Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary Candidate for Montgomery has revealed her strategy for the General Election in a target="_blank" href="http://heleddfychan.blogspot.com/2009/07/oh-no-not-again.html"her latest blog post/a. It is to forget policy and local issues and attack the sitting MP personally instead.br /br /In her post, Ms. Fychan hits out at Lembit ?pik for the fact that he has taken up with a 21 year old model and has joined with Katie Green to conduct a perfectly legitimate campaign on the way that model agencies play on body image and the impact that has on young people. It is a particularly pertinent campaign in the light of the work carried out by a target="_blank" href="http://www.bethanjenkinsblog.org.uk/"Plaid Cymru AM, Bethan Jenkins/a on eating disorders and the One Wales' government's new strategy on this subject. It also affects many people in Montgomeryshire.br /br /Ms. Fychan says that she does not care who Lembit dates and yet she embarks on a bitchy and judgemental rant worthy of the strictest puritan. I can accept that she might dislike Lembit personally but that is no excuse to allow her feelings to dominate her campaign and bring it down to the gutter.br /br /I know that Lembit will not respond to this sort of personality politics because, despite the media coverage he gets, he is a serious politician commited to his constituents and to getting things done. However, it is ironic that at a time when Ms. Fychan is complaining that all she seems to read about Lembit is news of his personal life, the Montgomeryshire MP has a piece in the a target="_blank" href="http://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/76318/lembit-backs-regional-newspapers-in-parliament.aspx"County Times/a in which he voiced his support for local newspapers in a ‘Local and Regional Newspapers’ parliamentary debate:br /br /span style="font-style: italic;"Lembit Öpik said: “The local press is the key vehicle in reporting accurately and fairly on local goings-on – in scrutinising the workings of local councils and local courts./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Unlike many national journalists, local reporters tend to live and work in the communities on which they report, so local people trust them as a source of news./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“They do not need to tap people’s phones or mobiles to get exclusives, because people trust them and talk to them, and people read the results of what they have investigated and what they write about, knowing that they are reading accurate reports about their own world./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“The County Times, which is the weekly in my area, is a classic example – a role model for how what I have described can best be achieved. It is 130 years old; it was founded in 1879, in the same year as Montgomeryshire elected its first Liberal MP, Stuart Rendel. Two great and revolutionary leaps forward occurred in that same year./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Two journalists – Richard Jones and photographer Phil Blagg – from the County Times were in London with me last week because they believe in reporting accurately and seeing at the coal face what, in this case, their MP does, but they also do that in many other environments, whether industrial, educational, cultural or social./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;""That is because they want to get it right in a way that, I am sorry to say, the national press seems not as concerned to do./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“But the problems are very serious. The County Times is part of NWN Media and is facing real difficulties. Northcliffe has just announced 30 more job cuts in Wales./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Someone who works in the media in my area put it simply: To continue to do this we must survive as a local business. We are not asking for handouts, but we could do with some consideration from local Government. I agree with that sentiment.”/spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“The local newspaper business model relies heavily on advertising. It accounts for about two thirds of local newspapers’ turnover, but in recent years advertising spend has been in a general decline of between 10 and 20 per cent, but since the recession hit, advertising in key sectors such as housing, cars and jobs has plummeted./spanbr /br /That Heledd is an example of a good local MP using his position to fight for the interests of his constituents. You should pay attention. You might learn something.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Update: /spanthe rather predictable reaction of Plaid bloggers to this post strongly reinforces the points I made on a target="_blank" href="http://www.freedomcentral.org.uk/2009/04/plaid-cymrus-smear-campaign.html"Freedom Central/a a few months ago.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-6119214471446454835?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
Monday, August 10, 2009
Getting personal
Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary Candidate for Montgomery has revealed her strategy for the General Election in a target="_blank" href="http://heleddfychan.blogspot.com/2009/07/oh-no-not-again.html"her latest blog post/a. It is to forget policy and local issues and attack the sitting MP personally instead.br /br /In her post, Ms. Fychan hits out at Lembit ?pik for the fact that he has taken up with a 21 year old model and has joined with Katie Green to conduct a perfectly legitimate campaign on the way that model agencies play on body image and the impact that has on young people. It is a particularly pertinent campaign in the light of the work carried out by a target="_blank" href="http://www.bethanjenkinsblog.org.uk/"Plaid Cymru AM, Bethan Jenkins/a on eating disorders and the One Wales' government's new strategy on this subject. It also affects many people in Montgomeryshire.br /br /Ms. Fychan says that she does not care who Lembit dates and yet she embarks on a bitchy and judgemental rant worthy of the strictest puritan. I can accept that she might dislike Lembit personally but that is no excuse to allow her feelings to dominate her campaign and bring it down to the gutter.br /br /I know that Lembit will not respond to this sort of personality politics because, despite the media coverage he gets, he is a serious politician commited to his constituents and to getting things done. However, it is ironic that at a time when Ms. Fychan is complaining that all she seems to read about Lembit is news of his personal life, the Montgomeryshire MP has a piece in the a target="_blank" href="http://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/76318/lembit-backs-regional-newspapers-in-parliament.aspx"County Times/a in which he voiced his support for local newspapers in a ‘Local and Regional Newspapers’ parliamentary debate:br /br /span style="font-style: italic;"Lembit Öpik said: “The local press is the key vehicle in reporting accurately and fairly on local goings-on – in scrutinising the workings of local councils and local courts./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Unlike many national journalists, local reporters tend to live and work in the communities on which they report, so local people trust them as a source of news./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“They do not need to tap people’s phones or mobiles to get exclusives, because people trust them and talk to them, and people read the results of what they have investigated and what they write about, knowing that they are reading accurate reports about their own world./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“The County Times, which is the weekly in my area, is a classic example – a role model for how what I have described can best be achieved. It is 130 years old; it was founded in 1879, in the same year as Montgomeryshire elected its first Liberal MP, Stuart Rendel. Two great and revolutionary leaps forward occurred in that same year./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Two journalists – Richard Jones and photographer Phil Blagg – from the County Times were in London with me last week because they believe in reporting accurately and seeing at the coal face what, in this case, their MP does, but they also do that in many other environments, whether industrial, educational, cultural or social./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;""That is because they want to get it right in a way that, I am sorry to say, the national press seems not as concerned to do./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“But the problems are very serious. The County Times is part of NWN Media and is facing real difficulties. Northcliffe has just announced 30 more job cuts in Wales./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“Someone who works in the media in my area put it simply: To continue to do this we must survive as a local business. We are not asking for handouts, but we could do with some consideration from local Government. I agree with that sentiment.”/spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"“The local newspaper business model relies heavily on advertising. It accounts for about two thirds of local newspapers’ turnover, but in recent years advertising spend has been in a general decline of between 10 and 20 per cent, but since the recession hit, advertising in key sectors such as housing, cars and jobs has plummeted./spanbr /br /That Heledd is an example of a good local MP using his position to fight for the interests of his constituents. You should pay attention. You might learn something.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Update: /spanthe rather predictable reaction of Plaid bloggers to this post strongly reinforces the points I made on a target="_blank" href="http://www.freedomcentral.org.uk/2009/04/plaid-cymrus-smear-campaign.html"Freedom Central/a a few months ago.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-6119214471446454835?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
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