Posts Tagged ‘Aidan Burley’

Aidan Burley equal opportunities photo special

30/07/2012, 07:00:50 AM

Why, who’s this cheeky little scamp? It’s only misunderstood Twitter führer Aidan Burley. Here he is in a photo from his latest constituency e-bulletin, hard at work introducing a local councillor to the prime minister.

Well done Aidan, it’s good to motivate the local troops and what better opportunity than a glittering Number 10 reception. This councillor was probably selected for such an exclusive invitation because of some form of outstanding local community contribution.  That would probably explain why she is featured so prominently is Aidan’s e-bulletin.

But hang on, she looks familiar. What’s that name again? The bulletin tells us it’s Jodie Jones.

Surely not the Jodie Jones who also works for one Aidan Burley? And it can’t be the Jodie Jones that young Aidan is currently squiring around the bright lights of Cannock Chase?

Because, if it were that Jodie Jones, in a spirit of openness and transparency, we know Aidan would have made it clear in the bulletin.

Otherwise people could get confused again, much as they did over his Olympic tweets, and there might another terrible misunderstanding.

Silly, wrong-headed people might draw erroneous conclusions about the type of outstanding local contribution needed to secure an invite from Aidan to meet the PM and quaff free vino.

That would never do, because as we know from Aidan’s Friday night tweeting and subsequent clarifications, no one is more dedicated to the cause of equality of opportunity than Cannock Chase’s MP.

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Cameron lets his cynicism show, again.

19/12/2011, 02:58:00 PM

by John Woodcock

Alastair Campbell’s  notorious “golden rule” on political sackings – that once someone had been subject to a press onslaught for ten days or so they had to go – may well have been apocryphal.

That no-one seems quite sure when he said it or exactly how many days the siege of government had to last before the hapless cabinet member was tossed over the castle ramparts suggests as much.

But Alastair’s rule has passed into Westminster folklore because it accurately encapsulates a wider phenomenon: namely, the power of media pressure in deciding who should be allowed to keep their job in the face of controversy, and who should not.

That sustained pressure has undoubtedly claimed political scalps which, once the storm of controversy has subsided, people realise ought to have remained on their owner’s head.

So on one level, it was shrewd of David Cameron to send out a message on becoming prime minister that he did not recognise the rule and would not be abiding by it. It was the obvious thing for a new premier to do – any signal to the contrary would be an incentive for the press pack to sustain its attack beyond the merits of a story in the knowledge that journalists were guaranteed to get a result if they held out for long enough.

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