Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
"Haringey man laughs off twitter trolls that set up parody account"
SOMEONE may have thought they were helping Haringey Council by creating a Twitter account that is an attempt at parody of a noted Council critic, Tottenham's Mr. Martin Ball.
According to this article in the Tottenham & Wood Green Independent, the Council have denied that anyone within the Authority has set up the account and Mr. Ball has said whoever set it up should "get a life".
Mr. Ball is unaligned politically.
It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
All that "MoanyMartin_N17" has achieved is to direct more attention to the real Mr. Martin Ball, who tweets under the moniker, @martinballN17.
Under a more generous and enlightened administration, Mr. Ball will be presented with a letter of grateful thanks by the Local Authority for the amount of work he has done in and for the community.
CDC
Haringey Councillor
Liberal Democrat Party
Tags for Forum Posts: Martin Ball, Twitter, parody, spoof, troll
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Thanks, Michael. The page isn't dated so I don't know when it was added. Have you any idea? (I do wish websites would include dates.)
This skimpy page repeats but adds very little to the claims and aspirational information previously available.
To be fair though, what it does add, poses a few interesting and intriguing lines of inquiry which I plan to follow-up when I have a bit more time.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Sorry don't know the date. I agree, it's really irritating when they don't date articles.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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'Trolls' face criminal prosecution for fake online profiles (BBC article)
Whoever is behind the Twitter accounts of "Moany Martin Ball" and "Arsey Alan Stanton", may wish to note the view of the Crown Prosecution Service in the above news item.
Both these fake online profiles—whose purpose is harassment—use surnames and images of real people, without their permission.
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I was told about these two accounts and that a thief had stolen my photo and that of Martin Ball. I blocked both accounts, I did though notice a temporary small spike in visits to my own Twitter & Flickr pages.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Does anyone know how long the council have to spend the "riot money"? Could they be getting desperate? Does it go back to the state if they can't spend it?
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Why should they get desperate, John? They are doing their masters' bidding. As long as property developers, large landowners, and slum landlords are happy Kober & Co can shrug off criticism. And as they control the propaganda department they can churn out endless glossy press releases/ fairy stories of innovation and success.
Most of the current Haringey ruling chumpocrats don't actually know they are chumps. They probably think they have arrived. Feeling pleased with themselves sitting at the top table; playing a game for high stakes; with the big girls and boys.
And in one sense they are right. They're cosying up to big players. The very tall piles of chips they're playing with are other people's homes and lives; holdings of public land and buildings; and lots and lots of public money.
As Warren Buffett famously said:
"If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy."So if and when their fantasy plans turn out to fail - perhaps disastrously- the consequences will fall on other people. Mainly poorer people - the real patsies.
Meanwhile, phrases like "hard choices" explain why "progress" and modernisation is necessary.
They've even cooked-up a story to explain delays if the plans fail to show any significant positive outcomes. (Eggshells everywhere; few omelettes?) Kober and her pals now claim that their plans will take fifteen to twenty years to succeed. So plenty of time for them to make their getaway before the ordure meets the blades of the cooling device.
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My point, John, about real and fake bureaucratic problems, applies to the so-called "riot money". It's not a single pot. It has several components; the largest being borrowing permission. I imagine that since the Government are very keen to take over publicly-owned land (including council estates) the borrowing permission will remain on offer while their developer friends needed it.
But if your question is about the "Opportunities" Fund then the practical question is whether or not it can be "rolled over" by agreement between Haringey staff and GLA staff. Or whether they have to get the money spent by an arbitrary date in order to tick their targets box. I suggest you might like to ask the GLA staff.
You'll remember the politician's false logic from "Yes, Minister".
(1) Something must be done. (2) Here's something. (3) Let's do do it.P.S. To be clear to any passing trolls, my references to "chumps" and "chumpocrats" in relation to "Kober and Co" and "Kober and her pals" refers to an Haringey councillor named Claire Kober and her elected political allies. They are supposed to be - in a general sense - public servants. But are just ambitious politicians.
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I'll rephrase the question then... I think you're missing it or stepping around it. If the Opportunities Fund money is not spent by a certain date, does it just go back to where it came from, unspent? I heavily suspect that the answer to this is "yes" and it would explain why the money went where it went.
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John, I don't know the bureaucratic answer. Let me repeat my suggestion that you ask the GLA officials.
You may be right that two sets of bureaucrats - from Haringey and the Greater London Assembly - now feel compelled to throw this money at someone to pretend that something is being done.
Many decades ago I argued with a friend who was a strong critique of Ken Livingston's Greater London Council grants programme. I told him there were some excellent projects which the GLC had funded and which I approved of.
He replied that any large stupid bureaucratic body chucking around huge sums of money would - by the law of averages - hit something useful and worthwhile. Obviously Cllr JoeGo Logo and his friends are not spending on the same scale. But toss other people's coins long enough and eventually they come down heads.An interesting question is whether they will actually find out if what they've spent - their experimental largesse with public money - has any merit or not. Does it work wholly or partly? Or at least generate some learning along the lines of what-did-we-get-wrong-and-need-to-get-right-in-future?
To discover that would require rigorous, informed independent evaluation. Which of course, you and I would have high expectations of Haringey putting in place. (But let's not mention the expected height.)
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Alan, you hit the nail on the head when you say "To discover that would require rigorous, informed independent evaluation". That is precisely what has been missing in this debate of the merits or otherwise of the Chicken Town enterprise. Some people have rushed to criticise it, even before it opened, without any evidence of whether it is a good or bad thing. I do not know if it has merits and have said so several times in the various posts on the issue. But one thing I do know is that constant daming on social media is certainly not going to help it suceed.
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Michael I think you're missing the point. If this was purely a private enterprise initiative I wouldn't dream of criticising it, although privately I would harbour doubts about the wisdom of a retail unit (really, any retail operation that needed footfall) at this particular location.
However, this is anything but a private initiative. It uses a huge chunk of public money, about which at least some Councillors need to keep an eye on. More than that, the promoters of CT have unquantified ambitions to improve public health in Haringey (yes, that was the claim made in an internal staff magazine).
As I've said in several places – including in the Planning Committee – I applaud the [public health] motives.
Some people have rushed to criticise it, even before it opened, without any evidence of whether it is a good or bad thing. I do not know if it has merits
The single CT operation offers a chicken meal that may be healthier—or at least, less unhealthy—than a chicken meal offered at the dozens of regular chicken outlets.
As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that this will improve general health. By evidence, I mean examples of this trialled earlier, elsewhere and there having been a measurable improvement to public health.
I am also unaware that the claims made for CT will be measured. I cannot see how they could be measured (this supports the point made above).
As far as I'm aware, the only measurable outcome is financial and this has to be a matter of public interest. Approximately a third of a million pounds of public money has now gone into a licensed chicken restaurant at a questionable location.
Last point (about constant damning): nothing that you or I or anyone else says, will change the outcome.
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Something new has to be tried for the first time and, yes, that involves risk. Complete risk avoidance means that nothing innovative will ever happen. It is quite legitimate to be sceptical about new ideas but what I find irking is that there are a bunch of people who seem to be willing this to fail for no reason I can see other than it is being promoted by politicians they do not like.
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