I’ve just had sight of an ‘official’ document which describes this blog as “juvenile and immature”.

It must be all the big words we use. They probably think we’re making them up.

The ‘officials’ don’t seem to get the concept of blogging, satire or just downright having fun poking a stick at the self important.

Still, it’s nice to be recognized.

Maybe we’ll get nominated for a BAFTA next year. Childrens section.

…..

Hi, John, we’ve not forgotten you.

Hi, Gordon, we’ve forgotten you already.

The Management would like to annouce that the previous owner of Mannisms has decided that he is too committed elsewhere and has passed the blog on to another to continue. That would be me.

Actually, I’ve been posting on here for some time, sharing the load, as it were.

The previous owner was somewhat constrained, due to his position as a councillor.  I am not.

The blog is no longer hosted in the UK. To save the Diddy Manns brains from bursting trying to find it, it’s now in Texas, y’all. And there are a further two mirror sites in countries where you wouldn’t like to walk about in the dark and the authorities (LOL) would laugh their asses off at any attempt to get this masterpiece of English prose shut down.

So Mannisms is here to stay.

How do you like them apples, John?

I started adding two and two re Mann’s behaviour and got to what I think is four.

In his first stint in Westminster, he was troughing with the rest of them and was: (1) joint 2nd (out of 657 MPs) in 2001/2 for claiming expenses for staying away from home (2) 19th (out of 657) for overall expenses in 2001/2 (3) joint 1st (out of 657) for claiming expenses for both staying away from home and office running costs in 2002/3(4) 48th (out of 659) for claiming overall expenses in 2004/5 and (5) always in top 55 MPs for claiming expenses for stationary and postage between 2001 and 2009. (Thanks to M.R. for the information)

However, in recent years he has started trying to present himself as Mr Clean. Why?

Well, quite simply, he fancies a seat at the top table. He’s already started his campaign with a call for the removal of Gordon Brown, no doubt offering himself as a replacement. One of the more sycophantic Labour Blogs recently had a post suggesting the very same, with lots of sickening comments from Diddy Manns about how honest and upstanding their hero was.

This would explain why Mann gets apoplectic at any questions about his expenses claims as he is trying to bury any hint of previous misdemeanours.

And also why he wants this blog gone as his sins are laid out on Google for all to see.

If any Labour MPs have not seen this blog, I’ll be emailing all of them with a link over the next week or two, just in case they are entertaining any thoughts of John Mann as a potential candidate for stardom. A quick read of this should put them straight.

Well, I was content to let the blog go, having proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that John Mann was bullying and deceiving the electorate and shamelessly using any excuse to get his name in the paper ( if a suitable excuse was not immediately handy, he was not above inventing one).

However, one of his cronies reported this blog to the Standards Board, who wisely decided that that it was not in the public interest to pursue any action.

Mann is desperate to get this blog shut down, and I know why.

So, just to keep myself amused, I’ll start posting again.

Mannisms has run its course. There’s nothing left to say that hasn’t been said already. It’s up to the voters whether they want to keep John Mann, although I think the odds are against it.

I have other fish to fry.

If Mann gets re-elected, he’ll find that he doesn’t have all the local media in his pocket. I intend to make a go of the online newspaper I have set up. It will provide a balanced political view and be a community newspaper in the broadest sense – supporting the community, not criticising it.

Thanks to all of the  bloggers who have provided support and encouragement and thanks to you, dear reader, for visiting this humble blog. I hope you learned something of value.

This time from the editor of the Worksop Guardian, who says in a comment:

All the comments that have appeared on this website relating to myself are not only totally untrue but are also defamatory. If they are not removed then legal action will be taken.
George Robinson, Editor, Worksop Guardian tel: 01909 500500

What about all the untrue stuff you have published on behalf of John Mann, George?

You’re happy enough to dish it out, but start crying when it’s coming in your direction.

One rule for you and another for everyone else, is that it?

Think how this is going to look on your C.V. Newspaper editor threatens blogger with legal action.

Didn’t you learn anything from John Mann’s empty legal threat?

I’ve written here on more than one occasion about the Worksop Guardian weekly newspaper (I use the term loosely) being nothing more than an extension of John Mann’s over-exercised gob and conspiring with the ex-MP to mislead and deceive the people of Worksop.

The traditional weekly local newspaper is a dying species, unable to compete with 0nline news and advertising and the Worksop Guardian is no exception. The current editor has allegedly been fired for failure to meet circulation and advertising targets. Well, he has alienated half of his readership, past and potential, by his unbalanced reporting and many of my acquaintances have stopped buying it over the years for that very reason. It is unlikely that the Worksop Guardian will survive the next year or two.

Several month ago, I did some reaearch into online community newspapers in the US, where the online model has all but replaced the weekly newspaper. Based on that research, an online newspaper in Bassetlaw is a viable proposition. But only when it supports one or two people who carry out all of the functions – reporting, advertising sales, web publishing and maintenance etc. Moving the Worksop Guardian to an online model is not feasible due to the overhead it carries as part of Johnston Press. And they currently cannot report news on their website until it has been reported in the weekly newspaper  (or they won’t be able to sell it), making their website always at least one week out of date.

