Water Stupid and Criminal Act

Yes Northern Ireland does have a water crisis.

BTW Thanks to all the friends by text, Facebook or MSN who have enquired. We're doing fine here.

Yes at some point there has to be an independent enquiry. Yes at some point people may have to take responsibility for their failings. However, that time is not during a crisis, when you need all the management experience you have trying to sort it out.

However, what we also don't need at this time is mindless acts of sabotage to what is currently a sparse resource WATER so the act of wanton wastage of 22,000 litres by vandals last night in Coalisland is disgraceful.

Some of the local politicians are also acting disgracefully, their Twitter feeds are playing to their perceived 'choirs' rather than spreading the information that the people actually need. A number of notable exceptions have been MLAs Conall McDevitt and Dawn Purvis, plus Balmoral Cllr Niall Kelly. All three have been providing information as soon as they had it, even if it was nothing further. They have clearly all been doing it from the front line where the people are without water and not from the cosiness of some office. They were the first that I noticed giving news not just from Northern Ireland Water but from the streets of Belfast.

Other parties have started doing similar things since, but these were the ones I spotted first and most frequently even now. Other's I have noticed pushing their own political agenda a little too much when what the people really want to hear is when they are getting water, or where to go to get some not whose fault it is that there is none.

There will be a time to assess what happened. Now is NOT that time!

Seems you can lead a politician to water but you can't always make them think.

Condemnation Given: But Stung By Accusation in the Tail

There is an issue of SNP posters being defaced and removed in the Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency, I am using this blog post to publicly condemn such action. I know that nobody involved in my campaign has been involved in such action and I trust that from my experience that neither the Labour nor Conservative camps would have been either.

However, I also take offence at the strong and untrue wording of the SNP agent Martyn Day over on the SNP candidate's blog. While asking quite correctly calling for the three candidates to join in publicly condemning such action he also says:

"[The SNP] will not lower ourselves to the kind of gutter politics we so often see coming from the London parties"

In the nine years I have been involved in local politics I have never known any of the five major parties to go around defacing and removing other parties' posters. To throw such a comment in at the end of such a statement asking for an apology and clean campaign is sinking to just such a level.

I would actually like an apology for such an accusation being made by the agent, who is also a local councillor and should know better. To cast an accusing finger so publicly to all the other parties is not in the keeping of the friendly co-operative approach that local politics in this area is renowned for.

I have and will continue to fight this campaign on policy and the ability to serve the people of this constituency. Those are the sole criteria on which the voters should decide who will be their next MP.