PUTTING THEMSELVES FIRST

Why Putting Hartlepool First are no different. More greedy politicians. More snouts in the trough. Zero integrity.

ByHARRY BLACKWOOD

I was born in Hartlepool fifty eight years ago and have never lived more than five miles away from the magnificent Christ Church which stands proudly in the centre of my home town.

I mention this, not only because I'm a proud Hartlepool bloke, but also to counter a stupid comment from a woman the other day on The Hartlepool Mail website who suggested I should keep my nose out of Hartlepool political affairs because I don't live in the town.

The intensely misguided Stella Leighton (if that's her real name) is technically correct but when I was editor of the Hartlepool Mail I could run from the front door of my current home to my office (within spitting distance of the aforementioned Christ Church in under half an hour. It's five miles. Reckon ten minutes on the bike would sort it now.

My affiliation with Hartlepool (I worked and lived in the town for more than forty years plus my connection and editorship of the local newspaper, combined with a lifetime's interest in politics puts me in a unique position to pass comment on all aspects of Hartlepool life.

As the local council elections are just days away I'm going to stick with politics.

IT'S LIKE ANIMAL FARM

JAMES CAMPBELL reveals his on-line

experiences of Putting Hartlepool First, a group that says it is aiming at a new way of doing politics in Hartlepool. It's good intentions don't appear to be put into practice.

Since around Mid-March I've been occupied mainly with a Hartlepool political group called Putting Hartlepool First (PHF).

I call them a political group because they do seem to be a little confused about what they are themselves despite having been around in some form or other since 2012.

What initially attracted my attention was that they described themselves as a group of independents who're opposed to the way the town is being run but recognise that the way the party political system was used in the town restricted the ability of a true independent from being able to influence change.  They even say that they have no whip to enforce policy or a party line and members are able to vote however their conscience tells them to. I liked this train of thought because one of my core beliefs is that elected representatives acting in the interests of their party often runs contra to the interests of the people they represent.

My first contact with PHF was via their Facebook page and resulted in a series of frustrating debates where posts and questions that challenged the views of PHF were regularly deleted and on some occasions people who had done nothing more than ask a question were blocked from the site too.

The full details of this is here: http://wp.me/p2BV0e-8q

My last Facebook interaction with PHF was to post that blog on their page where it was deleted within 8 minutes and I was blocked within 10 minutes.

IS BIG GRAVY JUMPING ON THE GRAVY TRAIN?

It's June 2002, and Hartlepool's Labour MP, Peter Mandelson goes bananas upon hearing the news that a candidate whose main election manifesto proposal is free quantities of the nutritious fruit for all primary age schoolchildren, the town's first (and only) directly elected mayor. His name is Stuart Drummond, and one of the key skills he brings to this important role is his ability to perform in public. That's as H'Angus, the monkey mascot for Hartlepool United Football Club!

More monkey business in Hartlepool

byHARRY BLACKWOOD

Go anywhere in the world and you can't fail to find someone who is familiar with the Hartlepool monkey hanging legend. From Barcelona to Buenos Aries folk have heard how the good people of the town hung the poor animal thinking it was a French spy.

But there's another bit of monkey business that Hartlepool has become associated with. It was

Stuart Drummond, Mayor of Hartlepool
in 2002.

an event that totally changed the way I view politics and people. A turning point in my life.

The day that Hartlepool United's football mascot won the poll and became one of the very first directly elected mayors in the country, taught me how the political system can be used by people for their own selfish agendas. It also led to my sacking but we'll put that part of it on the back burner.

When H'Angus the Monkey decided to throw his banana into the ring and stand for election to the £60,000 a year post, it was done as a joke. The Hartlepool United football club chairman paid his election deposit and supporters of the club and a local rugby club threw themselves behind his campaign.

Stuart Drummond, the man in the monkey suit, promised free bananas for all school kids in the town and submitted an interesting curriculum vitae to the local newspaper of which I was editor, boasting of a degree and proficiency in a number of languages. It did make us wonder why he was working in a call centre on a pittance but hey, did it matter, he was a joke.

As it turned out it did matter. He won.