New Argyll free sheet
published this on 11:28 pm, Tuesday, 8th December, 2009Community News| Politics | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
The Argyll & Bute Gazette has been dropping through letterboxes - free – ‘to homes across Oban, Helensburgh, Dunoon, Jura, Tiree, Coll, Mull, Islay, Gigha, Campbeltown, Rothesay, Tobermory, Lochgilphead, Port Ellen, Arrochar, Tarbert, Kilmelford, Appin, Dalmally and many more’.
It’s an A2 folded to A3 4-pager and its screaming back page headline “Make ‘Final Third’ First” has been made redundant by events on the very day it came out. It is calling for a broadband upgrade for Argyll & Bute just as it is announced that the Scottish Government has commissioned BT to upgrade some rural exchanges in the area – as we’ve reported below.
There are pieces on ‘FIGHTING for our Scottish farmers’, featuring one George Lyon, a Scottish MEP who has left farming on Bute behind him in favour of the richer pastures of Brussels.
There are tales of derring-do with ticker-tape headers shouting ‘Alan Reid uncovers MOD secret list’.
You can just see Argyll & Bute’s quietly hard-working MP, hoisting the red underpants over his royal blue Superman jumpsuit, creeping the darkened corridors of Whitehall in the small hours with a shaded torch, butchering the locks of filing cabinets, silently leafing through folders, using a micro-camera to photograph the ‘secret list’ (the contents and the subject of which has long been covered in For Argyll) – and skilfully stepping over the laser beams of a lethally high tech security system before slipping out into the London night to carry back the top secret documents to Cardross.
It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s SuperAlan.
Realisation dawns. This is not a new Argyll free sheet newspaper. This is an undeclared Lib Dem political comic. But no – it’s only partly that. It’s a red top. It condemns. It names and shames – other political parties. It tugs the heartstrings. It supports ‘our heroes in uniform’. Improbably, given the times that are in it, it offers advice on cutting your tax bills – when the one certain thing is that they’re heading skywards. It tucks local heroes under the arm – sorry Clark, ‘wing’ – of the national sting and shorting of Clegg and Cable.
We’re not sure about the propriety of not declaring the source of the paper anywhere but it’s a brave political party that is prepared to satirise itself in this way.
The Argyll & Bute Gazette will certainly add colour and fun to the Argyll political scene. And Alan Reid can expect Santa to deliver some stout new underpants, cloaks, winged boots and lightning-flash t-shirts, as Lib Dem supporters tune in to the campaign theme.
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December 9th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Hope my copy is not too long in coming.
It sounds exciting but I will try to be patient.
Apropos the suggestion that Mr Reid has uncovered the secret MoD list -which I take is where they intend to dump nuclear waste material – it will be interesting to see what he has to add in his paper but he asked about it in the Commons last week and was given what used to be known as “a bum steer”
However, it does not need a genius to work out that Coulport and Faslane and possibly Glen Douglas are high up the list as they are already used to store nuclear material and they are firmly under the control of the MoD.
Some of us have expressed concern about this over many years but Mr Reid apparently approves of such activities.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Received my copy,
Alan’s reluctance to take part in the debates on For Argyll was a big mistake in my opinion and now claiming credit for others work in this new Lib paper is another. I voted for this guy but Super Alan is a shadow of his former campaigning self and the sooner we have new SNP MP representing our interests in Westminster the better for Argyll and Scotland.
Alan Reid talks a good game but couldn’t kick a ball to save himself, spent force.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Printed in Peterborough by the look of it and pretty poor stuff.
Alan Reid, like Jamie McGrigor, goes about throwing stones at other people but offers no solutions to anything.
If I see ” Alan Reid has written to…..” again I will scream. Can he show us a Post Office he has actually saved?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I found it absolutely fantastic!!
For lighting the fire.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Looked to me like this is one of many similar ‘newspapers’ published throughout the UK by the LibDems. Its a set format, with central office articles mixed in with local colour. An attempt to engage with the red top audience Nick Clegg will never reach. A classic PR strategy which sounds good on the drawing board but which backfires on the streets when people actually get to read it. It also looked as if the copy-editor went missing halfway through. Appalling trash. Lighting fires is too good for this nonsense.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Firstly I should say that it is at times like this that I miss having an open fire. Both lib dem and Tory candidate have circulated material in the past few days printed outwith Argyll, one of them outwith Scotland. If either were at all serious about supporting local business and the Argyll and Bute economy they would use Argyll based printers who can offer as good a service at comparable prices.
Your article did make me laugh, conjuring up a picture in my mind of Alan and Gary running around Argyll like Del Boy and Rodney in their Batman and Robin Costumes. Made up for the lack of substance in the firelighters.