Saturday, March 19, 2011
Mr Shifty (again)
We organised a Dinner the other week for the Gillingham & Rainham Constituency Labour Party. When I say "we", I mean principally Paul Clark, our former MP for 13 years until he lost his seat in 2010, and yours truly, assisted by Mary Keane.
We'd had a date in our social calendar for quite a while, but the person that we wanted to be our Guest of Honour, Ed Balls, MP for Morley and Outwood, and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a hard man to pin down. Paul Clark was his PPS at the Department for Children, Schools & Families from 2007 to 2008. Eventually, February 4th, Mary's birthday, we got a date, 10th March, 2011. We immediately set about finding a venue.
The one that "ticked all the boxes" was the Mid Kent College's new Medway Campus, in Medway Road, Gillingham. It was in the constituency, Paul Clark had been heavily involved in its inception and funding, and Ed Balls had been at the opening ceremony. A high-profile event there would be good for the college, its students and staff, and the local Labour Party, showing we were supporting the local community, giving the students a chance to show off their skills and carry off a high-profile, prestige event. So, I made the call, only to be told "Sorry, that's the night of our Grand Opening, with our new patron, the celebrity chef." Oh, dear.
So, I then went the rounds of other suitable venues for a fairly upmarket dinner for up to 150 people. It narrowed down to two places that had the capacity, the facilities and the availability - Lordswood Leisure Centre and the Bredhurst Nursery Restaurant. Drawbacks to both were that they were both outside the Gillingham and Rainham Constituency. The Bredhurst Nursery Restaurant was ahead in the running, mainly due to the willingness of the proprietor, Michelle, to do everything in her power to make the event happen.
Enter Paul Clark, wearing his Superman T-shirt. Since he knows just about everybody in the Medway Towns, it was a matter of moments for him to find the right people at the College to inveigle into changing the date of their grand opening and, instead, to host our Dinner. Sorted, problem solved.
The Dinner itself was amazing. Pauline Harrison and Tracey Fitzpatrick from the College's Catering and Hospitality branch were consummate professionals and dealt with everything in a calm, relaxed and reassuring manner. It was me that looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but they made sure that everything went perfectly. The students under their supervision were brilliant, from the the Frontline staff who did the meeting and greeting, to the waiters and waitresses who served the food and kept everybody from dying of thirst. Needless to say, the food was superb. I'd said when I saw the menu that was proposed that it was "a bit cheffy", by which I meant it was very upmarket and high-class; it was also very, very, very, well-presented and amazingly tasty. The students excelled themselves and everyone that attended thought it was first-class. Apart from giving around 100 people a hell of a good night, it must have boosted their confidence to be able to mount a high-profile event, with the overall College Principal and the head of the Medway Campus in attendance, that went off without a hitch despite our last-minute changes of timing due to the exigencies of Ed Balls' timetable.
Ed Balls was "good value", in that he he helped sell an incredible number of raffle tickets (thereby demonstrating Labour's ability to deal responsibly with the economy!) and delivered an inspiring speech. a good time was had by all.
So, a week or so later, my good lady comes in with an advance copy of the dreaded "Kent on Sunday", containing an article about Ed Balls and Baroness Warsi going head-to-head about which party loves Medway more. In the article (and now, you see, this is where your patience will pay off and you see why I titled this piece the way I did) they quoted Mr Shifty. He branded Ed Balls' appearance at our Dinner as a "cynical marketing ploy".
My response was to write to the "Kent on Sunday", as follows:
Sir,
We'd had a date in our social calendar for quite a while, but the person that we wanted to be our Guest of Honour, Ed Balls, MP for Morley and Outwood, and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a hard man to pin down. Paul Clark was his PPS at the Department for Children, Schools & Families from 2007 to 2008. Eventually, February 4th, Mary's birthday, we got a date, 10th March, 2011. We immediately set about finding a venue.
The one that "ticked all the boxes" was the Mid Kent College's new Medway Campus, in Medway Road, Gillingham. It was in the constituency, Paul Clark had been heavily involved in its inception and funding, and Ed Balls had been at the opening ceremony. A high-profile event there would be good for the college, its students and staff, and the local Labour Party, showing we were supporting the local community, giving the students a chance to show off their skills and carry off a high-profile, prestige event. So, I made the call, only to be told "Sorry, that's the night of our Grand Opening, with our new patron, the celebrity chef." Oh, dear.
