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reported in the weekly newspaper  (or they won’t be able to sell it), making their website always at least one week out of date.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.

John Mann, apparently not content with talking nonsense in Bassetlaw, has decided to dump on the voters of Newark for a change. Offering his support (that’s going to become a poison chalice any day – watch this space) to the Labour candidate in the upcoming election, Mann called a public meeting to criticise the proposals for the NHS in Newark.

Addressing the huge crowd of 17 (seventeen), Mann referred to his campaign for saving  Bassetlaw’s A&E in 2003.

A typical Mann Myth, Bassetlaw A&E was NEVER, EVER going to be closed. It was just another self-promotion stunt for the soon to be ex MP for Bassetlaw.

Does he think the voters are so gullible he can continue to feed them his nonsense?

Or even worse, does he actually believe his own propaganda?

Gordon Brown recently asked voters to ‘have another look at Labour’ before deciding on which way to vote at the upcoming election.

I suggest you do just that, if you MUST vote Labour in Bassetlaw.

You may change your mind about voting for John Mann, though, if you check out this site:

www.bassetlawlabour.co.uk

I personally don’t support anything on the site but it’s an alternative for Labour voters as it claims to be True Labour.

A little bird tells me that John Mann has made a request to Bassetlaw District Council under the Freedom of Information Act to have copies of all emails mentioning his name.

I’ll send a few to the council tomorrow so he has no lack of reading material.

But why he would ask for this is odd, to say the least.

Is he so insecure he has to read other peoples communications to see what they are saying about him?

John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw and purveyor of political fiction, has got himself a nice line of patter to confuse the voters.

First, he invents a scenario which is never going to happen (such as the building of 10,000 houses at Kilton Forest) then starts a high volume campaign against it.

When, inevitably, the scenario does not come to fruition, Mr Mann claims credit for campaigning against it and a victory due to his endeavours opposing the mythical project.

Does he think that Bassetlaw voters can’t see through this?

However, new house building is a worry for Mr Mann as several thousand new residents arriving in Bassetlaw with the wherewithall to purchase housing  may well dilute the traditional Labour vote, making his position as an MP decidedly dodgy come election time.

So consider his real motives when he challenges new residential properties.