So, I feel a change of career coming on. Running this blog has given me a hankering to write for a living. Over the past months I have been setting up www.bassetlawonline.com and associated sites for Classified Ads and Jobs.

It will be fully live in May or June, but you can have a look and see where I’m heading.

And with a bit of luck, it will hasten the Worksop Guardian on to its inevitable demise.

Whenever I’m in need of a laugh, I get myself over to John Mann’s campaign website. I’m not giving them a link here – you’ll have to work for it. Google ‘mann 4 bassetlaw’.

They’ve added a cheesy, tacky, rotating piece of nonsense with a load of testimonials they’ve obviously written themselves.

Let’s face it, anyone who has read about Mann’s behaviour on this and other blogs is going to have a really hard time believing, never mind applying, words like ‘honest’, ’sincere’ and ‘integrity’ when referring to John Boy. So forgive me if I doubt the provenance of these flattering epithets.

And like the rest of his campaign material, there’s a distinct odour of desperation emanating from this.

I have risen from the dead. Almost.

I’ve been laid low for the past week by a particularly nasty illness so I haven’t been taking too much interest in my surroundings. But I’m on the road to recovery and normal libel will be resumed as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, over at Fat Councillor Towers, they’ve had the decorators in and there’s a shiny new look. The content – smiting the wicked councillors of South Shields – remains unchanged and it’s always worth a read.

John Mann MP continues on his mission to alienate the voters of Retford.

First, as I reported a week or so ago, he claimed to be the MP for Retford, when in fact, until the boundary changes come into effect, the MP for Retford is Patrick Mercer. He apologised for that in the Retford Times.

Now he has some more apologising to do. In his recent attempt to woo Retford voters, he distributed a pamphlet with the usual self-serving claptrap, mainly suggesting that Retford was a second class town which would benefit from his expertise.

To round off his pitch, the pamphlet concluded with a couple of photos contrasting the market place with a shot of the Clinton Arms, in an area he describes as ‘a neglected backwater’.

The Retford businessman who had recently purchased the  Clinton Arms for £160,000 and is in the process of spending another £40,000 turning it into a retail establishment to compliment the one he owns on the opposite side of the street was less than delighted when he spied the above photograph. He, understandably, went nuclear. Having invested £200,000 in an area he believes to have great potential, he sees it described as ‘a neglected backwater’ by Mann.

And just yesterday, when I went to photograph the area (for future use) I was approached by the landlord and the occupier of the house next door to the Clinton Arms, who were also enraged that a nice house was being ‘classed as a slum’ by Mann.

So there are at least 3 voters who won’t be putting their crosses against Mann’s name.

He claims to be ‘A different kind of MP’.

I can’t argue with that.

And neither would the majority of decent, hard working MPs who would not care to be associated with Mann or his behaviour.

I don’t usually devote any space on this blog to anyone other than John Mann MP (let’s face it, he keeps handing me enough material for a dozen blogs) but today I’ll make an exception.

Three MPs charged with expenses fiddling are aiming to use legal aid to defend themseleves. That’s right, having fraudulently trousered a load of the taxpayers cash already, they are asking you and I to pay for their defense. £3million quid!

See the Telegraph

Having got that off my chest, I’ll just remind readers that fiddling is fiddling. The amount doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of the degree of fiddling.

If anyone wants the little matter of J0hn Mann’s expenses claim and repayment, which he treats as if it was toxic waste and to be avoided at all costs, clarified for the taxpayers who fund the Government, please sign the petition.

UPDATE

Friend of Mannisms, Sir Olly Cromwell, has done a neat bit of research on the swindling MPs trying to weasel out of their come-uppance. He’s identified the legal represenatatives of the accused and their email addresses. He has sent an email to each essentially saying that, since the taxpapyers are picking up the bill for Legal Aid, he has instructed the barristers to enter a Guilty Plea. Some wonderful thinking there, Olly.

Please get yourselves over to http://youve-been-cromwelled.org/?p=584 and copy and paste the email and send it under your own name to the legal eagles, who are  getting rich on the back of these thieving MPS.

The sucker in this case is YOU, the taxpayer.

On March 19th, I drew readers attention to a nasty bit of bullying from John Mann MP threatening a Retford Resident (RR) with a libel suit and police for asking a reasonable question about Mr. Mann’s expenses. RR asked not to be identified in this blog, but was aware that John Mann would know who he was from the email exchange published.

A few days ago, RR and his wife received some Mann propaganda. The envelope it arrived in is shown below.

You can see the hand written annotation to the return address. It appears innocuous enough unless you know the background.

This is clearly intended to intimidate RR.

Putting the frighteners on a pensioner and his wife is a despicable act and adds a new dimension to Mann’s aready questionable behaviour.

My advice to RR is to take this to the police.