The Wardman Wire

In response to Mr Eugenides‘ call for a counterpoint to the Season of Goodwill, I am starting a “Misanthropic Blogs Award Meme”. These are the rules:

1. Award Several “Misanthrope Awards” to politicians and bloggers. The number is up to you. You can steal my categories or invent your own.
2. Tag all the bloggers you have made awards to, and several more of your own choosing.
3. If you haven’t done it already, link back to Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair blog at http://b-heads.blogspot.com/ to help keep it in the news. For those who are interested, we (see the sidebar of that blog) are looking at extra things to do to keep the issue live in the New Year.

Here we go with mine. I’m not limiting myself to this year, as I only started blogging in March 2007.

This is not in keeping with the season, but consider it to be the spiciness on the Christmas Pudding.

Note that these are personal awards from Matt Wardman, NOT from anybody else who writes on this blog. If you’re planning to throw any brickbats around, make sure they are aimed at me not at any of the other WW columnists.

And a tastelessness warning: this post includes John Prescott at the end.

Without further ado I tag Recess Monkey, Miranda Grell, Mike Smithson, Guido, Neil Clark, and Donal Blaney.

Vladimir (The Impaler by Proxy) Putin, John (yes it was tempting to put something in here but there are limits) Prescott and the Hampstead and Kilburn Conservatives get off lightly as I do not think they have blogs.

And as my extras - I’ll tag Hamish the Greek since this post is his fault, the Devil who doesn’t wear Prada, Chris Paul (who will probably have something say on the Miranda front), Septicisle, Unity and Ordovicius, all of whom do a good line in misanthropy when the mood takes them.

The Titanic Award for Holing Yourself Below the Waterline

This award goes to someone who wrecked their own existing or potential political career in an afternoon.

This year it is shared between Recess Monkey (of whom more below) and Cllr Miranda Grell.

I’m also giving Cllr Grell a Chutspah award for admitting to offences in a Court of Law, and then attempting to Appeal the Guilty Verdict, and … after all that … still maintaining a claim to innocence.

Recess Monkey receives the award for attempting to become a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for West Derby constituency when he said this on July 12th (my emphasis):

Who’s going to take the time to go to the nurses and the street-cleaners and the doctors, dentists and housing officers, the firefighters, council administrators, the voluntary workers and carers and everyone else that delivers public services - just to say thank you; just to remind them that they are appreciated - and to ask them what a Labour government can do to make their jobs easier or more effective?

and published this on recessmonkey.com on October 16th:

Half of all the reported fly-tipping incidents in the entire country happen in Liverpool, according to new figures.

Capital of culture? Not a culture I’d want to be associated with myself.

A lot of bloggers wrote pieces about “dirty” Liverpool on the back of this data, but hardly any bothered to dig into the data and find out that in fact the whole thing was due to differences in statistical categorisation (as anyone who had worked in Local Authorities would expect). Liverpool counted items such as bags of rubbish put out on the wrong day as “fly-tipping”.

The Potentially Long Walk off a Short Plank for Blogging Bravery Award

This award is different from the others, and motivated by genuine admiration. It goes to Mike Smithson of Politicalbetting.com for having the balls to be the first (as far as I know) British political blogger to give up the day job to become a Problogger. I wish you the best of luck, Mike.

The Alistair Campbell Award for “Creative” Presentation of Political Information

This award for special endeavour in political deception goes to the Hampstead and Kilburn Conservative Party for the competition they have started offering to the LibDems in the realm of dodgy bar charts.

The Usmanov Cup

This award, sponsored by Alisher Usmanov and Schillings the Lawyers, is for the most significant self-imposed public humiliation of the year. There can be no competition (sponsors cannot reveive the award) - it goes to Guido for his Newsnight appearance being monstered by Michael White and Jeremy Paxman.

The Vote for Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. Me .. (=24) .. “Didn’t I do Well, Everyone” .. Award

This award is for manipulation of a voting process then slightly misrepresenting it afterwards, and is sponsored by the Ghost of Leonid Brezhnev. It is not sponsored by the ballet dancers - such as Nureyev - who were targets of KGB plots in defence of the “Honour of the Motherland” to break their legs after they had escaped to the West.

This year it is jointly awarded to Vladimir “the Impaler by Proxy” Putin of Russia (although they appear to have moved on from Bulgarian brollies to poisoned cups of tea as their instrument of murder), who’s enemies and critics keep annoyingly and inconsiderately dying in ways and in locations leaving inconvenient trails of evidence that cause him embarrassment. He wins the award for moving towards turning Russia back into a single-party state, through his persecution and suppression of the opposition politicians and his critics.

…and a special award to blogger Neil Clark, who asked his friends 24 times in 5 days on his blog to vote for him in a blog award, then proceeded to claim on the Guardian website that the poll showed that he was the true representative of the people because “my views are more in tune with ordinary people than most in the blogosphere”. Bollocks, Neil. Joseph Vissarionovich would be proud of this democratic approach.

The Occasionally Grumpy Blogger of the Year Award

Goes to Donal Blaney for some of his more irascible “Hero and Zero” performances on 18 Doughty Street.

The “Cor … Cabinet Casanova … Consequences” Award for Dedication Beyond the Call of Duty in Obtaining Sexual Favours from your Subordinates

This award goes to “Two Shags” John Prescott for his willingness to neglect his own reputation as a boss in pursuit of sexual gratification in his own backyard.

The consequences section of the award is for Mr Prescott almost single handedly (OK, single something else-edly and with help from his staff) creating the right-wing ascendancy in the political blogosphere. Both Iain Dale and Guido’s traffic trebled in a couple of months when they were reporting the story,and they have never looked back. The graph is for Iain Dale’s traffic when the scandal broke. Nice one, John.

The related “Nelsonian Ethics (I see no problem)” award goes to everyone who thinks that bosses having sex with their subordinates does not matter, and is not relevant to their role in public life.

Wrapping Up

There’s been a fair bit of Knockabout in these awards, and a few more substantial points. I’ll be doing an altogether more serious set after Christmas.