Putting Hartlepool First 'Ferris wheel' advert in The Hartlepool Mail today

[The Great Dictator]

Nooooooooo it's £30,000, it was owned by Tom Jones and has 38,000 miles on the clock 

[Pwilson]

I find the advert rather thought provoking.  The amount of oleaginous pro-labour spiel coming from the Mail deserves counterbalance and as the second largest party PHF'S raised profile is (to my mind) a breath of fresh air.

I want to agree but I'd be more positive if PHF concentrated on telling us what they can do, even if that is just listen and be honest, I know what Labour have done and don't think lowering the standard to a petty squabble is a strong tactic.

[Hartlepudlion]

Unfortunately Pwilson there is not a lot that can be done until the Labour majority is broken. They have the largest numbers thus the greatest number of votes. So the first thing is to reduce their numbers by outing Labour Councillors. Once the non-Labour Councillors join together to form an effective opposition  then Labour can be challenged. Once they, the opposition, have a majority then they can stop Labour excesses and start to change things but they have to work together.

Despite what Harry Blackwood says, the ONLY people who CAN change things is YOU, THE VOTER. Apathy is the greatest threat to democracy. So, if you want things to change then make sure you vote. Without your vote nothing will change and, in this town, that means Labour will continue to destroy this town and impoverish its residents.

To be fair, the above applies not only to the Labour dominated Council in this town but to any town that has single party domination in its governance. The best thing for residents is to change the governing party every few years but that is not easy. Perhaps coalition is the answer?

[whatabouthisthen]

Pwilson and all who are unhappy with the Council.
I suggest you go the various council meetings to see how the Council works.

A good place to start is a neighbourhood forum meeting. There are two due to take place in the Civic on Wednesday, 2nd April. At 10 o'clock for the South and Central areas and for the North and Coast at 2 in the afternoon. You are allowed to ask questions and to draw attention to neighbourhood concerns.

The various committee meetings are worth going to and, again, you can participate by asking questions.

You could go to a full Council Meeting. The next one is at the Civic, Thursday 3rd at seven p.m. Can be interesting but you are not allowed to participate.

I recommend this course of action to you all.

[DRiddle]

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion regarding the Ferris Wheel and the whole issue of 'negative campaigning' undertaken of late by PHF.

What I would say is this. This election will not be won by trying to convince life long Labour voters to vote another way. There are a hard core of around 6-8,000 that will vote Labour in May's local election no matter what I, or anyone else for that matter, says.

This election will be won or lost by meaningfully engaging with the 10's of THOUSANDS of people in Hartlepool who don't even bother to vote at all.

PHF know that many of those 10's of thousands feel exactly the same frustration as we do, with the people who claim to be Labour Party members currently controlling the council.

The council's largely 60 years of virtually un-broken Labour control will not be changed using the same tired old tactics deployed by various political groups over the past quarter of a century.

It will be won (or lost) being innovative, using facebook, twitter, local publications, adverts, fliers, and meaningfully engaging with people from our town on a day to day basis.

PHF are now meaningfully communicating with thousands of Hartlepudlians per week.

We've had a advert seen by thousands in The Mail and 10,000 households in Hartlepool have already had our latest flier..... and it's still March.

We are a small group of like minded people, funding ourselves. It's very easy to criticise, but at least we're in there having a go.

[Inspector Knacker]

Pwilson and all who are unhappy with the Council.
I suggest you go the various council meetings to see how the Council works.

A good place to start is a neighbourhood forum meeting. There are two due to take place in the Civic on Wednesday, 2nd April. At 10 o'clock for the South and Central areas and for the North and Coast at 2 in the afternoon. You are allowed to ask questions and to draw attention to neighbourhood concerns.

The various committee meetings are worth going to and, again, you can participate by asking questions.

Very good.......but who are these meetings for.......the retired or unrmployed.....it appears local democracy is not for the workers who'll be at work when they take place........!

[HarryBlackwood]

PHF have one stance and it doesn't cut the mustard with the public.

They say 'THAT LOT ARE CRAP' Yes we know that.

Then they say 'WE WILL BE BETTER' We don't know that.

So on here and on the PHF FB page a number of people have asked questions of DRiddle to ascertain how they will be better and to establish whether PHF are worth voting for.

None of these questions get answered. That seems unreasonable.

Then James Campbell is put on remand for asking questions. That also seems unreasonable.

