The Wardman Wire

Rebecca Adlington has won two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and put Mansfield back on the map. This blog is based near Mansfield, which used to be a centre of coal production where the local industry played an heroic role in resisting the UK National Miners’ Strike in 1984.

For a contrast I thought that this morning I’d introduce you to a few of our more “artistic” local heroes.

Today has been a blogging about blogging day, which needs to be done but is a bit dry.

So it’s good to have a local news story.

The UK’s first female swimming Olympic Gold Medallist for half a century comes from just down the road from “Wardman Towers” - Mansfield in Nottinghamshire.

Mansfield has an Independent Mayor - Tony Eggington, who is now in his second term, so expect some Civic Propaganda when Becky Adlington returns.

I told you that the Midlands are the Centre of the Universe.

There is more information and the BBC interview here.

The Independent is remembering the first 100 days of Boris. Meanwhile, Boriswatch is on a repeat cycle with the same post four times running. To be fair, the first three occasions included the same set of links twice, and the last only once. A computer run amok, I suspect.

I’ll commemorate it with a quote from Ministry of Truth:

“I have to admit that, even as a Tory, I have quite a lot of time and no small degree of respect for Boris.

Do I agree with him? Not that often - having watched him operate its clear that it would be very unwise indeed to be taken in by the bumbling ‘upper class twit of the year’ routine that most people will associate with him from his appearances on ‘Have I Got News For You’. Look past the Bunter-ish public schoolboy act and watch him at work in a more serious political arena and it quick becomes apparent that he’s no fool and, pound for pound, possibly the sharpest political operator in the current Tory party. Certainly not an opponent to be taken lightly.”

In the meantime, the reason for Boris’s alleged U-Turn on the Sir Keith Park statue (which should be outside St Clement Danes anyway) is clear: the Fourth Plinth is for the Queen.

In the midst of all the scrummage going on in Westminster about the “42 day detention without charge” debate, a report has been published and taken on board by the BBC about it’s news coverage in Wales/Scotland.

Sanddef Rhyferys has kindly written a guest article looking at some of the implications. I make my own note at the bottom.

Here is the key segment from the announcement from the Count at City Hall in London.

Here is my digest of the Local Election 2008 news that no one seems to have covered yet: BNP, Greens, Wales, How did Blogging go?, innovations, where next for Labour, and the need to watch the government in their Fin de Siecle period.