So, I then went the rounds of other suitable venues for a fairly upmarket dinner for up to 150 people. It narrowed down to two places that had the capacity, the facilities and the availability - Lordswood Leisure Centre and the Bredhurst Nursery Restaurant. Drawbacks to both were that they were both outside the Gillingham and Rainham Constituency. The Bredhurst Nursery Restaurant was ahead in the running, mainly due to the willingness of the proprietor, Michelle, to do everything in her power to make the event happen.
Enter Paul Clark, wearing his Superman T-shirt. Since he knows just about everybody in the Medway Towns, it was a matter of moments for him to find the right people at the College to inveigle into changing the date of their grand opening and, instead, to host our Dinner. Sorted, problem solved.
The Dinner itself was amazing. Pauline Harrison and Tracey Fitzpatrick from the College's Catering and Hospitality branch were consummate professionals and dealt with everything in a calm, relaxed and reassuring manner. It was me that looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but they made sure that everything went perfectly. The students under their supervision were brilliant, from the the Frontline staff who did the meeting and greeting, to the waiters and waitresses who served the food and kept everybody from dying of thirst. Needless to say, the food was superb. I'd said when I saw the menu that was proposed that it was "a bit cheffy", by which I meant it was very upmarket and high-class; it was also very, very, very, well-presented and amazingly tasty. The students excelled themselves and everyone that attended thought it was first-class. Apart from giving around 100 people a hell of a good night, it must have boosted their confidence to be able to mount a high-profile event, with the overall College Principal and the head of the Medway Campus in attendance, that went off without a hitch despite our last-minute changes of timing due to the exigencies of Ed Balls' timetable.
Ed Balls was "good value", in that he he helped sell an incredible number of raffle tickets (thereby demonstrating Labour's ability to deal responsibly with the economy!) and delivered an inspiring speech. a good time was had by all.
So, a week or so later, my good lady comes in with an advance copy of the dreaded "Kent on Sunday", containing an article about Ed Balls and Baroness Warsi going head-to-head about which party loves Medway more. In the article (and now, you see, this is where your patience will pay off and you see why I titled this piece the way I did) they quoted Mr Shifty. He branded Ed Balls' appearance at our Dinner as a "cynical marketing ploy".
My response was to write to the "Kent on Sunday", as follows:
Sir,
I was surprised to read the comments made by my former Labour Party colleague, Rehman Chishti, about the visit of Ed Balls to Mid Kent College's Medway Campus. It wasn't so long ago that Mr Chishti would have been first in the queue to shake the hand of a Labour front-bencher, and doubtless be photographed doing so. As to Mr Balls' visit being a "marketing ploy", it certainly was - it gave the hard-working Catering and Hospitality staff and students of Mid Kent College the chance to show off their skills and prove that they can put on a prestige event to rank with the best. The food and service were first-class and were greatly appreciated by all who attended. The Pavilion Restaurant of the College, which is open to the public at lunchtimes, and on Thursday evenings for fine dining, gives the students a fantastic opportunity to expand their training and to work in a demanding and professional environment.
If Mr Chishti is so proud of Medway, perhaps he might have taken the opportunity to applaud the fact that the Labour Government, which only a few years ago he was so eager to join, invested £89 million to build Mid Kent College's Medway Campus, in order to help with the regeneration of Medway and to provide first-class facilities for our young people. Perhaps he might show the extent of his concern for the area in which he lives by asking his own Government why they are stopping the Education Maintenance Allowance and increasing higher education fees to £9,000 per year, both measures which will make it harder for Medway's youngsters to obtain the skills and qualifications they need for the future. He might also ask why they stopped the Building Schools for the Future programme - how long before we see a return to the conditions that my son, among many thousands of others, endured back in the days of the Thatcher government of the 1980's, when half of the portable "temporary" classrooms at his school were out of action every time it rained?
Mr. Chishti trots out his new friends' tired old cliche about the country being on the "brink of bankruptcy" because of the last Labour Government. Along with his principles, Mr. Chishti seems to have forgotten that most of Europe, and the USA, were affected by the near-meltdown of the global banking and financial services system. In any event, Britain is still a rich country and our level of debt as a proportion of GDP is perfectly manageable. What isn't manageable is the degree to which the ideologically-driven cuts in public expenditure will hurt ordinary working people and the vulnerable members of society, whose cause Mr Chishti so passionately espoused when he was a member of the Labour Party. Still, who cares about principles when you have a shot at power, eh, Mr. Chishti?
I very much doubt whether the "Kent on Sunday" will print my letter, as they are well-known for being a Tory propaganda-sheet. We shall see. I feel better for having written it, although not as good as I would feel were I to learn that Mr Shifty had been abducted by aliens or eaten by a tiger. One can only hope, eh?