Along comes Dave and he is abused for having the temerity to ask questions. He's accused of being a stooge of mine and then worst of all he's accused of being me. That also seems unreasonable.

Now, at the risk of being contentious I'd say this bullying, unreasonable behaviour says EVERYTHING we need to know about the individuals who post on here.

[Interested]

Harry, Harry, Harry !!!!!!

Listen mate its no good hijacking every social media site currently available and abusing everybody who refuses to agree with your current ideologies.

Just been reading a great thread on FB around the topic of Yes/No votes and just because people dare to have their own opinions or disagree you resort to abuse and name calling.

Why the aggression and hostility all of the time, YOU are no different to any other politician out there - pushing your ideas and opinions on everyone and those that disagree get the full verbal assault.

People can make their own minds up, there's been enough s**t going on in this town long enough now to have woken everyone up. If people continue to vote for what we currently have then they have to live with the consequences alongside the rest of us.

Never has there been a better opportunity to try and make change in this town, you have a lot to say everywhere Harry so why not back it up and stand yourself or explain exactly what you would do, instead of constantly slagging off others who are all entitled to an opinion........just like you.

IMO you are a bully Harry and i expect one of your curt replies in response, however, you are not convincing many people that your ideologies are the way ahead.

One last thing before i sign off.......i am not DRiddle as you have stated in previous threads 

[Hartlepudlion]

Harry. YOU HAVE been answered on several posts on this topic and others but you fail to understand or just ignore them because they are not the answers you want to read.

[Inspector Knacker]

'A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest'.........

[HarryBlackwood]

As predicted. Usual abuse. No reference to any of the genuine points I've raised.

[Hartlepudlion]

HBC. WHERE IS THE ABUSE YOU COMPLAIN OF.

my post points out that you have been answered by people not least by myself.

Riddler5  just makes a comment.

No abuse in either posts, just different from your views/ideas

[Jamescampbell78]

Kipperdip,

Yes, absolutely! Nail, head. That's been our point all along.

Why replace like with like or perhaps like with worse?

Why make change unless you're going to go for better?

Voting for someone you know to be no better simply means making it harder for the next independent bunch of candidates to get in if a previous bunch haven't been much cop. No matter how good they are, voters will remember how bad the last lot were and it taints their view.

[fred c]

This thread, as have so many others, has degenerated into something resembling kids squabbling in a kindergarten - a lot of noise but sod all of relevance, meaning or substance.

There is one statement from D Riddle, and regular readers will know we seldom agree,  that is absolutely true however.
There is a hard-core support for Labour in this town that it will take a hell of a lot to shift.  This support is not based on political nous or any intelligent analysis, rather it is based on pure pig-headed ignorance and a stubborn refusal to ever be inclined to 'engage brain' before voting.
In fact, if Labour proposed emulating Pharaoh Rameses and order  "the killing of the first born male child in every household" this zombie hard core would still put their 'X' next to Labour.
That is the stark, frightening reality.

However for PHF to spend a shedload of their assets on a full page advert in the 'Mail' (how much would that cost Harry?) telling us - perfectly correctly - how corrupt, inept, profligate and just plain stupid are the present incumbents at the Kremlin, proves at the same time, how categorically underserving of the trust of the Hartlepool electorate they (PHF) are.
In that entire advert there was NOT ONE WORD about any PHF policies.
There is a good reason for that - they haven't got any.

To appeal for votes (strangely successfully to a point) purely on a vacuous slogan "Putting Hartlepool First" is akin to Labour's equally vacuous mantra of 'fairness', 'good education for all' etc.
The point being who would campaign to 'put Hartlepool second or third', promise 'unfairness' or 'poor, substandard education' - put simply no one would hence the words are meaningless.
Does this analogy not put Labour, Tory, Limp Dim and PHF into the same category?

Hi  Dave, good to see you back posting...... But ( Theres always a but ) the difference between "Any Party" & Labour in Hartlepool, is that Labour have had almost 60 years to do something about the town going down the Swannee & done sweet b****r about it........ I have got to the stage of thinking anybody would be better than the shower of s**t currently driving the council bus.

[HarryBlackwood]

FredC. Strange thought process there. Anyone would be better?

How on earth could that be based on anything at all?

Certainly not experience.

Drummond was completely useless.

Wright even worse than Mandelson.

Most people would have thought 'anything must be better' when Drummond and Wright came to office.