Lack of co-op divi for the villagers

Reporter: The Friday Thing with Jim Williams
Date published: 15 November 2013


FIRST a question: with whom is Oldham's co-operative council actually co-operating?

Certainly not the majority of people in Diggle who do not want the hassle and problems that building a new school in the village would surely bring.

And the good folk of Uppermill are seeing few if any signs of co-operation from Oldham Council which, instead of sounding co-operative, seems to be dogmatically determined to force on Saddleworth the majority's worst option. For local folk it is a lose-lose option.

With the exception of developers who are keen to have the new school in Diggle rather than on land occupied by the current school which could then be earmarked for housing, the majority of local residents seem understandably keen to have a new school on the present site. Local businesses, those who own them and those who work there, would be badly hit if the army of schoolchildren, who do early-morning, lunch-time and school's-out shopping visits to Uppermill centre and are a vital chunk of the local economy could no longer shop in Uppermill.

Petitions in many of the shops in Uppermill centre are an indicator of the strong feelings of a large majority of local residents that the business hub of Uppermill would be badly damaged if not destroyed by the loss of so many potential customers for sandwiches, pies, sweets and drinks etc.

In other words, the new school is not merely a modern new building but, if put in the wrong place (particularly in Diggle which does not under any circumstances want it and which would be badly hit by traffic hazards) could do tremendous damage to the Uppermill business hub.

Local MP Debbie Abrahams, who is taking a keen interest in the new school, says that it is a shame that the school issue has become a party-political football and calls on the factions to unite behind the best solution for Saddleworth.

Surely that means building a new school on the existing school site.

Politics should have no part to play here.


I AM not a great fan of TV soaps, although I do retain a soft spot for the early days of "Coronation Street" and especially Ena Sharples, Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst with their bottles of beer in the snug at the Rovers.

The current lot hold little or no appeal for me (I guess they don't think much of me either) but there are some reactions to soap operas on TV that surely go a tad too far.

Take North Korea, for instance (yes, please, somebody take North Korea), the governing bodies of that dark and sinister country not only appear not to have much time for TV soaps themselves, but are against the general public watching them at all.

Eighty people who watched smuggled in TV programmes were all shot recently.

Maybe they'd not paid their TV licence fees and I hope that the BBC is not thinking of going down the same route.

Families of the people who were shot for the vile crime of watching TV soaps were all given three years in concentration camps which is, I am sure you'll agree, a far worse fate than being forced to watch "EastEnders".

Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, also shot an ex-girlfriend for taking part in a pornographic video and those people who do not have a telly in the house and are certainly not into porn are wise and, thankfully, still alive.


I SUPPOSE it was only a matter of time before someone took full advantage of the black bin-liner impersonation that is the burka and wore it to escape from the police.

The oddly named Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed (he liked the name so much he used it twice) went into a mosque as a male worshipper and came out as a woman. Such is the power of prayer.

You might have thought that double Mohamed, who is linked with Somali terrorist groups and is accused of being a recruiter of British jihadists to fight abroad might be in custody.

In fact he is the no-doubt proud possessor of a Tpim which is a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure, a sort of Oscar for men who can become women faster than you can say Tpim or, indeed, Abracadabra.

The now-you-see-him-now-you-don't Mohamed is actually due to stand trial for 14 breaches of a control order and six breaches of the Tpim, presuming, of course, that they can find him.

What they can't do, of course, is to go round looking under every burka they see in case it hides Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed and sundry friends. Maybe having a party.


FINAL WORD: I don't know what our own man, Tony Lloyd, would make of it, but Bob Jones, the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands says that the so-called crime tsars are a £100 million waste of time.

Mr Jones gives the elected crime tsars a, shall we say modest, four out of 10 marks overall, three out of 10 for cutting crime and two out of 10 for public confidence.

The police and crime commissioners have not got off to the best of starts and were able to attract only 15 per cent of voters in the elections that gave them their powers and positions. There has been a series of scandals which have not helped the new crime tsars to bed in, including a dozen or so PCCs who handed out well-paid deputy roles to friends and family without advertising them.

Will the PCCs survive this withering blast of criticism from a plainly angry Bob Jones?

They will collectively have to prove that they are doing a worthwhile job, improving policing and public response and I would not lay odds on their long-term prospects.