Boris wins, London loses and do all political careers end in failure?

So it was a close run thing after all. Ken loses to Boris by a 3% tiny margin. 

It was not all bad. Labour did very well nationally winning 823 Council seats, it won Birmingham and saw off the nats in Glasgow.  Labour picks up 2 extra seats in the London Assembly (but not enough to block the Mayors budget).  Most importantly Labour has began to win in parts of the South East of England. It needs to win outside its traditional heartlands to stand any chance of victory in 2015.

In City and East (Newham, Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham and the City of London) our Labour Assembly member John Biggs was re-elected with over a 100,000 votes winning nearly 63% of turnout.

I wonder about this famous quotation by Enoch Powell (about Conservative politician Joseph Chamberlain) "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs". Is this true?

I suppose that if you are obsessed with politics you will go on and on until in the end you lose. I'm been trying to think of any prominent post war British politician whose career did not end badly? Think back on Brown, Blair, Major, Thatcher, Callaghan, Wilson, Heath etc

Ken himself I note has said he will not stand again for election but not that he is retiring. I can't imagine him ever giving up politics as long as he has breath in his body so watch this space and see what happens.

Anyway, roll on European elections 2014.

Wolverhampton is the worst

Wolverhampton - Jewel of The Black Country

It is only right to end 2009 with good news. Many Blogistas have accused the Sage of a certain prejudice towards the place which is the sump of the Black Country in the Midlands of England, the benighted town (nay, City since 2001) of Wolverhampton. Indeed such is their sensitivity that if you say anything negative they flag you up to Blogger and the very next day run off to Telford for advice, objective advice not being available in the City of St. Wulfrun itself. Yes, throughout Britain Wolvies are famed as sensitive souls! Now there is objective support for the Sage’s lonely viewpoint for the respected Lonely Planet Guide has named Wolverhampton as the 5th worst place to live in the entire world!

Even those who live there will admit that Wolverhampton is not the most glamorous of destinations. After decades at the heart of Britain's industrial revolution no one would expect it to be. But not even they thought it would be named as one of the worst places to live in the entire world. Eight years after the old market town was awarded city status the renowned Lonely Planet guide yesterday branded it the fifth worst city on the globe.

It even ranked alongside poverty-stricken slums in El Salvador and Ghana and saw off 'competition' from Chennai in India. And to add insult to injury Wolverhampton was the only city missing a write-up. The guide explained: 'Wolverhampton is so bad we don't even have it on this site'. Crime-hit Detroit, Michigan, topped the poll ahead of Accra, Ghana, which was described as 'ugly, chaotic and sprawling'.



Many years ago when the racist Enoch Powell was elected as the local Member of Parliament Wolverhampton was an industrial rust bowl city of white rednecks and the reactionary industrial squirearchy. Since, then widespread immigration (hey, houses are cheap in Wolvie) has resulted in a polyglot culture of English Midlanders (slower than the rest of us and with the UK’s worst accent), Asian and Caribbean communities who have created a cultural vacuum based on the lowest common denominator of each. A case in point is the University of Wolverhampton which won awards for “inclusion” and is now in the middle of a financial crisis forcing it to downgrade one campus and sell off anything of value. Rated by the Times Newspaper as 112 out of 120 UK Universities it has now refused to take part in further surveys, presumably because it was being placed last. It set a legal precedent when a student successfully sued it two years ago over its crap courses. Since then it has been hit by cases of staff plagiarism and that is before you get onto the students!


Goldie - he lives in Bovingdon

Don’t take my word for it, drive into Wolverhampton on the A41 from the M6 Motorway and enjoy the wonderful approach of a town surrounded by derelict steel works and old slag heaps inhabited by …. Well you tell me! Yes, there are famous people who come from Wolverhampton but they have one thing in common, they now live somewhere else! Why for holidays and high days the inhabitants who can escape to Coventry and Manchester as better alternatives! Q.E.D.


AND LONELY PLANET'S NINE MOST HATED CITIES ARE....

Detroit, Michigan
Accra, Ghana
Seoul, South Korea
Los Angeles, USA
Wolverhampton, England
San Salvador, El Salvador
Chennai, India
Arusha, Tanzania
Chetumal, Mexico

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239478/Wolverhampton-named-fifth-WORST-city-planet.html#ixzz0bIs9YzRh