A Government initiative to rip off Council Tax payers has been bought in and involves Councils paying money to 'Poptel Technology' (website here) to provide each Councillor with some space on the internet to tell us all what they are doing. This would be a good comical interval given the embarrassing lack of intelligent and articulate Councillors here in Kirkby, the Councillors would be expected to write a 'weblog' of their activities, a 'Councillors diary' of sorts, leaving out any private or personal matters unless they wished to indulge us. For most Councillors reporting on their activities would be something they would NOT want to do, half of them fiddle away for a few hours just trying to email. Given the fact a great deal of Kirkby's Councillors would find trouble turning a computer on and opening Microsoft Word, the 'weblogs' would maybe just amount to a few sentences, likely than not with more spelling mistakes than Kirkby Times which is, incidentally far bigger than Knowsley Councils entire website. Bigger is better in this case!

Scheme is a Rip Off - Councils are being robbed blind!

The scheme is run by Poptel Technology and was kicked off in October 2002 by the 'Local Government Association' (LGA) The cost quoted for a Council to allow Councillors to take part is quoted at about "£13,000 per year for an average Council" The websites for each individual Councillor will cost £20 per month with a set up fee of £25! (VERY stupid prices for those of us in the know) The prices quoted by the Guardian seem VERY high given that Kirkby Times which has 100mb of space costs £4 per month with NO set up fee, this price will be lowered drastically soon when we acquire bigger web-space. A councillor will struggle to use 1mb of space, this isn't a dig, just a fair guess of the actual amount of space most will need. Kirkby Times could provide this service for less than £200 per year for ALL of Knowsley Councils Councillors, saving Council Tax payers a fair little sum. You work it out - Knowsley Council has 66 Councillor serving 22 Wards - £20 a month PLUS the £25 set up fee is, in my humble opinion, a pretty poor deal, but hey! - It's only public money! Right?

Knowsley Council along with all the other Councils, will, if left unchecked, spend public money with the recklessness only Councils can. It's easy spending other people's money - too easy!

First Councillor online?

The Guardian has a lot of decent articles, generally accurate with plenty of information, they have a decent website and most of the broadsheets have some decent research journalists. But, it ran a story claiming a Leeds Labour Councillor was 'the first UK Councillor to run a weblog'. This is in fact untrue; the first UK elected councillor to run a weblog online was Stuart Craft, a Councillor for the Independent Working Class Association. You can see the IWCA website here.

Knowsley Councillors - You time is up!

Kirkby Times has previously stated that ALL of Knowsley Councils Councillors (and every local funded organisation) should have a website; this would give them an opportunity to let us all know what they are doing and thinking. They should also answer questions online and provide as much information as possible about their activities on a day to day basis. For almost £8000 a year basic, I want them all to be doing something on a daily basis and reporting to us once weekly at least in some detail what they have done or plan to do. The days of our Councillors hiding in the shadows is over - a new age is coming in where information is so readily available that we will see more and more Councillors being subject to political debate and criticism. Along with groundbreaking websites like Kirkby Times, it makes for an interesting few years ahead. In 10 years time websites like Kirkby times will be set up in every town. This a nightmare for the corrupt and self serving scum, but no worry whatsoever to the honest.

Kirkby Times - Online Database of info on local politics - like the Kirkby Reporter on a website with spelling mistakes!

10 years ago Knowsley Council could have expected to simply have their business kept under wraps and then buried in the newspaper archives which most people will never look through -with Kirkby Times, every story is always there online, a search engine allows anyone researching to instantly find information on almost ALL the councillors in Kirkby, we will eventually have info on them all - and its all so easy compared to years ago when research was too long winded a process for most. Journalists, students and councillors likely even MP's are looking at this website and raising their eyebrows at the goings on in the murky swamps of this small Labour run fiefdom. This database of information is growing every week, and it's always there. It's a shame that the old Kirkby Reporter Stories are not online, but we'll no doubt dig up a few of the back copies down at Central Library or Huyton. This info should ALL be put in the public domain.

Knowsley Councillors websites - Digital Comedy for the people!

PS - To all of Knowsley Councillors out there - Most of you are going to look pretty daft writing your weblogs - but I'll help you out - type your words of wisdom using a spellchecker first, - tread careful, criticise New Labour and your out. Study the basics of libel, most of you will be lost trying to think of something to say - at least the same cannot be said for me! Boy it's going to be a right laugh when our councillors start doing this - a few will do fine - most will struggle, which makes you wonder what they are doing in politics atall if they have so little so say - most say little because any more would expose as them as being no more intelligent than me or you, YOU'RE likely more intelligent and have more common sense than YOUR councillor. We look forward to the weblogs- don't forget - I'll save money - seriously - your being ripped off and it's a pity we don't have many IT savvy Councillors, most think email is a mans mail order company.

Note: - a weblog is known as a 'blog' and is simply a journal or diary on the internet containing whatever you want to write about. It can be viewed by anyone, and there are some great 'blogs' out there.