brilliant isn’t it? (Buying actually but who cares?)
Is this all speculation? I will leave you guessing.